The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Manager Joe Espada Joins Matt & Ross from Spring Training

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Astros Manager Joe Espada Joins Matt & Ross from Spring Training

I would imagine. Oh, look at you making a managerial decisions. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I didn't say that. You hear that, Joe? Let's get on. All right, we're done with the news at Newt.

Yeah, we can fade this down, Nicholas. We're going to let Joe make the news at Newport. I walked in at the right time. No, we're not going to talk about that at all. No infill questions. We make lots of money making these kind of analysis. Lots of, I make a lot. No, hold, I don't make anything.

Yeah. He makes more. That's why he makes the actual correct decisions. You had a big night ahead of you, by the way. I know, I know. I was wondering where they're going to set up at. There's a lot of people coming. It's a big dinner run by the governor.

I know, but where is it? I don't know. I didn't plan that. You got a dress up for that bad boy? You got a tux or what's the deal? Oh, yeah. I got a little dress coat, yeah. Oh, man.

You can bring it with you or? No, no, I got it. I got it. I got a little sports go. I like it. I got the governor. We got. You get to speak at all?

No, I don't think so. Get to hang out with some cool players. Jadiel Molina is going to be here. Oh, is that right? Nice. Yeah, I heard, I think Barry Larking is going to be here. Oh, one of the greatest threads of them all. Yeah, so I want to go out there with a few pearls.

See, I can get a few autographs. The reason why we know this is because we, McTagrin and I invited Joe to go watch Baseball, Rockets with, Cuders with us against. A big game tonight. What time that game starts? 9 o'clock.

Well, this thing ends at 8. See. Where we're going to meet up? Where are we going? You're going to be overdressed. If you're going to go into Duffy's in the suit, I'd pay to see that for sure. Duffies. Which Duffies you guys do?

I don't know. It's his decision, not mine. Brian McTaggart's running the local fan club, I think. We're going to eat steak first. Oh, you guys are? Yeah. Oh, I forgot about that. Oh, I might need to dress up.

Yeah, I brought hands. Can we talk to the manager, please? Yeah, we should. All right, so we asked 40 questions of you a few weeks ago, and we're going to try some 40 new ones. All right, buddy. Here's a crazy take we had. Your space cowboy pitching staff could be the filthiest in AAA baseball.

Yeah, and that's the whole idea behind it. Create a line of defense. Something happens at the Major League level. These guys can come up and perform. We added a ton of your pitch. Even the guys from NRI, they're good arms. Someone has a Major League service. And that was the whole idea behind it.

Do you feel like you've got to set a date in your mind? You don't publicly say it, but in your mind, I want to have my rotation set by a certain time. Yeah, you do. I think for that last week of spring training, you do have a pretty good idea of how your rotation is going to look like. And you start lining them up so you know who you're going to, how you're going to, you know, line them up. Not only for that first series, but against the Red Sox, right? And then there's an off day. and then we do have a stretch of games

so we're going to be facing the Mariners. So we want to make sure that we line up certain pitchers to face some of those teams. I think the biggest question is going to be more the middle of our bullpen, some of the long guys, some of those. That's where we're going to be spending most of our time. So if you don't use your starters a lot during spring training

because they don't need to be burning up, how do you get those middle guys in when everybody needs to get an inning there? No, but there's plenty. plenty of innings. Even the starters, you know, at some point you get him throwing 60, 80 pitches, but there's plenty of stuff that we do on the back

field. Yeah. You know, we do want to get them facing guys on the main field, but we could create some live BPs and try to get them built up that way. But, you know, you have to be creative. You just don't have enough innings here

sometimes to answer some of all those questions. Sticking with the pitching. Christian Javier is an interesting one to me. What do you see from him where he is now and how do you get him back to the guy that we know that can be somebody that can go out there and throw a bunch of no-hit innings which we've seen from him? You know, historically, pitchers who come back from Tommy John, they usually come back and happens what happens to Javier. Towards the end, you start seeing his stuff trying to come around and he has some decent outings. But then once they have a full offseason of, you know, full strength, live BPs. He was in the DR, throwing bullpins up to 40 pitches.

Now you see some health. Now you could start, you know, planning ahead and you start seeing a good version of him again. He's going to be big for us. He's going to be really big for us. We get that Christian Javier, which I know is in there, that 2022, Christian heavier, watch out. We had Spencer Genni about 20 minutes ago. What Spencer Genni's going to show up, do you think? You hope, I should say.

Yeah, and again, you know, I think Spencer last year after that injury and the pause there in the middle just kind of, you know, makes up his rhythm. And it sucked because we had high expectations for him. We really like this stuff. And once he gets going, he could be pretty dominant. But I expect him to come in and be good. He stuff is so good. He could create swinging misses.

Looking for guys that could take us deep into the game, man. That's going to be key for us. We have discussed about the six-man rotation because you've got plenty of arms in the schedule. Certainly it would dictate that. Is it harder to give those guys an extra day when they're feeling good and feeling like they can go every day because it throws their rhythm off? Or is it harder because you have to know you've got one less middle reliever if a guy is a tough day. Yeah. So, yeah, let's tackle that one first.

Anytime you have a six-man rotation, that is one less guy in the pen. So any hiccup from your starters, now you start, you know, asking someone. of your high leverage relievers to start throwing and down games and stuff like that. So you're trying to avoid those things. But you do your six-man rotations for at the end, you know, June, July, and you start getting into August. You want those arms to be fresh. So you are proactive in the front end, try to be smart about it and be patient about it

because you know in August, September comes around, you're unleashing them and you're asking them to throw, getting to the 105, 110, right? Like we did a few times to Hunter last year. So it's tricky. You just got to be patient, and that's why bringing all these arms is important. So we feel good about our depth. Astros, manager, Joe Spott, is here on Sports Talk 790. I'm not going to ask you who's playing where.

But just at a general human standpoint, you know, you as a manager, you have many different roles. You have to be psychologists. You have to build relationships. You have to talk to all these guys. What is that challenge like for you trying to just, because everybody wants to play every day, which is a great thing. And so competitive. Yes. Yes.

But then try to figure out a way to kind of figure this thing out with the human element of it. Man, I tell you, the toughest part of my job, right? We have a super competitive group of players who want to play every day. And if there were not like that, then I'll be scratching my head like what, heck what's wrong with this guys right but they're not like that they all want to play every day they're all everyday players right um and i've learned that even working on there some great managers sometimes you're going to have tough conversation with players and they're not going to like what you say right and there's a level of respect there that ultimately i'll make that decisions

and i understand that they're not going to like it but we have to do what's best for the team so if If they understand that we're doing this what's best for the team, our players knowing that, listen, I am doing it for what's best for the players. It's not personally just best for the team. And it's tricky. It's difficult, especially when you have a ton of dudes

that just want to go out there and ball and play good. And the good players, All-Stars, Silver Sluggers, gold glovers. Hall of Famers. Hall of Fameers. There you go. Shooting. Hall of Famers, yes, exactly.

You know, we got them all. So, Zach Cole is going to have every opportunity to win that left field spot for you. You got Jenkins Center. Corner outfield spots, supposed to be power hitting. How long do the leash of those guys have, honestly? You know what? They're going to, I'm going to play them from the get-go here. They're going to get a ton of a bat.

And we're looking for some of those guys to step up. really will like some of those guys to take over that everyday role. And we know that camp, it's really close doing that. Last year he got to a good start. Second half of the season, he not got as good, but we know he figured some stuff out. You know, he's definitely in that competition there with you mentioned sack. We just got Loper Fido with Jake, excellent center fielder.

So it's going to be interesting because I just don't think right now. now as we speak today that I don't really know exactly how that's going to shake up. I'm hopeful that everything that we are planning turns out that way, but these are young players and we need to be patience and they'll let us know. The crazy thing, and I've mentioned this to my audience for years covering all these spring trainings. I don't trust numbers in March and I don't trust numbers in September. You've got one kid who had killed it in March last year who, look, had ups and downs, as you would admit, but defense with a great. And then Zach was great in September.

The brighter lights are in April. They count the same amount of time. You know what I like about what you just said, that we do have a sample size of what March looked like. So we know that March won't, we have enough scene on players that, okay, March, this player could be a really good March player. Yep.

Right? We saw this kid in September, but we also saw he did it in a pretty high leverage spot. So he has some really good at back. some big home runs in a big moment. So that stuff matters when you are evaluating players. So we learn a lot about from both of those players. So now moving forward, we'll see what these takes us.

You got one I got one. Okay, sure, why not? You've got to feel good about defensively, certainly. It's almost whoever you pick out of a hat, of course, but whoever you pick to put out there, the outfield defense is going to be improved. Yes, athleticism. Guys can go in and, you know, take. care, balls in the gap.

Whoever is not starting, you know, say, for example, if you're done starting to left, I got enough, I can replace defense and you feel really good about any of that stuff. But yeah, that's been our goal, this offseason trying to stay more athletic, and we've been able to add a few guys that helping us do that. Here it comes. The question. Here we go. The question.

You move any soccer round. Tell me as much as you're willing to tell the city of Houston. We have hundreds of people listening right now. I wish it was thousands, but it's a holiday. It is a holiday. Isaac walks in, you hug him out, say, hey, how was your off-season? I'm sure you've talked to him before then. Yeah.

Is he going, okay, I'm here. What do you want me to do? I mean, give us as much as you can. Okay. He didn't ask what you want me to do. He already knew going in here what we wanted him to do. But he's real. You know, once you get here,

and now you start moving first, second, some third, I have full confidence that he could play all three. He can do it, right?

We love the bat. The question is always how are we going to make all these work? And that's where I come in and we have the conversation, you know, this will play out. Let's just give it time and see where it takes us.

And, you know, it's just not easy for players to, they want to know right now. You got 35 egos in there. And I get it. But, you know, and it's, they're all really good players. And that's where it's. It's a good problem. You're the greatest utility player in the baseball today. You've got the greatest pinch hitter available for you today.

But, you know, another thing, I don't want to look at him as a utility player. Because, you know, because, you know, but this is the thing about, about, When you think about a utility player, you think defense first. This guy is one of our best hitters. I know. So, you know, this is where he gets. That's the reason why we're like, okay. But, you know, I know our fans ask you these questions all the time.

All the time. And it's fair. Fair enough. It's fair enough. Twice on Sundays. And I get asked the same questions. And I'm going to continue to answer the same question. Let's just give it time and we play this out.

And that is my big. job. It's just make sure that those guys stay focused on the mission. So many players have told us publicly and privately, you're a great communicator. If you're going to handle this, it can be you. Thank you. Don't screw it up. We're counting on you.

We're counting on you. We're counting. Thank you. Joe is spotted with us. Matt and Ross here from West Palm Beach. A short timeout. Come back with more here from Astro Spring Training in a moment on 790.