The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Open To Trading Kyle Tucker, Final Prediction On Bregman Signing, Cowboys Fall Short Again

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" react to the latest comments from Astros general manager Dana Brown from the MLB Winter Meetings. With Alex Bregman most likely not returning to Houston, will the Astros look to trade Kyle Tucker before the outfielder becomes a free agent? Matt and Ross also:further discuss Juan Soto's historic deal with the New York Metspreview Cougars men's basketball taking on Troyreview Week 14 in "Ross' NFL Rewind"give their latest "Gut Feelings" and more.

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Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas. show 1002 at h town good morning and welcome to a tuesday edition of the matthomas show with ross the man of my right i've not seen and i've been there part of a month it's nice to see you sports rv how the hell are you yeah when we did shows together you weren't even here yeah i was in california and then you're very sweepy and so you had to get some rest the last couple of shows and now you're back look at you fresh ready to go got a fresh shave in yep yep got a tv again than i had to make sure you get a shave for that. Okay. Yeah.

We're going to put you on TV? We've got a big game tonight between the University of Houston and a school from Alabama. Okay. Which one? Or 2 against Alabama teams. Oh, really? Yeah, lost to Alabama and Auburn. So Alabama owns Houston is what you're saying. I mean, in some respects. Okay. Well, it's

time for revenge. It's the revenge game against another school from Alabama. It's Troy. Okay. Do you know the mascot of the Troy? The Trojins, correct? Did you know that simple? Okay, that's good to say. I was 70 to 8 percent sure yeah you did good you did good it's nice to have all of you with us here good for us to be again then we're going to be mixing in and out here you've got a 40th birthday coming up for the not too

distant future that's true i've got some days off coming up next week so we're just trying to just use the remaining vacation days left that we reported to us is that right uh see you in january matt i think it's what you're getting at that seems rude but we're gonna be here we got a couple other surprises over the next few weeks looking forward to we do yeah i mean okay when they're news to us we'll be happy to pass them along to you but today It's you and me. Yes. And we are here to 2 o'clock this afternoon where I have a lot to get off of my chest when it comes to sports.

Okay. You wanted to clip something. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. By the way, I've decided. Anytime I take a Friday off from now on, I'm going to have to call in. Did you do? Did you wake the strippers up on Friday morning?

I did. And how to go? It was okay. Do we have the audio? Oh my God. I'd rather not. No, worry about it. I don't think we do.

I think Dan Matthews did a better job than I did. Oh, y'all both woke them up? Yeah. Well, he was out getting food and then was talking with food in his mouth for like a couple of segments, which is very annoying. I called him out on air about it. So I asked him to fill in for one of the days you're gone in the next few weeks. And I must have caught him at a bad time. He's like, Matt, I'm overworked.

I'm stuck in traffic. And he's like, just give me his life story. And then he's like, he responds back later, dude, I was just in a bad spot. I'd be happy to fill in this one day and all is good. That's good. I mean, we've been working on a lot. It's been Dan Talk 790 the last couple of weeks. what it feels like. It has been. All right, we are with you until 2 o'clock today. We're coming up at 1130. We have gut feelings at noon. We've got the news at noon. Wonderful. We have a Ross's NFL rewind. We do. At 1230 today. I can't wait. I love doing the segment. I'm ready. There's a lot of stuff this week. Yeah, there really is. And it's like my whole life is on rewind. And I mentioned this to you before. When you go to cities like Indianapolis or Detroit or, for that matter, Chicago or Portland, I mean, these are just regular metropolitan.

metropolitan cities where these NBA teams. We go to Los Angeles and we stay in Beverly Hills and it's like we're in a make-believe world. Yes. Why? Because there are 60-year-olds with puffed out lips and seven facelifts? First of all, two-hour time change. Doing the show and we were in, I was in San Francisco

in Sacramento with you, 8 o'clock in the morning is a little early. Yeah, but you're off at noon. Come on, Matt. That's true. Got a good nap. No, got to walk in. Yeah, in a nap. In a lunch. Yes. But it's not about necessarily the time change for the show, it's about the time changes in general. Ball games are on earlier.

Like the college football Saturday with all the championship games started at 9 o'clock in a morning. Yeah, your circadian rhythms are off. Your beloved Texas Longhorns put a 1 o'clock Pacific time game against Georgia for the SEC championship. Normal-ish for college football. I mean, it wasn't bad. We don't talk about it.

Okay, if you don't want to. I'd rather not. But then just being in Beverly Hills where nothing, as you mentioned, puffed out lips. Everything's at that $32 pancakes. Everything is expensive. My wife, Kim met me out there for a few days. She went shopping along Rodeo Drive, and Beverly League Drive.

You mean she went shopping. Well, I went for a while. And you kept on talking her out of getting stuff is what happened. I was more like her home on her, is what I was. Honey, we got to wrap this up. Did you start giving her two minutes? Two minutes. Well, I said, don't you think we could buy the exact same stuff at 40% less in the state of Texas and perhaps in Houston?

And she's like, yeah, but I mean, we're in Beverly Hills. You know, it's the opposite in Asia. Everything's like 40% cheaper. Okay. So I was with some people and they were trying to buy everything. Oh, is that right? That was the couple, the husband and the wife, the bride and the groom. And he was like, all right, we got to get moving.

So she was putting her bag together yesterday as we were leaving. And her weight, the bag was way over. Oh, of course. So she's like, can you take some? Now, I don't have to worry about that on my plane because I flew with the rockets and she flew commercially. So we were like having the jam stuff in from one suitcase, the others who were trying to leave. Just pay the extra fee, Matt. You can afford it.

I don't want to give airlines any more money than we have to. true actually. And by the way, IA.H, you're, well, I do, she doesn't. Oh, okay. Intercontinental again is the antichrist of an airport. I would take your word for it. I mean, if I could fly out a hobby more often I would,

but Intercontinels is significant and closer to our house. But it's just a... Traffic is still got out of right. Traffic construction is so horrifically bad. It's only been going on for like eight years. I mean, I don't know who was in charge of the engineering project at IA.H. And if you work for them, I'm sorry. But I feel

like you've screwed it up. I feel like you've made, I'm waiting for the completed product here. It's like, it's like when you go to it in your kitchen, you're throwing all these ingredients in and you're looking at it and you're like, is this going to bake well? And then you put it in the oven, you're like, man, are you sure this is all, all these ingredients also be mashed together or when you come out as being delicious? Or are you like, oh, I wasted my time. I feel like Intercontinental is going to be that way. Good to see. You're still Mr. analogy. Oh, it's a terrible analogy. But I mean, there's got to be an, my point is just got to be an end game. Are they on schedule?

I don't even know what a schedule is. It seems like they're off schedule. I just feel like... Every single time there's, hey, look what's coming ahead of Intercontinental. Okay, so you add an extra shake shack. Congratulations. How about traffic flow around the airport? Is center point heading this project at IAH?

So that's... So I arrived at Hobby, drove the Intercontinental, wait in the cell phone line. Airport to airport. Well, because I had to go pick her up. Wait in the cell phone lot. She's ready. And that's when I just got calling the snarl. She's just terrible.

I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. It is a lot of people that are picking. Get her a bike out. You want me to my wife to bike home a 50-pound suitcase in the back of her bag? Yeah. Put on your back. Because even getting Uber's or a pain in the ass because they can't get you very quickly.

All right. Lots of get to. And we can go. We've got NFL conversation to get to. The Texans are getting ready for this week's game against Miami. Who, by the way, pull it on their ass on Sunday. Do you see the end of that Jets game with the Miami Dolphins? Yes, I did.

Dolphins keep winning. Battle Red, are you a little nervous about Miami coming to town? What four? A little Tyree Kill. Come on, Dolphins. Come get some of this Nico Collins action, baby. Fresh a week off of... I'm not worried about Nico Collins.

I'm worried about the Texan secondary. This is going to be fine. Who's a tight-in for the dolphins? Johnu Smith. Johnu Smith. He didn't do anything during the game. He had like three huge catches in overtime. Right, I know.

Cost me a fantasy game. I don't want to talk about it. Oh, by the way, this is my last week of fantasy. Ever. Come on, Tor. It's kind of, it feels good. I've scored more than 100 points in both weeks the last two weeks and still lost. I scored 130 and lost.

I don't want to hear you whining. You don't have to hear me whining. This is the last week. I'll be whine free for the rest of my life. Matt, we need you in the league. It's not happening. You and Client are the weakest players and y'all are, we can't have y'all both leave. The league's going to get tougher now.

Well, first of all, insulting me beforehand is not going to help your cause. I'm sorry, you and Client are the strongest players. There you go, much better. Much better. You disingenuous jerk. All right. We got that to get to. We had the last night's game between the Bengals and the Cowboys, where Leon Lett had to be on the field somewhere in that game, right? No, he wasn't. It wasn't that egregious.

Is it a clunky rule? For those that didn't catch it, it's a stupid rule. The Dallas Cowboys blocked a punt of Cincinnati. Yes. And the ball advanced behind the line of scrimmage. Correct. Which meant you could pick it up and run it if you wanted to. But if you do touch it and you don't secure it, the ball is free for anyone to grab. Right, it's like a pun. You can muff it. Correct.

You can muff a fake punt. The blocked punt. The deflected punt. Yeah, deflected punt. Now, is it happy beyond the line of scrimmage? Is that one of the rules I think is what is? If it's behind the line of scrimmage, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, you can touch it and battle it, throw it around.

But when it goes past the line of scrimmage, it's like it never got blocked. Correct. Yeah. So the punt went beyond the line of scrimmage actually significantly in front of the line of scrimmage. And off the deflection and a Dallas upman did not grab it since then he gets it back. and then like 40 seconds later, Joe Burrell finds Jamar Chase, ballgame over. And what did Homer Simpson have to say about all of this? They did the Simpsons.

You didn't know. They did, on ESPN Plus and Disney Plus, they did the Homer Simpson cast with the Monday Night Football last night. I'm going to be very happy to tell you that I completely missed that. It was kind of hokey. How much did you watch it? Like five minutes. And I'm a huge Simpson's fan. So was the Manning cast so on two?

It was basically like, yeah, the Manning cast was on too. It was basically like they, they, uh, they, superimposed all the players all the players running were alive but then they would just put Homer Simpson at quarterback and like Lisa Simpson would be at wide receiver as Jamar Chase so it took an overlay they took a fresh

cartoon that's hip to all the kids today it's still going by the way nobody's watching 35 years somewhere around there nobody's watched for the last 20 little known trivia question if you know this it was a spinoff of a sketch of another show you know what show yes I know it was

Tracy Olman's yeah so Tracy Olman's I've been on Since Fanatic. I know that. Okay, 30 plus years ago. Yes, created by Matt Gaining. That's how you spell it? Or pronounce it? Yes. Okay.

713-212-570. We'll get to that. And I got to tell you something, folks. And we have a large baseball audience on this show. Are you getting the exact same vibe out of the winter meetings that I am? What vibe is that, Matt? We'll tell you after this. After I tell you where you need to go, if your energy has been low, if you're feeling like you're slowing down,

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Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. All right. We are here to give you the truth. Well, I do lie and I don't have a problem with it. In this particular case, I need to feel like I need to tell the truth because people come to this show for the truth for the most part. I do lie and I don't have a problem with it. I mean, Matt Thomas. That's a gravestone quality quote there. Let me see. Connor, can I give you some advice in your young life?

Yes. Telling the truth every single day will eventually cost you something. You'll either be a friendship, a relationship, a job, a sales deal. You don't think salespeople don't lie to their customers all the time? That's baked into the job.

That's different. Connor's not in sales. Connor, I have some advice for you. The truth will set you free. I think sometimes you got lie. Thank you very much. But if you always tell the truth, you never have to remember the lie.

You never have to keep your lies straight if you always tell the truth. We can put that on a coffee cup of yours? Yeah, I'm thinking about it. All right, real fast. One more story about Beverly Hills and we're gone to sports. My wife, so my wife comes with me on the trip

and she meets me, We go to this really nice high-end suit, not souvenir store, but just kind of fancy sweaters, funny games, videos, funny little tote bags that'll say blank happens or my, this is my, you know, just kind of like a souvenir shop? Like a, it's a high, it would be, it would be two, it's not a Spencer's gifts. Okay. It's a significantly higher, but high price things, but really funny things like, uh, my pool boys, my other lover, kind of like coffee cups.

Like, oh, that's a funny give it to somebody. Well, there's... You didn't get her that one, do you? There's two rules. One, you can't take any photos or videos in the place. Ah, okay. Because they don't want you still in their phrases, and then going home and making a homemade t-shirt with that phrase on it. Well, you can still do it if you remember it. You could, that's

exactly right. But secondly, everything is very highly expensive, and we went to this one area, and my wife was going to buy my daughter a sweatshirt, and was Beverly Hills. It had the Beverly Hills logo on it. It was $98 for a sweatshirt. Okay.

and we're like and I and I and she murmured to me this is ridiculous it's a regular sweatshirt the owner of the place oh heard her heard her say that and then came in to discuss well this is California made and this is made with this this this this and this and he was kind of snooty towards us well of course he would be but but we weren't not having a conversation with him yeah so stop eavesdropping a hole okay so we go to so we go to other places in this gift shop yes and he's like sort of following us giving the play-by-play in this place. And she and I walked out going, this guy is one rude a-hole. So she goes back to our hotel and looks up the rest of, looks up the place and the reviews.

Everybody is like, that owner is an a-hole. Yeah. Interesting. So he apparently has a nasty reputation for just basically insulting you while you're there. Well, you insulted his sweatshirts. You know what? He took it personal. He said, I'm taking your guff.

I insulted his at the price of him. his sweatshirts. And apparently others did the exact same thing. Well, he told you why it was reasonably priced, Matt. California made. I mean, imagine all the taxes on that. Well, yeah, I think the salesac's 10% there. So it's pretty spicy. Pretty price. Yeah. All right. So let's do this. Dana Brown, Connor was on MLB network. All the media is at the winter meetings, which is strange because we're not really hit winter yet, right? I mean, I know we're December, but it's late fall. I'm sorry we haven't hit the winter solstice yet. But it's technically winter, Matt. We're in the middle December. And we've got some comments. I'm assuming the first thing we want to hear about is

Bregman. Is that okay with you on that one? Here is Dana Brown on the Bregman conversation. Yeah, a combination of, you know, all of the above. I had mentioned in the past that, you know, we won't take anything off the table in terms of improving this club. And if we get the opportunity to, you know, trade, if we feel like this is a good fit, we'll make that trade. You know, we'll Whatever the opportunity is, we'll definitely do it if it means improving the club. It was in generalities, as Matt Thomas would say. It doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, does it? Not exactly.

And then something that was talked about was perhaps conversations about other players, right? Trades involving Frumber and Tucker. Are you willing to listen on Cal Tucker and Framber about this? Yeah, I mean, I think everybody, you would listen to all the players. I don't think that, you know, you would turn the death here to any of these guys. I think the big thing is if you have an opportunity to make the club better, that you would at least listen to other clubs and see if there's something that makes sense for the club in the present and also long term. They're not re-signing Kyle Tucker.

No. I mean, if you want to give point one to Bregman's staying, is there such a thing as less than? point one? I guess see. Yeah, there's 0.01. 0.001. You've gone with a bunch of zeros in that and 1 at the end? Yeah, it's kind of... I mean, it would feel like it'd be a little bit of artificial

percentage chance. If Kyle Tucker has given them the signs of bruh, I'm not coming back here. And oh, by the way, I love what Juan Soto got. I'm not going to get that kind of money, but I'm going to get really good money because I can actually play the position better in the outfield than he can.

I'm not as powerful and big hitter as he is, but I'm pretty close. Don't count my post. isn't, but that's not here nor there. He needs to trade him. I don't think the Astros want to put long-term money into Farm Bravades either. I think when he's really good, he is a ace on every single roster in this Major League Baseball team that we call professional baseball. But when he gets frazzled, it's like a bad egg that cracks really quick. He did a really good job, stabilizing himself towards the end of the season, and then he had a bad playoff start. He did. So all that doesn't necessarily want to put in $25 million a year for a guy,

as we just described. I'm going to tell you something right now, Astro fans, and you're going to be mad at me for saying this, and I hope you're not mad at me. But once Bregman decides to go play somewhere else, which I believe he's going to, they absolutely need to trade Kyle Tucker. They absolutely need to trade Framber Valdez.

And the Houston Astros must take a step back in order to make eventually two. steps forward. Were you listening to the show yesterday? There's no chance. You're making me upset. I know you get upset when you and I agree, which makes me upset. Because I was arguing with Gordy about this yesterday, and I talked about how, I mean,

I was, I came to the same conclusion you did. If Bregman is gone, you're not contending next year. Maybe you're winning 85, 90 games and getting into the playoffs and winning the division. Maybe if the Mariners continue to be a disaster that they have been, the Rangers can't bounce back at all, but you're not going to be a contender. And then it's going to be where are you going to be left with a couple of draft picks in free agency. If you make qualifying offers to Fromber and then Kyle Tucker, and then where's this team going? Trade them for prospects.

I'm with you. I'm not happy about it. Lose for the next couple of years. Have some of these draft picks come up and be good. Hopefully one or two or three of the prospects you get back in those deals bear fruit. And then you can be back contending in a couple of years because it's, I don't see how it's getting better in the, immediate term. And I will take this one step forward. Not only do you have to trade these two guys if Bregman doesn't come back, you got to do it before spring training. I don't want to wait until

the July 31st deadline of thereabouts to make this deal because you're going to get 40 cents of the dollar. Because any team that goes and gets Kyle Tucker and or Framber Valdez will not be giving you those high-end prospects. You need to spread the word and you can certainly do it at the winter meetings. That you've got a chance to bring a 30-30 guy to your baseball team. You have a chance to bring a staff ace or number two to your team right away. Let's talk. Let's not leave town without a deal being done. I think the longer they wait, the more painful it'll be for the goodbyes, and more importantly, the lesser on the return you will get. They need to make these moves by the Astros before they hit spring training. so that team whoever grabs them gets a full year of those two guys

and you get better prospects in return or perhaps even active players for that matter. This is absolutely not what I want to discuss. I'm with you. And I'm still going to tell you this. I think Jim McRane's philosophy about ownership doesn't necessarily make it what he has said before not true today. within reason. The window will always be open as long as I'm owner.

The window is always open. But there's a difference in a window size. Small window? No, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say a small window at a Momita Inn. Hmm. Okay. Oh, gosh, the rhyming, I forgot. But I wouldn't say it's the size of a penthouse suite. Okay.

At a high-end hotel, the Rost Roke. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Window size matters. Okay. And the window is always going to be open. But it's not on all sides of the bedroom wall.

Okay. We'll discuss more in a minute. 713-212-5-790. So I'm telling you Houston, Texas, and please don't be mad at me. This is a sports take. It's nothing personal towards you. When Bregman decides to go play somewhere else, this should further expedite Kyle Tucker and Framber Valdez being traded.

And I'm not anti either one. those guys. I want all three them to stay. But if it's an if then statement, if Bregman leaves, you're not as good as you were last year. If Kyle Tucker leaves next year and Farm Breveldez leaves next year with you only getting draft picks for it, you are significantly taking a massive step back in your development. Development meaning getting minor league players that ultimately will be major league players in two years to replace the guys I just brought up. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-790 on Twitter. Follow us there at SportsMT, at SportsRV at Connor D. Montgomery.

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LovB.com. for more information and getting yourself tickets for this great new league. It's lovb.com for Love Volleyball. League one volleyball. All right, so this window size. I mention again, I don't think, Jim, and by evidence of what he has led this organization through the last seven or eight years is not miserly. And I think it's unfair for people to think that he's a cheap skater, or doesn't,

is not willing to spend money. He has spent a lot of money on just Josh Hader last year. He tried to get things better with Jose Obrayu. I mean, he has gone after guys and lengthen contracts he ordered on Alvarez. He's lengthened contracts on Alex Spragman before his arbitration was over with. He's lengthened contracts on Jose Al-Tube, two different times. This isn't a guy that would have been known as a guy with a reputation of not spending money. Verlander's been on the payroll multiple times.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. With the Mets taking some of that. Right. But still, it counts. So that's not what we're here for. but we have to be we have to deal in realities of there's only he has a threshold the new york mats rossi do not have a threshold the los angeles dodgers do not have a threshold he cannot spend as much as the day the dodgers yankees mats red socks those types of teams yeah so there is a

budget whatever that number is can be certainly changed but there is still a budget and um i mean The moment Kyle Tucker Losses Arbitration case, the moment you took Kyle Tucker to arbitration over, I think it was a pretty paltry amount of money. Players don't forget about that kind of stuff. They just don't. And as I've said, 5,000 times,

you've had an entire year to get a deal in front of Alex Brugman. Alex knew what his worth was a year ago. Now, if he would have had a 40 home run, 115 RBI season, that number would have gone up astronomically. But I think his number today, what he was, what he's looking for now, hasn't really changed from a year ago. Just my guess.

That you're going over the sum of the parts. You're not going after, well, Alex Breggman batted 235 for six seasons. And one year he hits 319, so all of a sudden he's worth three times his amount. I think the value of Breggman didn't really change much from last year. Even though last year's numbers, he even got to a slower start.

And Father Time got another year on him. Yes, and there was a dip in the performance, the plate. A little bit, yep. I think his age probably and length of contract might have taken a dip, but his per year average probably did not. So they know. But yeah, I'm of the belief that this bad boy ought to be, I mean, blown up is too strong of a term,

but it would certainly be, you'd probably chip away at a big time. Like a soft reset button, is what I'm saying. Didn't the Atlanta Braves do a soft reset a couple of years ago? Basically, you win 75 to 80 games for a couple of years because you're still going to have Yord on. Hunter Brown is still very good. Spencer Arredgeti as well. You try to get some prospects as many as possible for those two players. You batten down the hatches till hopefully, you know, Jacob Melton, Bryce Matthews, those guys can be ready and contribute.

And then hopefully a couple of other draft picks are ready to go. Why you brought in Dan Brown to begin with was to replenish your system. Exactly. Exactly. And you don't, you know, you don't need 25 impact players. You need guys who are above replacement level and then two or three impact guys because that's what you're losing when it comes to Kyle Tucker and Framber Valdez and now Alex Breggman. So you can be back contending with this core. And oh, by the way, haven't even mentioned Jose Al-Tuve, he's going to be 34 years old. And if you're losing Alex Breggman, I mean, where's he going to be when you're contending the next time anyways? So I'm with you. We're on the same page. If you're not going to win now, if you're not going to, unless you're going to try to squeeze this lemon for every last drop it has, you keep Tucker and Frumber. But other than that, I'm down with a, basically a soft reset for a couple years. You're going to be outbid for Tucker.

Absolutely. And I think the offer for Framber will not be anything close to what he's looking for. I mean, I mentioned this last year. Kyle Tucker only played 78, I mean, yesterday I mentioned this about last year with Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker had a higher OPS plus than Juan Soto last year. Now, he only played 78 games. Right. But he was on a MVP track until he cracked his leg.

And Soto played 157 games. And Juan Soto ain't no gold Glover in right field. No, no, Kyle Tucker is a significantly better outfielder. Now, can Kyle Tucker keep that up? If we go with career averages, it's Soto. I think it's 160 OPS plus to 139 as far as Soto versus Tucker. but Tucker had a higher OPS plus than Juan Soto last year, and he plays Gold Glove Right Field.

He's not going to get $760 million or whatever, but he's going to get to somewhere the Astros and Jim Crane are not going to be comfortable matching whatever deal he gets. Soto is what younger than Tucker? Yes, 26. And probably, I mean, it would be fair to say a more successful postseason career? I would say so, yes. Kyle Tucker has, he's had a good, I think it was 21 or 22.

He had a good postseason. Two straight post seasons where you kind of go, yeah, but last year it was literally two games. Right, that's true. That's true. But the upside is on Toto. First of all, and we've not talked about this really. Soto's numbers are just, that is going to, I wouldn't know if Cripple is too strong of a term, but it's going to severely hamper the long-term success, the Mets. No, there can't be anybody in New York, whether you're a Yankee hater or a MET fan that thinks,

oh, this is a great value deal. they're going to I remember when Albert Poulthal signed his ridiculously long deal with the angels thinking they're going to regret this and it's going to take years off the Angels run and we were all right about that.

I think it was 30 or 31 when he signed that deal and we knew when he was 40 he wasn't going to be worth it. And everybody knows when Soto's 40 he's not going to be worth it. Not only, I mean the money, the deferred money, the chance to add more to it. Yeah, there's no

deferred money with this contract, but they do have the opt out of after five years. You're still paying an ungodly amount of money for the guy. Three quarters of a billion dollars to play baseball. It's pretty sweet. Mothers don't let your babies grow up to be football players. Put them in baseball. Yeah.

And if they go on the injured list a couple times a year, no big whoop. Just show up in October. Yeah. What do you call it? Fully guaranteed contract. Was it like basically the Mets and the Yankees were, at a silent auction, you know, then bring the paddles up,

and they just kept trying to outdo each other. Is that what it became a pissing match between the two franchises? I think they both probably got gaslit into a pissing match by Scott Boris, the greatest to ever do it. Scott Boris has rebounded. Last year, not a great offseason. This year, pretty good one. He's doing okay.

He's about to do nothing. I think he's going to take care of Breggman. I still think it's going to be less than seven years. I think our number for our lunch is six. I think it's going to be seven. But we'll see. We have a bet. We do have a bet.

You're out with five. Because your number is under six. Your best hope is a push. I'm hoping for a push. If I guess it's a win for me. Well, no. Push is a push. Push means I'm going to do what I normally do.

Go get my own food. I mean, I'll not be that much of a little different change in my life. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. So are you getting any different of a vibe that I am about what you're kind of hearing out of the winter meetings? I mean, Dana Brown is saying the right things. We're doing everything. We're prioritizing. But in reality, they're not doing everything.

If the number of 6-156 is the dollar amount, which had been reported, I think, by Bob Nightingale a couple of weeks ago. Yes. And I think McTagher jumped on that a little bit last week. Yes. Confirmed it. And Breggman wants 200. I mean, that's wide a bit of a distance.

I can't imagine Breggman going well. if you get to 175, we got a deal. Unless nobody else are willing to get you to 175. I think somebody else will be. I'm thinking, we mentioned this yesterday, the Yankees and Red Sox apparently both in on Bregman. I'm thinking the Yankees losing a bidding war to the Mets, they do not want to lose a bidding war to the Red Sox right after.

Hal Stuybrenner. All right. So we saw our friend Nick Tutorial on Twitter yesterday. Do you guys play it? The A team did. We did not play it here. I believe we'll come back with it. We have the PG-rated version, which includes significant bleeps.

A lot of bleeps. By the way, Connor McGovern putting in a full eight-hour day yesterday. Oh, man, eight hours. Poor kid must be tired. So when you produced both shows, which one do you enjoy more, Conor, D? Just tell the truth. Yesterday? Probably the A team.

Oh, man, that's tough. That's just because Ross on his own is like, yeah. Yeah, I get it. Do you guys tell the truth yesterday? Oh, yes, Frosted, yeah. And Connor got it wrong. Can I guess what it is? Can I guess what it is when we come back?

Do you have the takes from yesterday? Do them real quick? We'll do it come back. When we come back? We'll do a mini to tell the truth. I don't want to go through the whole three actrics of selling everyone. No, just to me. I'm going to say them all monotone. All right.

Some men still will figure. One of them you believe, right? Okay. 713-212-750. 7-1-2-5-79 if you want to get in. Monday night football from last time was interesting. College football playoffs. I don't know you guys much kind of that yesterday.

I know with Gordy you did because he had to raise his voice at some during the show. 713-212-5-790. Word now for Uptown Appliance Repair. I know that you do not want to spend crazy money on getting your refrigerator worked on or your ice maker or a wine cellar or any of your barbecue grills outside or perhaps a washer dryer. Something in terms of your home that's not working on the fritz, but you don't want to buy a new one? That's when you call 281-758-9978.

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That's 281-758-9978. Get those appliances repaired with Uptown Appliance Repair and Uptown Appliancesrepair.com. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Say it dead panel, saying quare. I'm going to dead hand these.

I will do them all four in a row. Number one, my opinion, Jim Crane will change his stance with the times. The Soto deal proves he cannot do this anymore. Within the next five years, he will sign a deal over six years in length. Okay. Number two, the Chiefs Voodoo Magic will end.

This cannot stand this long. They will not win the Super Bowl or the AFC. They are not a good enough team to be a top contender. Okay. Number three, with the Soto signing and the New York and L.A. teams outspending everyone else in Major League Baseball. Heavier luxury tax penalties are imminent in Major League Baseball, and the deferment loopholes will be closed. Okay. Number four, there will be a major change in the college football playoff within the next two years,

either reseeding, no automatic top four or otherwise, or perhaps an expansion of the field. Major change coming in two years. Number four coming in two years. Number four is correct. Well, it's easy to do number one. Number one, you can throw it right out because of what we've been talking about. Yeah, number four. Okay.

My question thought on that, we can close the music off. I love that song, but it's you only planned on Mondays. Thank you very much, Connor. I don't mind the four conference champions getting it and the highest conference non-power four getting it, but to be guaranteed a top four spot is ridiculous. And the Boise State Broncos with a three-seat is absurd. It's there's no other way to put it.

Yeah, unless they had played three top 15 non-conference opponents. Right. Now, Boise State did play at Oregon, and to your point, we mentioned us a couple times over the course of the month, they've only lost by a touchdown to them, right? Yeah, it was a close game. So give them props for playing that game. Who you went on record saying is not going to have any sort of NFL career. I'm staying with that. Oh, I love it. Yeah.

I love this a lot. Good. I'm glad you do. I think you might be your first round pick, Maddie. That's what I'm saying, but I mean, I think five years to know we like Ash and Gentie. Is that a new fragrance? It does sound, does that sound good? Yeah, it sounds delightful.

What are you wearing today, Ashton Jenty? Okay. All right. You heard me. You kind of write that one down too. I'm not put my name on it, but just a pretty good gut feeling on that one. Yeah, to guarantee, I mean, it could have been Arizona State. It could have been Clemson, for that matter.

Actually, it was Arizona State. They did move up. Yeah, they moved up. Yeah, Arizona State moving from. from 16 or 17 to 4. Literally out of the playoff to the fourth spot. I'm okay with them getting in.

I don't disagree. Yeah, but they should have been a 12 seat. Vulting them all the way to 4 is absurd. My guess it should have been Boise 10, them 11, SMU 12. And I think they need to reseed because it ended up when Oregon has the toughest road. They're the number one seed. They need to reseed these.

You know, some sports reseed and some don't. NFL does. Why do you think they do that? I don't know why. Because the NBA, one plays an eight and four plays five of the first round. If eight beats one and four beats five, it's four versus eight. Now, obviously in college basketball, these teams are at regionals in the same city. So they're not going to move them cities across the country.

That makes sense. That's right. But for football, I don't know why they wouldn't reseed it. It happens every year in the NFL. And I think it's perfect. You reward the regular season, you reward your number one seed. And right now, Oregon, if you look at the bracket, they have the toughest path to a championship than anyone.

So I guess the issue would be if you are pro bracket, you're saying do not recede. The bracket falls the way it falls, just like in the NCAA basketball tournament. Yeah. Is anybody pro bracket? I think they should reseed it. I think it's a really good idea.

First I saw the hat, it was Joel Kla. It doesn't. There's really, from a logistics. well, formerly until you I priced himself. But, yeah, I would say that it's easy when it's only talking about 12 teams.

Yeah. And you're not, and you're keeping, and nothing's been predetermined. That's what the NFL playoffs used to be, 12 teams. Six and six, let's recede, let's go. So if there's an upset, if, I don't know, if, well, I wonder if you would even do it

after the home, yeah, if Clemson loses, then Oregon should, I mean, sorry, if wins it beats Texas, as a one seat, Oregon should get the weakest seat. Yeah. Yeah, I think you are right. I think we are due for a... Now, the question is, who's going to be the one that's going to put it out there?

Is Arizona State going to be the one leading the pack on that? No. No. Who'll be the one that'll be leading up to... Who's the most mad they're not hosting a first round game? Is it Texas? I mean, they should have won the SEC championship game. I still do like...

You know, one fast I do like is I do like the fact that Notre Dame can't be a top four. Notre Dame, you can run the table. You could be amazing. You can kick ass all the way you want to, but until you decide you want to be like with the right... rest of us and join the family of a conference, you shouldn't be able to have a top four seat. I do like that component of it.

You must be a conference champion in order to guarantee your spot. So Notre Dame's like, wait a minute, we had one bad off week in our first week of the year against Northern Illinois, and we'd beaten everybody else we played in front of. We played a very good competitive schedule, and that sounds great. I go get the ACC going your championship call today.

Yeah, I'm with you. I think the reseeding thing will happen. I don't think the automatic, I just don't see why Why would the Big 12 and the ACC agree to that? Or do you say they don't have a choice? I don't know. I'll say, we'll kick you out of the playoff completely.

No, not going to do that. I can do that. But I think you're right. I just don't know who's going to be the chairman of the board of this. Let's change this around. I think the reseeding is a very easy compromise. That's true. 713-212-5-7-90.

If you want to jump in and say hello, where's our audience? They're out there just mumping around going, hey. It's the holidays. People are shopping or busy or out of town. I don't know. We're here. We're family friendly friendly. We don't sit there and listen to ourselves for four hours talk. Well, some people do. I mean some, not in this particular show,

but we invite the audience to chime in. If you guys want to get in, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-1-790. If you want to join us for gut feelings, that's coming up in one-half hour. We've got the news at noon coming up, plus we have Ross's NFL rewind, and believe it or not today, at 150.

Did you have Sam Darnold with your... Underdog Fantasy plays this week, I hope you took higher than what they were projecting. If you did, you were going to win very much a lot of cash. If you had the projection on Jamar Chase yesterday, you did very well for yourself. If you had the projections on the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals doing his thing yesterday, that's all going to help you out well with the folks at Underdog. You take the player projections they give you and you simply pick higher or lower on player stats, whether it be about NFL, whether it be college football, whether it be the NBA with the games coming up, the knockout round tonight, and of course the Rockets knockout game tomorrow.

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It is hour 2 of 4. Matt and Ross with you today until 2 o'clock. Ross, I have the... I don't think I've gone on record with a destination for Alex Bregman. I believe I have the destination in 30 minutes during Gut Felix. Which, by the way, I think both of us have a hit with the Juan Soto sign. I do. I also believe we have a miss on how the Rockets did this week.

You were out, I think. Yeah, I didn't do it. I didn't miss anything. Connor, I think they thought the Rocks were going to go 0 and 3. I do remember that. It was close. Well, it wasn't that close. I mean, the Clippers were pretty, I didn't, I was surprised to see Corey McGettie on the court for the Clippers on Sunday.

They were pretty short-handed. Bo Kimball was out there jacking up threes. Ryan Hollins took a suit off and got suited back up. Ryan Hollins, they're clipper great. Exactly. Ryan and I are working together, by the way, tonight on the U of H. versus Troy game. You are?

Yes. Okay. It's beautiful. We got Vanessa working the sidelines, and we've kicked the Craig to the curb for one game. I've heard you will be calling from the Habachi Grill, correct? Calling the game from the grill. He does love Habachi grills. I've never met somebody in my life that lives for Habachi like Ryan Holland does.

Habachi's delicious. It is, but I'm about a once-a-month guy with it, maybe. Okay. He's like once a road trip. I like it. He's like texting me at 3 o'clock and morning. I'm trying to get some sleep because of him to get some shabachi for lunch today. I'm like, what?

he's ready to go i love it it's good i mean you get your vegetables grilled meat can't be that bad for you he's seven feet tall i don't know what his weight is but i would not he's not portly under any circumstance he's very he's physically fit um he'd be a stretch four as the kids would say to in today's in being world i've never seen a grown man eat so much in my entire life good for him case and point The new high. We bused from Sacramento to San Francisco after the game on... You know how to take a bus? It was 75 minutes.

It wasn't bad at all. It's about 85 miles. Better than flying because you have to get through all this, care, and all that, getting on the plane for 12 minutes. It would have been ridiculous. So we'd all decided on the way from Sacramento to San Francisco was to stop at a bin-in-bout. Okay. And I get my double-double animal style.

I did not animal style the fries because I was on a bus and that would have been kind of messy. Ooh, they'll give you a fort. The burger itself was a mess. Okay. Ryan, and I'm not speaking on turn here because the man again is physically fit. Had three double doubles. That is impressive. I'm actually jealous.

Now, I could probably eat two if I was really hungry, but he didn't sweat it. He got three with extra cheese in all three of them. Extra cheese. So those aren't double doubles. Those are two by threes, two by fours? What did you do? Well, I mean, probably two by three. Two by four is a power move.

You know you can get up to a four by four. They used to have people would go in there and order like a 30 by 30 just to set records and then they step. They're like, no, we're maxing out of four. Yeah, enough of this. Yeah. Yeah. So he had to be three to four slice of cheese. Why didn't he just do two four by fours?

I don't know. I don't know how. He wants the bun. Those buns are delicious. I don't. And the fresh vegetables, the burger superior to that of Waterburger. Sorry, butterburger. We love you.

You're Houston. Yes. You're not national now. Yes. but the burger's superior bin and bout's better everything else at what a burger fantastic fries better chicken fingers onion rings biscuits's good oh man tequitos oh tequitos uh the shakes i like the shakes shakes are bitamout are good too there are what now the shakes have been about yeah oh bin and bout those are good too no i thought you were having a stroke i feel like when we rhyme sometimes too much we do so was i going with this so yeah so he uh so

at habachi he gets double salad that's smart see he's eating his vegetables double soup yes I get his mushrooms which I'm very happy about oh he doesn't like mushrooms he doesn't like mushrooms orders

double rice extra extra scallops or extra shrimp depending on what he's eating and it gets two desserts that that's balling I'm jealous although it sounds like an expensive habit too though

I mean his meal is probably almost double mine, but he eats it. He works out. He's one of the sweetest fellows you ever meet. That's great. And he's on the call with you. And he and I are working together tonight. The University of Houston Cougars basketball.

Against. Troy. Troy. The Troy Trojans. Yeah. The plucky underdog. Do we even a line on the game? I don't even know what to line is.

I'm sure there's a line. Do we want to look here? I don't have any Troy fans listening, but... There's no Troy fans listening. You don't know that. There's not one Troy fans. Ooh, I just saw the line. Hold on.

Let me look. Okay. Oh. Ouch. Well, it's not as big of a line as Duke versus Incarnate Word. Cougars are 27.5 point favorites. Wow. If you took Troy in the money line, you just said flat out Troy wins.

You say, I'm lighting money on fire. Eight plus 1,800. Yeah, but what's the other way? Minus 3,600 or something? They always juice it to the gills. So, again, to put it in perspective of those that don't gamble, $100, if you walk to a window and say, I'll take Troy for $100 to win with no points. You'll get $1,800 back.

Of course, it has to hit. You mentioned Duke. Duke's 35 and a half point favorite. And by way, you cannot bet Incarnate Word on the money line. Yeah, the books don't even want to touch it. This is what would be like 25, 2,6001? Yeah. They don't want to hand that out on a single basketball game. I don't think you're right. I think you're right.

All right. 713, 212.5, 719. 713-212-5-7-90. Real quick shout-out to our friend Mattress Mac. He's having surgery today. Hope he's doing well. He's been a friend of mine for 28, 29 years. Been very good for our radio company, very good for our community,

and we wish him the very, very best in his recovery. So, hope to think about your mattress Mac and your family. 7-1-3-2-790. 7-1-3-2-2-790. We go to El Paso, Texas, and we'll start our calls in if you want to jump out on the conversation, 713-212-5-790. We say hi to Dwayne on 7-90.

Dwayne, good morning. How are you? Hello, doing really good today. I just wanted to make a couple of comments about the Astros and then the Chiefs. The Astros, I believe this is just me thinking that he's going to get signed. Breedman's going to get signed to Boston because Boston is the only team. that has something to give back to Houston. They've got an excellent farm club, one of the best in Major League Baseball,

and I'm pretty sure they can give him back or give Houston back something that'll enable the Astros to continue to stay in the playoffs. But if they get rid of Framberg and then the Reifielder Tucker, oh, man, you know what, I don't understand why this owner is not doing something. to help this team continue to stay in the playoffs. Because if they get rid of Framberg and Tucker, man, they're just admitting to Houston, hey, we don't care about the Astros. You know, you guys are just going to have to deal with it, man.

And the second thing is that the chiefs, man, who in the world is going to beat them after Andy Reid has been there so long and continuous rewending in that division? only Detroit is the only team that I can see that can may play a game with them, but I know they're making a lot of mistakes and they're fumbling and they're missing bad, but the thing is Andy reads there, and it's going to be hard to beat him. All right, guys, appreciate it. Take care.

Thank you for the phone call. Everybody can play with the Chiefs. Panthers, Raiders, Chargers, bills. Everybody plays with them. Is there something special to a team that every single week figures out a way to win a game like that? There's something about I want to say I saw a graphic put up

and it was like, now I'm not a big quarterbacks or wins or a quarterback stat guy but when the margins are so thin in football having the best quarterback really helps of course it was like highest win percentage in one score games. It was all basically

Hall of Fame quarterbacks. It was Pat Mahomes, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, I can't remember the whole list and all that type of stuff. So there is something to some Pat Mahomes magic and him when it comes down to it having that clutch factor and that clutch gene, but I don't know, man, they got to, I would be, if I were a cheese fan, I would be deathly afraid of this magic running out at some point because they're playing with fire.

You're saying that they're just, you're playing, you're too vulnerable, you're going to, you're going to eventually, this fourth quarter magic is going to eventually end. And maybe this also says that they're not a very good team, but at the end of the day, they have Pat Mahomes. Well, let me give you this. What if you played 10 straight opponents that when you were beating them by 25 or 30 points and you're all of a sudden in the fourth quarter of a game, you don't know what it's like to play in a competitive game.

I mean, I guess there is maybe something to that, but I think, yeah, okay, you can say that you can spend it whatever way you want. And we're not going to know into the playoffs. And even then we're not going to know it to one game sample size. Anything can happen at any given Sunday. I'm just going to say this. I was feeling the same way that you were two or three weeks ago. but they're finding ways to do it every single time.

Yeah. It's frankly impressive. But beating the Panthers by a field goal, and some of those they got lucky with penalties or, I mean, blocked field goals, although they said that wasn't lucky, and then the special teams coach had prepared for that and stuff like that.

But, I mean, two one-score games at the Raiders and beating the Panthers by a field goal, I would be a little bit concerned. I'd feel good. You're 12 and 1, oh, by the way, you're back-to-back Super Bowl champions. Not feeling bad, but I would say, concerned.

But I'll say this. I watch a little bit of that Bill's Rams game on Sunday before the Rockets game. I think Buffalo goes to Kansas City and put up those kind of numbers for sure. I mean, obviously Kansas City's defense is better than the Rams defense. But Josh Allen was not afraid of traveling 3,000 miles across the country and putting up six touchdowns. No, and he hasn't been. He was 13 seconds away from winning an AFC championship there. No, if Kansas.

Division around, whatever it was. If Kansas City wins this, there'll be nothing flukeish to it. They're going to have to beat Buffalo a heavyweight. Pittsburgh Rossi is playing like a heavyweight. I told you about them Steelers. I told you. Don't sleep on those Steelers. Baltimore.

I'm not ready to put them to bed just yet. Well, yeah, they have Lamar Jackson. They have a chance. Their defenses, I mean, absolutely horrible. And if you're the LA Chargers, you're like, we just, we bear, we won, we lost the game off of a doink. True. And if you're Houston, you're like, well, we got a chance to prove that we can beat Kansas City when we play them in a couple weeks.

Here it comes. The test we all talked about, the late season stretch, dolphins, who are maybe not as good as we thought are initially, but with Tuatunga Voloa back, they've been a lot better. Dolphins, Ravens, and Chiefs, or Chiefs and Ravens. Playing on Christmas Day is embarrassing, especially because it's a Wednesday. If you had Christmas Day on a normal Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'd get it. NFL gives zero Fs. They said, we're taking your Christmas Day, NBA.

And we're in Netflix. Netflix is giving us how much again? Yes. For what? Uh-huh. And we're just slapping together a team. Who's on the broadcast? It's like Meena Kimes and like these ranes.

The announcers are out. It's a random conglomeration. There's no announcers? No, they've been announced. I saw. I can't remember exactly. It's Iron Eagle, Nate Burleson, and J.J. Watt in the first game. Okay.

And then it's. the Texans Baltimore game will have Noah Eagle, I and Sun. Oh, wow. And Greg Olson. That's a good team. Yeah. But JJ Watt will not be calling a Texans game. I think Pittsburgh is playing that first game, right on Christmas Day?

I can't remember. Which means you get to watch his brother play. All right, it is 1113 on Sports Talk 790 coming up at the bottom of the hour. We have gut feelings. You can join us for that as you make sports predictions at 713-212-5-7. I want to tell you about the wonderful people at the Shell Federal Credit Union. I know you would like to get low interest rates on a new vehicle that you'll be purchasing coming up in the next month or so as you celebrate getting a new vehicle for yourself or somebody in your family. That's why you go to shellfc u.org.

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Low rates, skip a pays, no payments until 2025, and 3.99% APR up to 36 months with the Shell Federal Credit Union. Details online at shellfcu.org. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. All right, Ross, what is wrong with you? We're watching this video of the Simpsons doing the game between the bingles and the Cowboys. That's ridiculous.

Told you, they made like a virtual world. What are you talking about? Lisa on the screen pass. Slipscreen. Oh, they put her in as Chase Brown. That's funny. I mean, you know what, I'm mesmer. It was funny for like five minutes and then I turned it off. Last year they did Toy Story and that was kind of cool.

Let's see what kind of arm Bart has. Bart's, ooh, yeah, he's, they sold it as Homer versus Bart. Homer as the Cowboys and then Bart as the Bengals. Bart getting the last laughed as per usual. You know what we're doing, they're running out of ideas. They're simply running out of things today. But why? I mean, this isn't running out of an idea.

This is just making more work for yourself to what end, to what game. I guess. I mean, are you taking viewers away from ESPN for that? I don't know. The Manning cast obviously is very successful. I love the Manning cast, by the way. Especially when Belichick's on in the first half and they're just breaking down football. By the way, there are rumors about Bill Belichick.

I cannot find somebody that I legitimately trust on this. He mentioned it himself. He said, we'll see. We'll see. When he was asked about it, I believe, on the Pat McAfee show. No, no, I'm talking about within the last few minutes. Yeah. Oh, that it's a done deal?

I didn't see that. Yeah. There's also another rumor out. way Jimmy Butler once out of Miami okay there are three teams he'd like to go see okay

go ahead Golden State Warriors Dallas Mavericks okay you get one more gas as to who would be the third team the Tomball Terrapins it would be a suburb of the Tomball Terrapins

the Houston Rockets hmm um you know when he is on the court He still got it, but I just don't know when he's going to be on the court. I would say he's a culture fit with Emeadoka. Hard nose, tough, don't take any BS from anybody. Plays hard.

Has never been able to shoot three, so he fits perfectly with the rockets. Can I get a knockdown, drag-out, unbelievable three-point shooter? Because Reed Shepherd is trying. It's not working right now. It's not working at all. Maybe he needs to go full beard with this dash. I don't know what he needs to do. Yeah.

Jimmy Butler career Oh, 33% three point shooter. That's exactly what the rocket shoot. He fits in perfect. Jeez. As the rockets are 26th in the NBA. So in theory, what you would do is if you were to do this and you kept Dylan or Jabari in your roster

one of those two guys would go to the bench. I would... But don't you think they would want one of those guys in return if you were to do that? Yeah, you'd probably be giving one of them away. I mean, I can't say, oh, that'd be the worst thing in the world and then wants it being traded. Like, I heard you said about me.

Oh, okay. So you're covering your ass right now rather than giving your true opinion. I don't, okay, you know what I'll do? You know, I'll be fair about it. I don't see it being a great fit. At 35 years old? But I just, I think the money, the age, the inconsistency.

I mean, part of what has been so good about this team as a Rockets have only used two different lineups this year. You know, Fred missed again the other night against the Clippers and a men took his spot. But we have had a remarkably consistent, starting line up every night, and I think that's part of what makes a good basketball team good as not having to worry about different lineup cards every night.

I think Jimmy would add a layer to that. Now, the past three years, Jimmy Butler has been a 38.5% three-point shooter in 141 games in three years. Not a huge sample size. That's the problem. If it was 175 games, I'd feel better about it. It's not a nothing sample

size. Yeah, I think the money is too crazy, and I think the rockets don't if they're going to go really shuffle everything around feels like Fred Van Vleet might have to be just because of matching money-wise it's going to be to have to him or Dylan and

a couple of other pieces. If you go get see my thought is this. If you go get a jump shooter a legitimate 40% three-point shooter? Where are you playing him? Jabari's spot? If you're moving are you having to trade Fred? Because you can't

trade Jalen They can't trade Alpi at this point. The wheels kind of fall off this offense when Fred goes away. Fred's assistant turnover ratio is unbelievable. And I don't think coaches want to give that up. Yeah. And I kind of like, I think they kind of like a man and Tari being the first two guys off the bench, scoring, rebounding, hustling, stealing, defending.

The problem is you've got a bunch of players who are good at certain things and not good at everything. You don't have guys who are as well-rounded. Like, Amin Thompson does everything, but he can't shoot. Yeah, although he's had a couple of threes in one game last week. Jalen Green does everything offensively, but he can't shoot. I mean, Alperin Shingoon, well, he doesn't shoot threes as well. And sometimes he turns the ball over too much. And he's not, he's been better improved defensively, but it's not like, you know, he's going to be confused with somebody

who's first team all defense. I think it just has to be, and this is not, and if Raffel was to ask me about this, which he has. And I would say if you're going to go really shake this up right now, Rossi, in this season as compared to me waiting until next season, depending on how far this team goes, it better be a this is a player in the prime of his NBA career

has got a lot left to offer, who's got reasonable money that's just unhappy and wants to go somewhere else and you've got a couple of assets you can send back in return. But it's going to hurt the rockets, whatever, because the rockets have a really a solid eight-man rotation that all adds to your point. all adds a little something to the mix.

They all add a little something to the mix, but none of them are complete stars, and maybe that makes them easier to trade away if you're getting a star in return. Yeah. So that's somebody just want to throw out there. All right. Gut feelings time. I Ross am ready to declare, I don't know if I've done this or not, but I'm ready to declare where I think Alex Breggman's going.

Ooh. Okay. Are you ready to do it or no? You don't have to. I'm not putting any pressure on you. I have a sneaking suspicion. We might be on the same page. So I'll see where you go.

I'm going to let you dive in first and see how the water looks. All right. Anybody out there have any sports predictions? Let us know right now at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9. Our time is 1127. It's time for gut feelings next. After I tell you about your gut, it needs chicken wings.

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with what you said about the Yankees. But I don't know if I'm going to go with it. Uh-oh. Why? Because you're scared now. Are you taking logic into this or your heart, Matthew? All right. Before we do that, time for gut feeling.

713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-12-2-1-12 here on the program. Ross, you were in flight while we did gut feelings last week. Okay. I'll take your word for it. Oh, I forgot to ask you. Did you get good food in the first? the flights both ways, right?

What was a good airline food? Shamerican Shmer Airlines, not so much. Eva Air, um, top notch. So what did Shamerican give you? Like a cheese plate? I literally a frozen sandwich. Oh, for that long of a flight.

You get a meal. On the way there, I didn't take the meal on the way back because I was trying to sleep to avoid jet lag. Yeah. Um, on the way there, it was chicken and rice or something. And then it was a frozen sandwich. It was like bland chicken and rice and then a sandwich. Yeah.

The meals I got on Eva Airways just from Taiwan to Seoul. It's a two-hour flight. We're way better. Just saying. I'll say it. American Airlines, step up your meal game on a 16-hour flight. I don't disagree. I mean, the amount of money you spent, you should get at least one hot me.

By the way, I didn't take off my shoes either time. I'm proud of you. I didn't even, I didn't think about it, actually. I brought slippers on the way back. I was like, I'll bring some, I brought some. That slippers is a really good call. I stole the slippers from the hotel room. I was going to use those.

They're going to charge you, by the way. What? They're like the little plastic They're in a little plastic thing Oh okay I was gonna say The ones I get I see I'm not in the five diamond joints

Maddie come on now I got you These are a little dollar store slippers That I had So I was gonna put them on But I kind of forgotten I fell asleep So I didn't even

I didn't even really need to take off my shoes Okay good All right Connor how do we do last week? Oh I have last week And I also can we do last week How did you get last week? You weren't even here We didn't we have a Google doc mat

It's the same document Oh sorry sorry about that It's 220 2024 mani let's go By way is Connor frozen in the screen there? Yeah, he is, actually. Let me try to. We might have to have him restart his computer. Okay. We don't have to look at him anyways. How do we do?

Let's go. Well, actually, I'm going to go to mine from three weeks ago, because I did lay down a few for the next couple of weeks, if you recall. You did? Don't seem to. Right. I had the Texans going three and O in their next three games. Nope. And you told me that was the easiest call of the centering. I was like, no, you can always get upset. It's any given Sunday. And while they did get upset by the Tennessee Titans. I said two of those games are going to win by double digits. It's only one of those they did. That was, of course, against the Dallas Cowboys, which that win is looking a lot better, by the way, because the Cowboys are competitive and they're winning games. They still don't win games at home, though, so.

Well, you beat the Giants, but who'd be? Everybody can beat the Giants. I also said that Jake Paul would win by decision. Yeah, that's great. Which was correct? Now, let me ask you this. There was a lot of people back then for that fight a few weeks ago that thought if it didn't go,

that there would be a lot of upset people because you weren't be able to get, The commercials in, you wouldn't be able to have people on the eyes. Oh, you're talking on Tyson backing out of the fight because he's hurt? Or just going one or two rounds. Uh-huh. That it was better that they went to the fold. So because they were short rounds to begin with.

I think Jake Paul could have knocked him out and didn't. I do think that. All right. So that's conspiracy then. And let's see. I also said when I come back, the rocket starting five will be the same barring injury. There was some talk of replacing Jabari Smith Jr. Who was not shooting well.

Good. If you recall. That's right. I said Mike McCarthy will be the, man, these are all hits, Maddie. Because you're talking about you, because you're, you know what, you're to tell the truth take. Now I'm remembering was that Mike McCarthy was going to be fired after the Texas beat him or should have been fired. They're all opinions. There should be.

And I said, that's a ridiculous take. And Mike McCarthy will be the coach of the Cowboys. He's still the coach. And I said also, this is another hit. Alex Breggman will not be signed Soto signs first. But that was also kind of cool. Go and give yourself props for that one. Oh, baseball genius.

It was like a minus 1,000 on that one, but we still hit. All right. week, Matt, you said Aziz, Alshire's suspension will not be reduced. Yep, got that one. You also had the rockets going two and one on the road trip, including a win over the Sacramento Kings.

They lighted the fuse in front of me. Oh, the beam. The beam, yeah, beam fuse, same thing. Yeah, not exactly at all. And then you also said the golden bat rule will not happen. Yes, it better not happen. There's just no way.

All right. There's no way the golden bat rule happens. Conner McGovern had the Rockets going an undefeated 3-0 on the West Coast road trip? No, I think he had the opposite. Oh, really? I'm sorry. You said they were going to lose all three of their games. Did you not?

Connor? I actually think I said undefeated. No, that means you would have been positive. Document says 3-0. I'm going by the document. I mean, I was wrong, so. Yeah, either way. Either way, you're wrong. And he's wrong on this one, too.

Texas wins the FCC championship. I tried to back you up. So close. Who's Missouri? Who's in Missouri playing? They've got Iowa in the Music City Bowl. Woo! Let me tell you. I don't mean to be rude.

But not a soul cares about that game. What do you mean? Iowa Hawkeyes do. Brett Dolan does? That's it. It's in Nashville. That's fun. You're going to go?

It's looking kind of expensive, so maybe not. Nashville's a good weekend. It's the day before New Year's Eve, too, so that'd be kind of fun. New Year's. Eve, Nashville with the boys? Would you like, would you like that as a Christmas gift? Oh! Well, how much we're talking?

Oh! There's expenses. What are you getting? Flight, hotel? But what if I gave you some money towards a trip? Would that help? It would, but I'm also missing, I'd be missing Monday, Tuesday. Oh, no, no, you're not going to work. You're not used. Stay right here. We need you here.

Wow. We need you here. I'll have the part out. We got great producers here. Yeah, a lot of great producers. A lot of the I-heart Houston. were available to work yesterday for you, were there? That's okay.

A lot of great ones. So many great ones you had to work in double shift. That's pretty funny. Dan Matthews had Aziz suspension resuced to two games, which I also thought was going to happen as well. Oh, and Dan likes the golden bat rule. Is that just the worst take of the day?

He does. He likes it. For what? His home pickup games in baseball? For just adding more energy to the baseball game. That's ridiculous. It's just a bridge too far. I'm all for juicing up the game,

but it's a bridge too far. Rockets go one and two on the road trip. He was correct there. And he said, Bregman decision final by next Wednesday. That would be tomorrow. Could be possible. I think,

I mean, it feels like something could be shaking and moving pretty quick here. So we'll see. All right. 713-212-579. If you have any sports predictions, let us know. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Here we go. I don't think I've ever declared where he's going. Okay. Alex Breggman's a Boston Red Sock. or a socks. It's very confusing. What will be a single? A sock would be a sock.

I know, but they're all the socks. Okay, he will be a socks. Sounds really weird. Yeah. He'll be a red stocking. There you go. I like that. Or a bean eater.

Excuse me? The Boston Bean Eaters. That's true. Yeah. I do like your logic of are the Yankees going to go 0 for two at the top for agents? I do love that take.

Mm-hmm. That's a gut feeling. But Alex Bregman, would he be able to stomach being in New York after years and years of them booing his ass since the 2017 season? Would he really, would he really be a Crip after being with the Bloods for as long as he was? So you're telling me. I love that you're going with the Los Angeles gang member. I just had to. You're telling me.

I know it doesn't make any sense. The Red Sox are going to offer less money than the Yankees. No. Alex Breggman is going to say, I can't be a Yanke. I'm saying that the Red Sox are going to step it up. That the Red Sox are sneaky. Just went to the background. He's going to be a Yankee.

It's my gut feeling. Okay. I want all of us to digest that. My gut feeling. Not putting my name on anything? No, no, no, no. This is so not putting your name on it in this. It feels like I said.

That feels like being a dirty whore. Howell Steinbrenner just lost Soto to the Yankees. I know. You're making a lot of sense. Is Hal Steinbrenner going to allow Brown. Ryan Cashman to lose another top free agent to the Red Sox.

But he didn't lose one of the Red Sox. I guess losing the mess would be a cop. But maybe the Yankees don't say the same value in Bregman as maybe the Red Sox do. That's very possible. I mean, you can't, it's only, you're only losing something if you felt like it was tremendous value to begin with.

And, oh, by the way, you twist a knife in the Astros fan base. Oh, God. You beat the Red Sox and twist the on the stroves. Gut feeling. I don't want to say it. I feel like I need a shower after.

All right. I'm going Red Sox. You're going Yankees. These are very gutty feelings. Connor, what you say? I'm going to go Yankees, too. I'm actually... Yeah, I'm going to go Red Sox, but I don't feel great about it.

It's a good feeling. I feel like I don't feel great. I feel like every time I hear Dana Brown say, we're working as hard as what can't. Well, it doesn't take a lot of work. It takes that check that you wrote, crumpling it up and rewriting a new check. Really not that difficult. Either you do it or you don't.

And again, I understand if they don't. Because basically he's going for the big money, big, big money. The money he's going to get, I guess, would be, I think at the end of the day, people will say that's not money well spent. Even though Juan Soto was the Kremd Dollar Kremlin for agency, people are saying, Rossi, that this is just too much money. Sometimes because you're the highest, you're the biggest winner

doesn't make you a great, it's not a great acquisition. You buy a company for 25 times it's worth, yeah, you got the company, but is it a good company? You're going to make money from it. And I think the Mets are going to regret the Soto deal.

Massively regret it. How many championships do they need to win for them not to regret it? One or two? By their stakes, they've not won one since, what, 86? one one gets it done

could happen 51 million dollars for a 26 year old that is a butcher in the outfield below average outfielder safe to say could you dh him half the time by the way I was right on one thing

I don't think I put it on the gut feelings Joe Espada said the winner meetings he wants Yorna in less than that left field than he ever before and I was always on that mark on that yeah I think I think we're going to see more of Yorda and Daching than ever before. Who the hell's out in Outfield now?

Chats if he is? Yeah. Jake Myers. Kyle Tucker goes away. Woo! One step back. It goes two steps forward when you trade

together the prospects. One step back to go two steps forward. That sounds like a song from the 70s. Sounds like somebody wrote at that LA gift shop that got mad at you for taking video. I got to show you the reviews. You got yelled at.

Okay. I'd like to see. I'm going to say. I'm going to come. send them to you. Okay. All right. Let's get some more for you guys in. Any else you wanted to get to? I got a quick one. The Rockets defeat the Warriors finally snap the curse and they go to Las Vegas. God, I want to hug you right now. I would like them to win. It's a gut feeling. Finally, the curse. You can't lose 16 in a row. They're favored in the game.

All right. Now, Brian McTagger just sent an email out. It's his little MLB colony rights. Okay. His headline, Astros bullish on Bregman Return. Would you have your MLTHAs? MLB writer write that? I'm asking you a simple question. Would you do that? Because Brian McTaggart's first of those, good journalist, but he writes for MLB.com, which is owned by all the baseball teams. He's also probably using the quotes from Espada and

Dana Brown yesterday, which they sounded fairly optimistic and talked about continuing to their pursuit of one Alex Bregman. All right, here we go. More of your gut feelings up next. Are you bullish on Bregman returning? I'm more bullish on... I just told you he's going to be the Yankees. I'm more bullish on Will Levis than I am on... Well, that's not good.

He's playing okay, actually. Okay. 713, 212, 570. Any more gut feelings next. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Ross and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling.

Lunch timers, gut feelings. you now on the Matt Thomas show. 713212-5-790. Our buddy Kenny and Katie says, Matt, seriously, I'm 61. I think my days of seeing the Astros what a championship are over. Well, I mean, I hope that you're not going to end your life at 65. But, I mean, if they lose pregnant,

bottom line is the Mariners got hot late. The Rangers are a mess. The Angels improved a little bit with Kukuchi. They got better with Kikuchi. Trout may be back. at some point. The West may, it may only take 85 wins and win the America League West next year.

Just tell them the truth. Wait a minute. Cacucci's an angel? Cucch is an angel. Wow. Okay. You didn't know that? I kind of forgot. Yeah, it's all right. I think I vaguely remember seeing that at some point. Once you forget where Cacucci goes, you just, you don't tend to follow it. You know, it's important that you don't force it with Cacucci puns, Matt. No, you don't. You shouldn't. And if a Cacucci comes and goes,

you just say it was a good Cacucci. You move along to find the next Cacacacchee when you can find it. can always count on you to run something into the ground. I don't feel like to be accurate at all. You say running into the ground. I say accentuate it. 713. Two one.

Gracious as one would say. Yeah. 713. 212. 5. Oh, there's Connor. Yeah, we got him. We're good.

I got a fresh hair going. You think his girl's styling his hair for him? Look, it's nasty. No, I don't think so. All right. 713. 212. 5, 790.

He's got his own swag. Podder in Baytown. Connor, or excuse me, Ponder, what's in your gut this week? Man, listen, I think it was good cacucci while it lasted.

Listen, I want to go with my gut feeling here is that if we do not sign Bregman to a new deal or give him an offer, that he accepts, and I think we're out on both,

all three of where we're at with Tucker, Framber, and Alex, because I think it's for the duration of the long run. Here's my fear with that gut feeling. We replaced those names with like a Paul Goldsmith, something with a big name still that has some, I don't know, ticket sellability.

And I hate to feel that way. It's just something that we've always done as well before Loonow and well before all those other management teams that we've had before what we have now. And then the last thing is that my hope is that if we do allow that to happen, that we actually go get some of these guys crochet and hopefully like a Lewis Robert Jr. And if we can afford those kind of contracts and get those players out of here while they're still on deals, then, you know, sustainability to win in the near future and puts us right back in a position to make trades and keep the farm system built. And I'll hang up and listen.

Thank you. I know there's a lot of predicting in there. but I'm going to mention this what I brought up at the very beginning of the show today. If Bregman leaves, even though the American League West seems still very attainable because there's no real powerful team in the group, you do not want to go through this next year by losing two key members of your team. You absolutely keep your phone on. You know, like people sometimes they silence their notifications at night. Yes.

If you're Dana Brown, you do not do that. He's got to get some sleep. No, you know, you keep the tone on. Nobody's going to get him with a hairbrain trade idea at 1230 in the a.m. Hairbrain idea at 1230 in the morning? Absolutely can happen. Yes, but not for a major league trade. Oh, you know of something else.

You might get a U-Up text. Mish you? You might get a W-D. Are you like, you still awake? Checking somebody's Facebook messenger? You might get a, you might get a thinking of you. Well, I mean, Dana Brock can get some text with people saying, thinking of your team. Thinking of Yordon?

Thinking of your two stars. Thinking of Tucker. I don't think that's going to happen. He can leave the notifications off or the noties, as the kids call them. Okay. He's got to make those moves. He's got a seriously thing about him. And I do not want him to wait until the trade deadline for this time.

That would be the practical thing. Or they could go to the plan B that Brian McTagher was talking about last. week where you lose out on Breggman, you go for Christian Walker, you try to pry open the window for another year, then it's one last dance, and then rather than getting some prospects for Framber and Tucker, you let them, you should let them go for draft picks. But then what are you doing with Yoron's prime? What are you doing with Jan Air Diaz's prime, with Hunter Brown's prime, with possibly Spencer Ergetti? I mean, other... Because if you make the move now, you shorten the length of the painful times, perhaps by a year. Yeah, but you could also trade those two guys away

and it turns out what you get back and end up being... That's right. There's no guarantee. Yeah, that's right. They're in a tough spot. But if Dana Brown was brought here, and I know he was, for his acute sense of what a talented player is in my own-leink system, that's what you brought him here for. He's got to judge those players. His drafting acumen.

Yeah. Let's get before the top of the hour in the news at noon. We say hello to Felipe on 790-1155. Felipe, how are you? I'm doing great, guys. Hey, a quick up feeling. I think the Texans will go one and two over the next three games with that one win being the Chiefs win.

Oh. They beat the Chiefs. They beat the Chiefs. Not the Chiefs win, but they beat it win over the Chiefs. My second one is, I think we do sign Kyle Tucker. Jim Crane comes out of his comfort zone and spends an Angoli money, not too much.

No, no, no, no. You can't say Angale and not too much in the same sentence. What are you talking about? I'm not talking $700 million in like the whole team, you know, but I'm saying probably close to 300? Not happening. Kyle Tucker, if Alex Spragman is gone,

Kyle Tucker is super gone. Yeah. I think we can... Let's hope not. Okay, you can hope all you want. Hope you get a supermodel knocking the door at 12th or in the morning. You can hope to all you want.

I think we just both comfortable and put our name on it. Tucker's hitting free agency. Tucker can't wait to hit free agency. Tucker's like petitioning Major League Baseball to join in a year. early. Now, players have come back after hitting free agency. Not very many, but they have.

Aaron Judge. Aaron Nola. I guess if your name is Aaron, you're coming back. Oh, real quick. During the News and Noon, can we play our buddy, Nick Totoro's? Is that news? Well, it's commentary. Sure, we can do it, Matt. Or you can do it to 1220. It's up to you. It's the News and Noon is your segment. We got NFL rewind

bottom of the next hour, too. A lot of Ross vision coming up here in the next 35 minutes. And believe it or not, today's at 150. I know all these things you're prepared for. You're coming back and I've got to go back to work. 1157. 713212-570. The news at noon is next.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. It is 1202 on Sports Talk 7-Hawney. What's happening in lunch timers? halfway home on a Tuesday edition of the show. Rockets and Warriors tomorrow night in the NBA knockout game. We'll get details on that coming up throughout the course of the next couple of days. We have winter meetings going on in Major League Baseball.

We've got the NFL from last night. We got a lot of things to get to all part of the news at noon. And for that, we go to the news desk. Here's sports RV. Yes, Matthew. We keep it going here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross with some news. That news for you. Stop doing that.

That sounds terrible. I can't help it. It's just like a Pavlovian response to this newsbed. You'll be embarrassed. I'm sorry. All right. Well, the Houston Astros, of course, some news coming out with them. Well, not necessarily some news, but at the winter meetings, as you mentioned,

Dana Brown talking about a number of different topics, including willing to listen to trades on Framber and Tucker. But here's what he had to say about Jim Crane and his commitment to putting out a good team. Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, you know, Jim Crane has been very committed to, you know, putting out a really good team. And, you know, we've signed a bunch of guys. And so ultimately, as I mentioned last year, we did the Hater deal. You know, we kind of blew by the CBT. And so Crane's very committed to, you know, putting a competitive team out there. Right now, we're projected to win a division. And so I think, you know, we'll do whatever we have to do to have a good team. We'll do whatever we have to do to have a good team.

I like it. Says Dana Brown. Sounds good compared to walking up going, you know what? We'll be fine if we put together a half-ass team. Well, anything else, Matt? No. Okay, sorry. As we go along here, as you mentioned, Matt, Alex Bregman could be going to another team,

maybe the Yankees, maybe the Red Sox, maybe somewhere else. If that happens, you and I are on the same page. They need to trade away and get some prospects. back their two biggest possible free agent assets, Kyle Tucker and Framber Valdez. Here's John Marosi on MLB Network talking about the Astros receiving heavy interest on Kyle Tucker. But let me tell you why there's at least some chance of a trade involving Kyle Tucker. The overall free agent prices right now are quite high.

And the number of teams with a great capacity to add high dollar free agents is relatively small, which means trade candidates like Tucker, even those entering his final year before free agency, are more valuable than ever. And you just saw on that board a moment ago where Kyle Tucker stands among the preeminent sluggers in baseball. He actually had a higher adjusted OPS than Juan Soto in 2024. Now, he played in half as many games, to be clear. He was injured. He had the stress reaction in his shin. So that is the health piece of it and how many games he'll play is a real consideration here. He is not Juan Soto.

But when you think about the Yankees' interest in Tucker, he could help them replace the production they lost in Juan Soto. And for that reason, and Dana Brown acknowledging yesterday that he'll listen on everybody, including Tucker and Framber Valdez, definitely

got the attention, Lauren, of a lot of people in this lobby. A lot of attention, a lot of interest. Attention or attention? Tucker. I think there's attention. That too.

Yeah. And also some tension and some attention. Kyle Tucker? Trading Block. So if you trade him, the first words of their press conference would be, why did you trade Kyle Tucker with a year left in his contract? The answer would have been not because we got a deal we couldn't refuse.

It was because the reality was Kyle's people have said to us that he is not going to resign here with the Astros. conversations with Kyle and Tucker and his people haven't really gone in the direction that we wanted to. We also got the opportunity opened up for a deal that we really like the assets that we're getting in return. And he told us to go take a flying lead. And we think for the brighter future of this organization going forward,

while it's going to hurt us in the short term, I think long term, this is going to be a great deal for the Houston Astros and the future is bright. Perfect. And we'd all buy it because it's the truth. what he wanted to say, what he'd like to say was Kyle told us to take a flying leap and we're rolling off from 70 years and he's like, if you double that, maybe we'll talk. But that would be the sign to say

we already have had conversations with Kyle and Kyle has said that there's no way after 2025 he's coming back to the Astro. There's one thing to Dana Brown said in that bite that we played though that makes me think even if they lose Breggman, they're not going to go in that direction. And that was him saying we are projected to win the division.

And he's right. Just Jim Crane say, there's a number of ways to approach this. There's the way you and I have said is just not necessarily blow it up, but trade away to get a couple of pieces, get some prospects. Or there is, squeeze the last bit of the lemon,

the back end of Jose Altuves Prime. This could be one of the last couple of years that he's really a plus player, sign somebody like a Christian Walker and free agent. and throw out Shea Wickham or whoever at third base and pray out there, win the division and then pray after that. Prioritize winning the American League West,

which isn't a murderer's row of opponents, and then say anything can happen in the playoffs. Including getting swept in two games by the Detroit Tigers, anything can happen being on the table. You know what? The back half of your conversation makes more sense. Because they keep squeezing they've let Charlie Morton go.

They've let Garrett Cole. George Springer, Carlos Correa. They've let all these go and they've always had replacement pieces. There is no replacement piece for Alex Breggman though. No, but they can say there couldn't be. They can say it. They're going to still say we have a Corvett franchise.

We've got Janair Diaz. It's going to be a 25 home run guy. We got Yorna Alvarez. We got Jose Al-Tube is still very much in the prime of his career. We like what we see. of Wickcom and whatnot in terms of Zach DeSenzo.

I don't about we got Kyle Tucker, too? I mean, Kyle's not going to not, if Kyle Tucker's an Astro in 2025, he's going to play. He's going to wear the uniform. I got you. Right. All right, well, let's move along to some football side of things. Matthew, as D'Amico Ryan speaking to the media yesterday, everybody excited to be back after the by week.

It was really, really nice to see the guys come back, refresh, seeing them bounce around today in our practice. It was good to see it feel the energy from the guys. Also feel the sense of urgency from all of us. And that's what's needed at this time. And I mean, everybody's excited to be back out on the grass, practicing. Like, we got our much needed rest. And now it's time to get back to work, which we're excited about.

Excited to get back to work. And Christian Harris and Kenyon Green both designated for return. One of them, that's great to hear. One, like, you know what, go rest. Are you sure you're feeling better? You may need a little depth. Somebody gets hurt and put them in there for a series while they go get evaluated for a concussion and hopefully come back. Is that what you...

Is that a warm body? Is that how you're going to sell of the audience? The Kenyon Green is added depth. I feel like me, added holdings and added blown sacks. And added illegal procedures. Well, don't forget blown run blocks as well. So, I mean, he can add all of that in there, Matt. So...

All right. Then last but not least, Matt, on the news at noon, we'll go a little bit off the beaten track. but we're going to keep it with baseball. And Nick Totoro, friend of the show. Love him. His reaction to Juan Soto becoming a New York Met. I got two words for you. That's right.

You when the horse you rode in on. And the cavalry behind you. That's right, motherfucker. Yeah, I'm taking it personal. We gave you our love. We gave you our heart and soul. It wasn't enough. You turned your cap around into the World Series.

I saw that move. 700 million, 730. Yeah. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. Guaranteed, yes, it wasn't enough. You don't even choose the Dodgers. You don't even choose the Dodgers. You don't even choose the Dodgers.

You don't want to be on Broadway? And you don't want to be Judge's guy? You don't want to be Judge's partner? Oh, that's right, Judge. Now it's your team. That's it. Let's stick it up his fucking ass. That's right.

Let's go out. Let's get Burns freed. Breggman. Let's fucking Teoska. I don't give a f***. Now we're not fucking around. Take those fucking grunggy, whatever those fucking st.

Oh, those stupid Mets. Nick Titorio? Seems like he's displeased with Juan Soto. I would say unhinged. I'm going to say mildly displeased. I always thought the Yankees hated the Red Sox. They were just annoyed by the Mets. But that was not annoyed.

That was you left one sister for the other. That was Sikh therapy. That's what that was. I think he's probably every day for Nick. We love Nick more than life. We do. Seriously, we were going to, I thought about calling them this. We'd get on the air, but...

Leave him alone. I was like, I'm not doing that. Get him on when the Yankees signed Bregman. That's a done deal. And for an organization, for a fan base that has booted every Astro for years since all the stuff went down. Hypocrits. That would be the biggest hint of hypocrite. It would be the blatant use of hypocrisy ever.

He even said in that sign Bregman, sign everybody. What do you say to Oscar? He said, sign them all. It would make it a super sexy season. if Breggman's a Yankee. And how would the reaction be for Houstonians? Not great. Who would go Nick Titoral and Breggman

if he will sign with the Yankees? That's the question you have. You? Matt Thomas? Bunby? No. Bunby knows business. If anybody does. Who's the most famous astro fan?

Might be Bunby. It's got to be Bunby. Megan the Stalian. She's a big Astro fan? Huge. Watches a full 162, MLB.tv. She's glued. She's got the season past thing.

Yeah, I respect that. All right, that my friend is the news at noon. So, if Bragman goes to the Yankees, who represents Houston in that vile, vicious, profanity-laced tweet? Like, for instance, remember what? when the Lakers sucked? Well, they still kind of suck.

What's his face? Snoop Dog goes after them all the time. Yeah. And the Steelers for some reason. Yeah, but he, I feel like Snoops has become a fan of every team. No, I think he's a long-term, long-time Steelers guy. Okay, but he really attacks the Lakers when they don't win. Who goes after the baseball team?

Who represents the H when it comes to? Ooh, I felt like a dirty horse saying. potential New York Yankee Alex I mean the Red Sox hurts The Yankees really sounds painful Could happen 1213 on the Matt Thomas show With Ross 713-212-5790

713-212-5-790 Are your testosterone levels In bad shape? You're like Matt, I don't know Well then why don't we help you And get to a location of a game day men's health They are exploding They've been very successful here around the country, and now they've come to Houston where they have six locations. The Woodlands, North Point, Katie, Willowbrook, C, Brook, and Pearland.

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Really strange story coming out of New York. Actually, not in New York. It's just out of the East Coast. North Carolina has been interviewing people for their head coaching job. And Bill Belichick's like, I'm going to take your job if you want me. some East Coast reporter who's got 22,000 followers, he's a college football reporter, not verified,

but it feels like he's someone in the know, says that Bill Belichick has told North Carolina that he is going to take the job and that his son, Stephen Belichick, will be the coach in waiting, and that he has also prepared a 400-page manual of how he would run the North Carolina football program. And I'm going to assume it would be from coaching to how they train, to their NIL, to their recruiting. I mean, just what you would normally expect to have in a huge college, for a huge college football program.

But North Carolina is not a huge program, but it's good. I mean, they've had some success. And obviously, Mac Brown's... Tier two? Tier two and a half. Two and a half. What is tier three? Would that be like, um, tier three would be like what?

Don't even, don't even. I'm, I love the softball to you. I don't want you to hit it. I want you to take the pitch. I don't know if I can spit on this one, Maddie. It's looking down the middle. Middle, middle. Memphis.

You're going to be eating those words eventually. Well, tier three, a UNLV, if you will. Ooh, no, UNC better than Memphis than UNLV. Okay, so tier three would be Wake Forest. I don't mean to go ACC on you here, but like Wake Forest? I mean, it depends on... Boston College? Okay, it can come down to semantics.

Illinois? Boston College, Illinois. If we're talking Tier 1 being, of course, like heritage programs in Tier 2, what? The Texas A&Ms, the Ole Misses, the Florida... Houston's, yeah, yeah. We're getting there. Slow steps. It's only been two straight years without a bowl, but that's not here nor there.

It's tier three. along? But your company in Houston, it's UNC, Arizona State. Tier 3 is a huge group, by the way. Texas Tech Tier 2 or tier 3? Let's talk about that in two years. Their collective is pretty strong. All right.

Okay. Point being is this, why would a 70-something-year-old coach who hasn't been on a college campus to coach, what, 40 years? Well, didn't you hear? I feel like the light bulb went on for me when you mentioned the Steve Belichick thing. Get his son a head coach job? Yeah. I'm sure that's part of the manual, yeah.

But Stephen Belichick is the one that's been mentioned. Can you imagine the emotional abuse poor Steve Belichick has suffered throughout his life? Well, how about the fact that is... How about could you be sexually attracted to your future stepmother? She's 24. Excuse me? She's older than... She's older than you are, or younger than you are.

I believe there's a whole genre on that, Matt. Oh, where can you find that, by the way? I'm curious, Ross. And first of all, how do you know these things? Depends on what state you're in. Yeah. Utah, no. Texas, no.

California, a little more available. Anyways, we're talking football. You know what? It's good to see in my time off, Matt, you have not changed one bit. Okay. First of all, I'm proud of you for not mentioning Taylor. But then you went to the Steve Belichick attracted to his stepmother. They're not married.

There's a potential for it to happen. He's probably like a good 15 years older than whoever this girl is. What I don't get is why sons want the jobs gifted to him by dads. I mean, it happens all the time. What you mean? You think no Eagles upset? He's on Netflix? Yeah, no Eagles.

Do you think Joe Bucks are like? I like Noah. He's a nice guy. God, he's getting some great gigs. I think Bronny James is upset. He got a $3 million or $4 million deal as he's not even an NBA player. By the way, did you see the latest Instagram photo going out or video of him of Bronny? No. It says Bronny's first NBA dunk and he goes up for the big dunk and the ball leaves his hands and just clanks off the backboard.

It was not a dunk. He still hasn't dunked in the NBA? He's like 6'4, isn't he? I don't think so. I don't think he's playing much, is he? Yeah, he's not super athletic either. like his fault. I think apparently Bryce is supposed to be. And that's why him

playing in the same game meant absolutely nothing. Now when Bryce plays in his service to be there, then it's going to be a great story. Well, it's up to you if you would believe that. It was cool. I believe in the majority. I'm in the majority. I feel good about that. Normally I'm in the minority in a lot of things. That's okay. If you want to get all upset about it, that's fine. I'm not upset at all. I feel vindicated. Thank you very much.

Vindicated. It wouldn't have happened. We're not arguing this. Please. I'm done. You don't have to argue because I win. I don't win very many arguments. I'm paying the Debbie on this one. That's nothing special. All right. So why, but why would you, I mean, there's going to be a bunch of NFL jobs. Unless Belichick has been told to the NFL grapevine, you're too old,

you don't have any sustained success without Tom Brady as your quarterback. We need the NFL's going to a younger breed of type of coach. We don't need old stodgy guys set in his ways running things. You can be old sodgy in coaching as long as you win in college. I think it's more the former, the old. I think it's the age thing more than having had success without Brady. I mean, I think they did. Didn't they have a 10-win season with Mac Jones one of those years in there,

Jacobi Bresset, or somebody? They've had some success, but nothing close to where they were. You win 10 games of Mac Jones. I mean, you're not a terrible coach, I don't think. But it's the age thing. The NFL is not, unless you have a roster that is literally you need somebody to take you to that next level to where you're banging down the door and you're looking for somebody.

But do you know that the same? 17-year-olds that he would be recruiting next year, have very faint recollection of who Bill Belichick is. How many of them? Who knew who Mac Brown was? Yeah, that's fair. But that didn't have sustainability. Yeah, but maybe Mac Brown had some decent seasons there.

But Mac Brown probably also had a lot of alumni support that said, he'd come back and make us roll of it again. Probably. And I'm curious how the alums would take. I mean, when was the last time Bill Belichick coached at the collegiate level. Because he was a coordinator with the Giants. It had to be literally the 80s.

It's got to be probably what, 82, 83? He was with like Youngstown or one of those weird division two teams. We're talking. Could you imagine Bill Belichick trying to sell a family at 17 years of age? You do your Belichick. Let me be the kid. Knock here. Knock, knock, knock.

Come in, who is it? Hi, it's Bill. Coach Belichick's in our home here. in central Kentucky, this is quite an honor. Thanks for coming over, Coach. I'm the greatest coach of all time, and I want your son to come play for me. Coach, what are you offering in North Carolina?

What separates you from other places? Well, if you just like to, I don't know if you see these six rings on my finger, but that's basically what I'm bringing. Yeah, but Coach, that was in the NFL. That was with Tom Brady. My son doesn't know who Tom Brady is, but he's the guy in Fox.

Yeah, your son knows who Tom Brady is. Don't be ridiculous. Looks like he was at Wesleyan. In what year? Wait, hold on, never mind. No, it looks like he's only been NFL. Wesleyan is his alma mater. So he doesn't know how to,

he doesn't know how to recruit a player. He better get one hell of a staff behind him if that's really the case. So apparently North Carolina has 24 hours to whether or not to accept the 400 page manual. And if you're North Carolina, are you reading 400 pages from Bill Belichick? Why don't you just read those pages, take what he says, and then move on and get a younger coach, do what is his blueprint. So basically you're stealing his, material. Yeah, copy and paste, baby.

All right. NFL Rewind is up next, 1229. And believe it or not, 150 today. It's funny. Connor never complained about these things when he was handling this stuff. Oh, you did it behind my back, Connor? That's not very nice. It's a good poker face on the video we have them on. I went that Missouri sweatshrozen and get you from the Music City Bowl. America's Bowl game. 1229, Sports Talk 790. Welcome. Good afternoon.

The best sports lunch in H-town. Matt's really smart. He works hard. He has a good grasp of players. He's been around the game. You love him. We love him. So excited for the opportunity that Matt has in front of him, for sure.

This is the Matt Thomas show. A quick shout-outs. One to my good friend Grace, another friend of the show. Jay. They both have sent me photos of them enjoying. a McRib. And if you're a member of the McRib family,

you are welcome with open arms. The McRib family. And for McDonald's to not be giving me basically gift cards for America's

Greatest Sandwich is a crime because I continue to give you for publicity and people are taking pictures of them eating McRibbs. Inchaladas?

No. Tamales? No. Brisket? No. No. Brisket? Yes. McRib? Yes.

You're a sick human being. You disgust me. Yeah. Tamale, no. Enchalada, no. Alacado, no.

You know what? We're going to go get some good tamales. No, we're not. Well, first of all, we got to get some Korean barbecue. We need Korean barbecue. L.A.'s got cream barbecue every five seconds somewhere, too. Yeah. We're going to go to a, we're going to Korea Town.

Apparently, there was a Korean barbecue and massage parlor is also in the same vicinity. I thought of you'd ever, you ever had a massage with the Korean barbecue? Before or after? Yes. Time now for the Ross's NFL Rewind. Things that you made out of mess. You may have missed.

You probably didn't miss them, but we're rewinding. We're talking about it. We're talking some NFL here with how about that performance from Josh Allen on a Sunday. Davis in the backfield to the left of Allen and the shotgun hears the snap. Back to pass. Looking to the right side for Hollins. He's got it for the touchdown. What a beautiful throw by Josh Allen for a 21-yard touchdown hookup with the barefoot wonder.

The barefoot wonder. Did he do a bit of a bit of a rectory on that one? I like that. Three touchdowns passing, three touchdowns rushing, the first quarterback to ever do that in NFL history. But in a loss, Matt, who's your NFL MVP right now? Is it Josh Allen?

It's not Lamar Jackson right now. He's playing incredibly. They have a horrible defense. I think Alan and, but of course, they always go with the best. a record. Can Jared Golf sneak into this? Can he? I'm asking. What about Sequin Barkley?

How many yards do you need to be all-time rushing leader? He's on pace right now to pass Dickerson, but of course with an extra game. And by the way, Dickerson passed OJ with two extra games. Every Philadelphia receiver is throwing Jaylon Hertz under the bus.

So if you are so run heavy and he still can't be stopped, I'll go Sequin Barkley, Jared Gough, Josh Allen. 1, 2, 3, Lamar Jackson, 4. Ooh, okay. I mean, they're all really good players, and we'll see how it shakes up. But the bill's 10 and 3.

Matt Stafford and the L.A. Rams up to 7 and 6 after a very slow start to the season. NFC? Any kind of sense of contenders? Arizona's fraudulent. I'm not buying them. Seattle's one in that division. 8 and 5 right now, a game ahead of the Los Angeles Rams. Let's keep it going with the voodoo magic of the Kansas City.

Chiefs continuing all year long. The kick will come from Matthew Wright. This is for the division. For the Chiefs. It's the doink for the division for the Chiefs. Goodness. Look at Tariko getting the alliteration in there. A little doink for the division.

He's trying to sell T-shirts. All right, let me ask you this. This goes beyond football. Okay. The doink. The sound of the doink. Mm-hmm. On a monopoeoeia.

as they say. One of the three best sounds in sports? No. No, the doink is not. I'm going to open this up after NFL rewant. I want you all to think about this. The three best sounds in sports. Do you want me to give me off the top of my head real quick?

Save it for the next segment. Oh, look at this guy. I'm going to write mine down as you finish the report. Radio professional. Okay, so you're not going to pay attention to me at all. That's fine. Well, let's keep it going here on the NFL ReW. wind with, well, this week's

Texan's opponent. How well are they playing now? 26. Tuot, Tangle by a low, out of the shotgun, back to throw. Good for Texan. Tows. Towsdown Dolphins win. John Housmith. What a catch-and-throw.

John Hussmith. Holtz onto it. What a throw by Tua. Good night. Dolphins got a win. Four out of five wins for the Miami Dolphins, but some of those coming against the Jet Raiders, Patriots.

How are we feeling? Texans taking on the dolphins this weekend. I'm going to tell you that Sunday's game is going to be a shootout. Somebody has to score 30 to win the game. If I give you that, well, then it's going to be the dolphins. I trust the dolphins to score more 30 more than the Texans right now. But I think that Texans defense is going to be good.

I'm going to say by my statement. The team that wins this game needs to score 30 points. Okay. That means the Texans can't do it. Okay. That's what I'm going to go with. And I'm not going to make a prediction yet. It's too early in the week.

Okay. Well, let's keep it going on the rewind where we say, how about them, Cowboys? All right, here's the punt by Ryan Rico. Oh, got it. Ball is blocked. Can't touch it. When it's blocked beyond the line of scrimmage

and the Bengals are going to have it at the 45. Cowboys, not paying attention to the rules. they give up the ball there as the deflected punt goes past the line of scrimmage they touch it, don't receive it and that becomes a muff bingles ball

and then Jibar Chase gets a long touchdown from Joe Burrow as the Cincinnati Bengals are also not completely dead yet. Yeah but I had them winning the AFC this year and I feel terrible.

I don't think they're going to win the AFC I mean the clippers the charges need to completely fall off the map they basically have to Baltimore would have to lose a bunch of games. Okay, Baltimore remaining schedule, though. Go. Titans, at the Titans.

Win. Home for the Browns. Win. Home for the Broncos. Coin flip. At the Steelers, who might have already clinced a division and might not be alive for the first seat. They're going three and one, which you put them at what record? That would put them at eight and nine.

No, not the Ravens. I'm talking about the Bingles. The Bengals? Oh, that was a Bengals scandal juice game out? I'm sorry. Yeah, we're talking about the Bengals. Okay. I thought we were talking bingles. Okay.

Say them again. This is the bingles now. Okay. We're going to add Titans. Win. Home for the Browns. Win. Home for the Broncos. Coin flip. Coin flip. At the Steelers who may have nothing to play for.

Three and one, puts them in eight, nine. That's not enough. Yeah, they're going to have to win out basically at this point. They just go all four and out. And it still would have to have probably just a little bit of help. I mean, you start off the season one and four. You're going to run into this type of hole. And that's where the bingles are right now in the AFC, Matthew. Can you run through the Colts remaining three games?

Four games, excuse me? Yes, I can't. Hold on. Let me pull it up. I got it right here. I'm trying to think if the Texans go one and three the rest of the way. At the Broncos. Indianapolis at Denver. Loss.

Home for the Titans. Win. At the Giants. Win. Home for the Jaguars. Three and one. That's nine and eight. Now, the Texans would have to win

9, so the magic number is at 2. Yeah, they can do it. The Texans are still the AFC South champions. I would agree. Does the 9 and 8 team in the AFC get in the playoffs? Yeah, probably a multiple set of tiebreakers would have to main play there. I would think so.

Yeah, Ravens have eight wins as far as wild cards right now, as do the Chargers and Broncos. So maybe not. Maybe you have to get to 10, huh? Yeah. Okay. There you go. And that, my friends, is the NFL rewind.

You're welcome. With Beethoven in the background. Oh, such a good song. Watching people dance at this on Soul Train is one of the delights on YouTube. Okay. I can watch Soul Train YouTube clips for a long time. I assume they were doing bumps of cocaine live on Soul Train during this song. You know, they were doing, they had peace, they had love and they had so.

That's such an old reference, but. If you just loved the show like I did. If you're listening to this in the nursing home, you're appreciating that. It wasn't nursing home. Maybe a little older. Do we have any Soul Train fans listen to the show right now? Can one person call me and say, Matt, I used to watch Soul Train?

Maybe you know, we're going to come back and play one of the Soul Train theme songs. And we're going to open up a question to the audience. The three best sounds in sports. I believe the Doink is one of the best three. you're fighting me on this we'll have more details on this shortly 713 212 790 719 714 this is the matt thomas show at Ross and we appreciate you listen to sports talk 790 this is jennon green jane green jam for a three ball and he knocks it down this is the matt thomas show on sports talk 790 for your rockets Don Cornelia. I can guarantee you'll enjoy the ride,

especially if you like your soul, ice cold, because none other than the ice man himself is going to be looking you right dead in your eyes after this very important message. Hope to be dancing the clubs in Vegas of this song. When's the last time you walked into a club club? Club club? Bars.

Not a strip club, Matt. You're talking about bars or clubs? Not the booby trap in Miami. No, like a club club. people are clubbing buying bottles. Oh, God. It's been decades. Bars frequently.

Not that I'm on alcohol, but I'm just saying, I just don't. People like, let's go up a beer after an event or something. Yeah, all the time. Okay. But club, club, like you are dressing up. Yes. And like, will the girls get in free and they get their booze taking care of and the guys have got to pay $50 to get in and $25 for drinks?

Yes. Yes. No, it's been decades. I should have put up a 70s club Call it Matt Thomas's nice and easy Uh-huh You get free icy hot when you get in there Go defibrillators at every corner

That's not nice All right, the three best sounds in sports You ready? Go ahead Matthew The number one is the swish of a basketball goal We are on the same page That is my number one as well Number two The sound of a block punt

Oh use? I love it You're a weirdo. Yeah. And number three, a doink off the goalpost. Are you serious? Yeah, let's go with that. Over the crack of a bat on a home run. Oh.

To me, it's one, too, whichever order you want to put them. Go, the crack of the bat. Crack of the bat. You can hear a big crack of the bat, and it's like a pop fly. So maybe that's, because that's why Swish is number one to me, because a swish means a made bucket. Yeah. It is in there.

All right. Oh, man. block punt does sound good though it just does buy doink I got another one for one swish two crack of the bat three block punt I got another one for you the same sport go ahead pop of the glove on like a hundred mile an hour stretch eh nah

somebody says the top of the glove somebody says the ball the golf ball going into the cup that's decent that's not bad if I had a four spot I would go in there yeah what about a just a big hit in football big bone crunching hit That's a flag right after that. No, we're not doing that.

No. Now, if we're in the sixth grade, we're watching, yeah. They can be legal these days. You've got to leave with the shoulder. I'm not going to put it in my top five. Okay. I'm going swish of a three. Yeah, swish of a three is number one.

Crack of a bat. That's good. That's really good. And big hitting football, slight head of. You don't like the block punt? No. Oh, man, that's blocked. It's what I'm calling.

Block punt! He's going to take it back to the house for a touchdown. Or the Cowboys have touched it and give him the ball back. All right. Can I throw one in? Yes. Absolutely. When a hard shot, the puck hits off the post.

Oh, no. It clanks in? Yeah. Like a bar down shot. I thought you were going to say the crowd doing the wave around a stadium. I got off for tickets to see the Wild against the Mighty Ducks. Should I have gone to the game? Why didn't you?

Because it was in Anaheimps too far. It wasn't going to cost you anything? No. But it would cost me a big Uber ride down to Anaheim. They probably got a shuttle bus to Anaheim or something? From Beverly Hills? Yeah.

How far is that? You don't have bus routes from Beverly Hills to Anaheim. Sorry, Ross. A bus from Beverly Hills. I bet I'd find one. You cannot find a bus from Just get on the bus. Get on the white.

It's called Uber. Take a little public transit. It's not going to hurt you. I don't want to spend seven hours getting down there. It's 40 miles from there. This is four ways to travel via train. See all options. Too many options.

You didn't, was that, would that have been a good matchup to go see? The wild are really good and the ducks are really bad. Okay, so. What's the subway? Two hour ride, ten bucks. You only spend two hours each direction going to see the lousy ducks play in Anahe. Are they bad? Yeah, you just didn't know, listen, you just said the bucks sucks.

They're at the bottom of the west. You said the Mighty Ducks. So they're good. They're just right, they're just average ducks. Okay, I didn't, I don't know they're the mediocre ducks. They don't call themselves Mighty Ducks anymore. They think they're just Anaheim Ducks, right? Yes.

That's ridiculous. You've got to be mighty. It gets you on the subway. It'll be fine. There's no subways in Los Angeles. Yes, there is. No, there's not. Yeah, I mean, it's not a below ground.

Well, that's what subway means. It's the train. Okay, then you send the train. Subway would mean underground. Okay. You can take a train. But my philosophy is, once you get into Beverly Hills, you don't want to leave Beverly Hills.

Okay, well, then you didn't. It's the metro rail. Whatever you want to call it. All right. Well, it's just a subway. LA's calling it a subway. I'm calling it a subway. Okay.

So tell me again, your hockey hit is what now? When the shot hits the post? Chink. Oh, how about this? You have to look around and you're like, do they score or not? Oh, the players are celebrating. I guess they scored.

Let me ask you this. What's better to you an NFL doink or a soccer doink? Oh. Yeah, I'm throwing that in it for you. I'm throwing that in the mix, huh? How about that? You forgot about that. You forgot the back of the net?

Oh, man. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cross Marhead. No, no, no, I don't like that. I'm not talking about the back of the net bulging off of a crazy strike in soccer. That's got to be top five. You can't even hear that on TV, though.

Yes, you can. I totally agree with them. There are microphones back there. You're wrong. You hear the net? I've never heard the net. If it's a hard shot, well, you're not watching enough games. Yeah, Coddy or not.

If it's a hard shot, yeah, if it's trickling into the post, it's not going to bulge the net. But yeah, like a top shelf. Yeah, absolutely there's a sound. 100%. Have you heard the sound of a, a home run ball off a foul pole. How's that sound?

I don't want to, we don't need to talk about that. Howie Kendrick. That's true. Yeah, just put this back up. Put the song back up, make us feel better. It does. I'm telling you there are people on this town dancing right now of this song going.

God, I'm listening to great sports talk, anime, get my jam going. Perfect. That's what the bad time of the show with Ross is all about. Okay. You can cut a rock to this one, Connor, and you go to the club? Oh, yeah. Any tune. I don't think this comes on in the club.

Yeah, he can cut a rock. I'd do it, though. He can cut it right to anything. Yeah. That's how he rolls. Brooks and done? Oh, how's your two-step in game? I did go country line dancing not too long ago,

and it needs some work. There used to be a show on the National Network that would be on, like, at 3 o'clock every day, that you could go home and watch people line dance. I'm going to tell you a great way to meet ladies now. I know you're not in the market right now, Connor. You are no longer testing for agency. Yeah, go to two-step in.

dance class. You'll be swimming. That's what I did. Oh, back in the day or that's where you met this girl? No, I didn't be her there. I was with somebody else. And by the way, going to weddings is still a strong

game, correct? Well, yeah, but you can't just waltz into a wedding. You can't just sign up for a wedding. You can sign up for a dance class. Yeah, but you can get yourself invited to a wedding and find out how many girls are there looking for all. Somebody has to be getting married that you know. Okay.

We can always ask her a day. There's a girl on Twitter. It's always like, I'm going like five weddings in two months. Ask her out. so you can go and you need a date. Okay. I've crashed a wedding. You have it.

No, I have not. You have to do it sometime in your life. It was so much fun. I'm sorry. These people are celebrating the most happy day of their lives and I'm going to go ruin their party by just showing up. She didn't ruin it. I accentuated it. Nobody knows who I am.

I was 18 years old. I helped the party out. I would never be that. I'd never be that selfish. Oh, I wouldn't be that selfish. If you're going for the food and free booze, that's more selfish. You're just going to just say hello? Off of their congratulations.

You had some booze, didn't you? I did before him. You a liar. I did. Oh, before. I had the Sprite tequila slammers. Not a great combination, by the way. I don't even know what that is.

You take Sprite and you close up the cup and you Oh, you were 18 years. That is an 18 year old drink. That is an 18 year old drink. Oh, you still have 18 year old drinks and your, stop it. Not 18. All right. What is believing or not today?

I have no clue. All right. That's the setup for the final hour of the Matt Tava show at Ross. We're going to hear some comments from those speaking. at the winter meetings and I don't like the vibe from the local nine 12507 sports talk 790 launch timers this is the matt thomas show 101 on sports talk 790 it is the matt thomas show with ross we've got one hour left to go we would like for you guys to contribute and ladies as well at 713 212 5 790 7 1 3 212 5 790 uh we have tomorrow the rockets and

the Warriors playing in the knockout game of the NBA in-season tournament. The winner of that game goes about this. The winner of the game, Rossi, goes to Vegas to play the winner of Dallas, Oklahoma City. The loser of the Rockets Warriors goes to either Oklahoma City or Dallas for a Sunday game. That's not necessarily Penn House to Outhouse. Las Vegas to Oklahoma City? That's a pretty far drop. Yeah, it is.

Not that Oklahoma City is how to find town. Dallas. I'm sorry, Dallas. You suck. What? There are lots of parts of Dallas I like. Okay. Uptown.

Fantastic. Oh, let me guess. It's a nice part and there is a bunch of skanks with a lot of plastic surgery walking around. That's part of it. Sure. I don't think it's all of it, but, you know. I'm just saying, hang out with me in uptown Dallas and you'll be like, damn, it's a nice part of town. It's throwing it out there.

I'll take your word for it. Okay. But hopefully I won't worry about it. about that because they got like Gucci stores and well they have very physically fit women that run up and down the street and get their exercise the crisp air of the Dallas fort worth metroplex why do I care about that because it's a beautiful part of town of beautiful people they're beautiful people on river oaks okay you're saying like people bump it around on river rokes do you yeah you do really absolutely where are they where they're gonna be found anywhere all right I get you

all right that's one going on number two of the winter meetings are happening I don't even know where the winter meetings are I guess I should know that what city is are they in? I don't know. How do we not know this? This is terrible in our part. Let's just guess. They're going to be in Scottsdale.

No, I'm going to say Nashville. Let's take a look here. Where are the winter meetings? Every story doesn't have it. I mean, and then a secret location? I don't think so. Is it Dallas? Oh, it is in Dallas.

They chose, that's nothing. We don't get winter meetings here. Why does Dallas get everything? They get a TV show. First of all, here's what... Recognition. I'm not trying to be jealous of Dallas, but I'm frankly, I mean jealous of Dallas. They get the TV show.

Yes. They have the national championship game on a regular basis. I think if you go around. They get the fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. That's true. Well, Arlington did. But that's essentially the same thing. That's where the college football committee spent days in a hotel suite arguing.

I think if you go across the country and ask people to name a city in Texas, they will probably name Dallas before Houston. I would agree. I'm sorry. I would agree with that. I think Dallas gets a reputation of being a little more cosmopolitan than Houston is, but certainly more pretentious than Houston is. They have a bigger airport?

Easier to get to. I mean, it's American. It's got a huge hub there. But the people are all pretentious douches and the food and the people aren't as good. Food is not nearly as good in Dallas. I will guarantee you on that. They don't have like,

it's not like it's not like it's got rolling hills or stuff. It's a concrete jungle. It gets icier and snowier. Me and Chaz have gotten caught on an ice storm one time. Who's Chaz? Charlie Pallelilla, you swore about us? I'm surprised you forgot already. I have not.

Unfortunately, I was out of the country when Texas beat Syracuse. I forgot to text him. What else? Oh, they get, their bowl game is way more recognized than ours. Of course, it's got a legacy. What about the Texas Bowl for all of Texas? LSU and who is it again? Baylor?

Baylor. That should be well attended. Gordy's going to go, right? I've been smashed hammered at a Texas poll. It's a good time. Okay. What else? Maybe multiples.

Let's see. Yeah, I think AT&T Stadium just gets a lot. No one's worried about the future of AT&T Stadium. That bad boy is just built for long-term success. Well, I mean, when they try to open the roof, people nearly die, though. That's true. We just have panels that just drop, period, off of hurricanes. Oh, yeah.

All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. We're going to let you hear, I think, some, would you call it encouraging comments or not encouraging comments out of national media and also the local folks? 7-13-212-5-790. Dana Brown did speak yesterday to, I believe, MLB Network and also talk to the general media as well. We'll find out exactly what's going on with that. Let's talk to line number two and say hello to Jonathan on Sports Talk, 719.

Jonathan at 106. Good afternoon. What's up, brother, man? How's it going? We're amazing. Thank you for calling. So I called, gosh, I think it was like last week, maybe the week before I was doing my HOA runs. And we were doing your, shut your bum ass up. Yes. Because I was having to do a drive. And you had put forth the question of what does a typical HOA person make?

an HOA management company make. We make decent money, but the problem is we do the devil's work. I mean, I don't even tell people what I do. I just, people are like, what do you do for a living? I'm in property management. Love it. Very smart on your part. It is the most hated job in the entire world.

But we make good money to compensate for it. Thanks to all y'all paying for getting your fences replaced and having, to pay to get all your your ACC request done. That is what I do. But I wanted to put forth, you know, I've taken several trips to Dallas. I have good buddies that live in Dallas. The one thing I noticed about Dallas compared to Houston, and maybe this is the obvious, is they're so snobby.

They think that they're so much better that, I mean, that they're not even really a part of Texas. And maybe the old show Dallas had to do with some of that to kind of spark it off. But I just feel like every time I go to Dallas, I look at these people and I'm like, you guys aren't Texans. Our food is way better here. Honestly, our sports are way better here. You had the Rangers at one and then now they suck. I just, I feel like Dallas is like kind of a want to be Houston. But that's just me. I feel like every time I think of Dallas, I cringe.

We're driving to the family and I, we're taking a trip up to Kansas and we're driving. And I'm kind of the Clark W. Griswold. We're going to stop and go see the biggest ball of twine. That's just I get a kick out of that kind of stuff. But I'm planning on like driving through Dallas and not stopping at all. I have no desire. I love their barbecue.

But you know what? We have better barbecue here. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Jonathan. The man has disdain for Dallas. I got news free in Houston. I think you know this.

Nobody in Dallas wants to be Houston. And that's fine by me, but they're not, there's zero envy of Houston, Texas. Because they're pretentious. Correct. And that's what pretentious people do. They think their world's the best. And that's what they think in Dallas.

Yeah. I've worked with you. You're fairly pretentious. You never want to be me. Excuse me? I'm down to earth. Out of the two of us at least. They call me Mr. Down to Earth. They call you high horse mat. No, they don't. They don't. They call me Mr. Practical. Mr. A man about town.

A diamond mat. Fancy mat. High horse mat. It's fine. But there's nobody in Dallas that says, man, Houston's got it better. Okay. That's fine. Let them. But sports success? Lex lean goes to Dallas. Well, just the Cowboys.

Well, the Rangers won World Series two years ago. Astros have two. Stars. SMU is playing in the football playoffs. Stop. Nobody cares about it. Southern Millionaire's University over there. You better.

They might be the most successful. They may be, I got Texas and A&M is one, two, with NIL money. I think Texas is probably three better. SMU is going to be four. Rossi, SMU ain't going anywhere. They're going to have a lot of cash. Where's your age and all this? Come on now.

Big 12. Let's go. We don't have that kind of cash. We just don't. I heard there are resources close to, well, everyone are saying they're going after Conner Wegman. Sounds good. Is that an improvement? Now, I've not talked to his dad in 35 years. Well, now's the time.

You think I should? Make him an offer he can't refuse. Yeah. Tell him to get the Connor Wegman show sponsored. Weekly with Weggs? I like that. Okay, and that's another one I could sit out. I like this.

You're also going to sit segments out. Coach Willie Fritz on the show. You got this one, Matt. I'll see you later. I'm going to go right. Believe it or not. You never come out with Roto anymore? I mean, I could.

But you just do such a great job, Matt. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. All right. Comments from Dallas and the winter meetings in a moment. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Believe it or not, today is all things about Juan Soto. and whether he picked up an extra $25 million. He's a little preview for you, folks. He's only 26. There's not a lot of interest in things. It's going to be a lot of knots on that. I'm going to put a few believe it's in there just to balance it out for you. By the way, do you see that the Mets are giving him a suite every year?

He's going to go in there instead of the duck out? No, for his family and friends. Okay, that's good. No, he's going to have a day off. You know what, I don't feel like being there. Let's, you know. He's going to crush some nachos in the suite. Yeah.

Strangest thing happened to me, my first year doing the Rockets game, a friend of mine who didn't understand. understand the being the voice, the team means you're the voice of every game. Yeah. He said, can you kick a day off and come sit with us in a stands? No, I can't. No, it's not possible. I mean, you could.

All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Comments about what's happening at the winter meetings when it comes to the Astros. After I tell you about big city wings, delicious wings, amazing sandwiches. And buy one, get one free on the big wings. wings today. Bone in or boneless. You want delicious wings, sauce and toss with a variety of sauces.

We like the hot garlic. We like the ranch. Salcrum and onion is good. The terriaki. And my oldest son still likes barbecue wings because he's 11 years old. It's ridiculous. Big on wings, big on specials, big on gift cards. For every $25 in Big City Wing gift cards, you get $5 in bonus gift cards back. It's a great plan. 13 Houston locations. I go the one in Kingwood. We go to Otaskacetia sometimes, but there are locations all around the Houston area. So please find one near you and enjoy. Buy one, get one free wings today. Bone and her boneless at Big City Wings and Big City Wings.com. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 790.

118 on Sports Talk 790. All right. I'm going to play some sound from you from the winter meetings in Dallas and you're going to tell me how you're feeling because I ain't feeling great. Here is Dana Brown on remaining in the Alex Breggman

stays in Houston sweepstakes. Yeah, a combination of all of the above. I had mentioned in the past that we won't take anything off the table in terms of improving this club. And if we get the opportunity to, you know, trade,

if we feel like this is a good fit, we'll make that trade. you know, whatever that opportunity is, we'll definitely do it if it means improving the club. That wasn't the comment on that, on Bregman, I don't think. That was on maybe moving Tucker and or Alvarez, not Alvarez, but from Berbeldez. Yeah, the cuts that we have don't have much Bregman talk, unfortunately. Okay. For whatever reason.

He was just saying he's not taking anything off the table, whether he's looking to do sign free agents or trades. think he has that quote memorized in his memory banks yeah I think so Dana Brown's you know it'll be cool if he walked in a room took his right fist of it I will do whatever it takes

to make sure Alex Spragman is still a Houston Astro then he would still have been and they would have signed him in the off season or I mean in spring training so you're saying what I just said is not going to happen no no here's John Paul is it John Marozy or John Marozy

They get rid of the John Paul? I think, yeah. Good, John Paul or JP. Remember, he's not had a great year when it comes to his... Didn't he get dismissed by some people for some bad? Yeah, he took over for Bob Nightingill as the worst national guy. Yeah. I believe what he says here, though.

Go ahead. But let me tell you why there's at least some chance of a trade involving Kyle Tucker. The overall free agent prices right now are quite high. And the number of teams with a great capacity to add high dollar free agents is relatively small, which means trade candidates like Tucker, even those entering his final year before free agency, are more valuable than ever. And you just saw on that board a moment ago where Kyle Tucker stands among the preeminent sluggers in baseball. He actually had a higher adjustment.

OPS than Juan Soto in 2024. Now he played in half as many games, to be clear. He was injured. He had the stress reaction in his shin. So that is the health piece of it and how many games he'll play is a real consideration here. He is not Juan Soto. But when you think about the Yankees' interest in Tucker, he could help them replace the production they lost in Juan Soto. And for that reason, and Dana Brown acknowledging yesterday that he'll listen on everybody, including Tucker and Framberra. Valdez definitely got the attention, Lauren, of a lot of people in this lobby.

Did you hear the back third of that? Could the Yankees be calling the Astros for Kyle Tucker? Rossi, if that happens, it'll be World War III in this town. If they signed Bregman and trade for Kyle Tucker? Training Tucker, frankly, probably is the smart decision to make. You can't trade him to New York. You'd probably prefer to not trade him. Not prefer.

You can't do it. No, I'm saying in the American League at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. You can swallow it if it's, say, Cleveland. If you were making a move and sending him to, say, Kansas City or Detroit, you could somewhat live with that.

Rossi, you can, there's no way, there's no way Dan and Brown, there's no way Jim Crane's allowing Kyle Tucker to be trade to the Yankees. I wouldn't think so. That would be pretty shocking. I think you would try to stay away from the American League at all costs and then stay away from actual American League contenders. But also, I mean, who else is going to want to trade for him for one year, save for contenders?

Okay, let's roll play this again because we do a lot of them to show. Okay. You're Dana Brown. Dana. You're telling me the best. Who are you? I'm going to let you be Dana. Okay. But who are you?

Just general guy. A Jim Crane or general guy? I'm going to be a reporter. Okay, you're a reporter. I'm Chandler McTaggart. Okay. I like that. I'd rather you be Brian Rome.

Okay, come me Brian Rome. It's fine. How in the world can you make a move and send your best player, your second best player, everyday player, to a team that is legitimately going to come up to you to win the America League pennant for like seven or eight years? Well, it's obviously not an ideal situation to have to trade Kyle Tucker anywhere, but we also had to look objectively at the best offer. and figure that even though it's going to be one year with the Yankees and we're taking a step back, that he's going to hopefully sign long term somewhere

else. And in the meantime, within a couple of years, with these prospects that we're getting back with some guys that we love, that we'll be back contending as soon as possible. But it's the Yankees. Well, look, the Yankees have a lot of history. They made us the best offer. And my job as general manager

is to regardless of how we feel about certain things and the rival with the Yankees over the years is to go with getting the absolute best package back for Kyle Tucker that we could, and that's what the Yankees presented. All right, so let me ask you this. Now off character here. Okay.

Does Kyle Tucker go to the Yankees for one year? How long was Juan Soto a New York Yankee? One year? Ooh, so there is a little bit of precedent doing that. It was one year, right? Yeah. Gets traded from San Diego to the Yankees, and then he

leaves... Ooh. Those prospects, that the Padres got back, I can't remember all that they were like impact players. They were helping the Padres team. Here's the strange part of it. You can't go to Kyle Tucker and say,

Kyle, we want to move you to a particular team. He can't say, well, all right, if you send me to the Yankees, I'll sign a long-term deal with them. Because guess what the Astros would do? The Astros would tell the Yankees, he's going to sign with you. Don't worry about it.

it. And then that means the Yankees would then low ball an offer to him because they already knew that the Astros told him the Yankees were going to, that Kyle Tucker wanted to be a Yankee. If you're Kyle Tucker, you can't say a word about where you want to go. You want as many bidders as possible, knowing that at the end of the day, it's going to be the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cubs, the Red Sox, the really, really rich franchises. He doesn't have a say early anyways. But if you're the Yankees, you can't do two straight years of Superstar Outfielder and not getting both them to stay, right? Probably not. According to Fangraphs, number nine farm system is, I'm sorry, excuse me, number eight is the Yankees.

Don't ask me where the Aster. So let me ask you, the Aster, I'm going to ask you because I know the answer. The Aster, the Yankees spend more money than God, and they have the eighth best farm system in baseball. Yeah. It's pretty good. Dodgers are second. Yeah.

Get the reset button. Houston, listen to me very carefully. Please allow Dana to move Kyle Tucker and Yaron-Anne-Alvarez. Short-term pain for long-term pleasure, Rossi. Okay. I'm with you. You're with me on this. You're not arguing.

Astros are 29th on this list. How many years are we going to be bottom five in minor league? I mean, it feels like for like seven or eight, it's like, frankly, since Lunoz left. Yeah. I mean, when are we going to get into the 20s? Like the early 20s. The low 20s. I mean, I would die to be the 19th best

minor league system in baseball. I feel like in the last 7 or 8 years it's been 27, 28, 29, or 30. Yeah, the post-dealine... Where are the Astros on this one? Oh, they're 30th. In what?

Post-dealine ranking by MLB.com. God, dang it. McTagger let that happen. Yeah, it's Brian McTaggart's fault. I can't think of anybody else to blame. Well, let me ask you this. It's not because here's the reality is, you know why it's post-30th?

Because guess what they did? Jake Bloss was considered a prospect. You moved him. Joey Lopofito was considered a prospect. Joey Lopofito. And you moved him. You moved to Zach Nenzo into the major leg lineup. Shea Wickham,

who wasn't really considered a high-end prospect, but you moved him. You've taken four players from your minor league system and one's what two of them are with different teams and two of them are on the major league level. No wonder your system can't get out of the bottom five. You're using them all the time. But I'm telling you,

if the Dodgers and the Yankees have top 10 minor league programs, that should be a massive alarm to the Astros as an organization. that those two teams that spend religiously and don't care about what's left have high-end prospects they can give to other teams. So you know what? I'm changing my tune, Ross. The Yankees want to trade for Kyle Tucker on a one-year grab with no guarantee that Kyle would resign with the Yankees? Bite the bullet.

Bite the bullet, take the prospects, and boo the hell on them for one year. Yeah, and as Mike is pointing out on Twitter, also traded away a couple of top 100 guys for Justin. Verlender. Oh, that's right. Well, the JV sweepstakes have kind of cooled. I haven't not heard word one of them out of the winter meetings. Yeah, we're good. All right. 128, Sports Talk, 790. It is the Matt Thomas show 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Believe it or not today, all things Juan Soto. And I owe you some believe-its. It's fine. Oh, I can handle it. All right. Let's say about Two Creeks Crossing Resort,

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Go to Two Creeks Crossing Resort.com. We'll be able to get 40% off of your rentals, 20% off rentals on RV sites as well. So if you want a waterfront cabin, if you want a glamping tent, if you want a year, in those facilities, you've never heard of them before? I went and looked inside these glamping tents. They are huge. Modern amenities, refrigerators and stoves and microwaves and Wi-Fi and plenty of space for you, the wife and the kids.

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Real pale Texans talk continues on the Matt Thomas show. What up? What up? Carter, we got some nice prizes just dropping the prize vault for believe it or not today coming up in about 15 minutes from now. We do. Yes. Yeah. We just had tickets outed to Nellie and Jermaine Dupree and Eve coming up. How many of those songs of those three artists do I have on my iPhone? Probably, you got a Nelly song, you got hot in there?

Hot in here. You like that song? Bras, what do you think? Probably not. That'd be zero. What about matter up? It's a jam. That's actually not a bad song. You know that one?

There's no way. You got Air Force 1s up in that bad boy? Better up. You don't know it. It uses the Jefferson's theme in it. That's what I'm saying. I know. Oh, okay.

So you do know. Better up. Fish don't fry. In the grill. Yeah, beans don't burn on the grill. Beans don't burn on the grill. Yeah, batter up's good song. We're going to play some batter up coming back next.

We also got tickets to go see the Transyrian Orchestra. Yeah, everybody cares about that. I would like to see Nellie with the Transibbean Orchestra. We could. Yeah, that'd be nice. That'd be a good show. Let's talk to the people here. Doug, whether it's hit 135 on 7.

I'm gonnae. Hi, Doug. Hey, Matt, Cougar, brethren. I've got a small bone to pick you, and I love you and Ross. Oh, uh-oh. Uh-oh. What would you wrong? I can't have you mad at me. I called you guys before the Kukuchi trade,

and I said it would be prudent for the asteros to trade Kyle Tucker. I said, Graham, he's a great player, but you're not going to be able to resign him. And his past performance, the last two playoffs was dismal at best. And we argued about that. And you guys both said, A, I was crazy. B, you need him to get to the World Series.

Well, he went hitless in the playoffs against the Tigers. And now all of a sudden, you guys are abdicating or actually agreeing that we should trade them. So I just wanted to put that out there. Okay. Let me, let me, hold on a second. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Here's where I think there's a little bit of failure to communicate. Doug, I've been saying for two years that Kyle Tucker was not going to resign with the Astros.

Correct. I agree. So I don't remember saying, let's wait it out and see if he changes his mind. Well, what happened was after I called, then you had some guy at Jim Rown Warnaby who has no idea where South Padre Island is to basically say I was insane for suggesting that we even trade Tucker. Tucker is a great player, but like we both said, they're not going to resign them. And I'd be curious to see what they can get for them now, which you could have got a heck of a lot more before the Kakucci trade. but I agree with you and Ross and was my initial statement

I think you have to trade them. The question then becomes Doug and thank you for the phone call and we appreciate the good banter. If Bregman all of a sudden has a change of heart, does that make you change your heart about trying to move Tucker?

I think so. I think it does. If Breggman stays, yeah, you try to keep, you've got to tape things together and go for another championship to show which it sounds like they want to do anyways. But trading him,

trading Tucker before the deadline would have been crazy. I'll stick with that. If I said he was crazy, I probably did. Oh, yeah. Do you say Tanger last year at the deadline? No, this year at this deadline. Oh, no, okay.

No, I... That would be ridiculous because they were trying to win a World Series. Yeah. No, this past deadline, you don't make the move. You make the move now, and I certainly don't think you do it in the middle of the season, because what are you doing? You're just going to... Are you just going to hurt your opportunities to get better prospects from maybe the Yankees?

Possibly the Yankees who have one of the better farm systems, and baseball. Did you have a list of the top seven baseball's farm systems? I did earlier. Even the 29th best farm system of 30 still has prospects. You know what I'm saying? Just because you're a top-end system doesn't mean you're willing to give it up. Yeah, that's true.

So give me the top five. Okay, hold on. Astros 30th. Okay, go north. Hit the toggle up. Number five, should I do this in order? Yeah, go ahead. Well, this is MLB.com. FangGravs has Dodgers at number two.

NYB.com has them at five. The Dodgers Five, Guardians, four. Tradeable, tradable, tradeable. Orioes three. It's all American League. Oh, this is terrible. Give me the top National League team, Dodgers. Number two and Ray's number one. Okay, Ray's aren't paying for it. Twins aren't paying for him. Tigers number six.

Oh, God. There's the... Wait, am I on the American League rankings? Red Sox number seven. Cubs are the top National League team at eight on this list. Eight of the top ten they have in the American League. That should further tell you. Trade him. He's not coming back.

Well, they have the Yankees here much lower than Fangraphs does. The Yankees, they have 18th. They're eighth on the Fangraphs list. Because it's subject. Once from August and ones, yeah, who knows. Yeah. But the bottom line is you've just explained to the audience that the upper half of major league baseball teams,

minor league systems, meaning the pipelines they use to replenish players, is primarily dominated by America League teams. And last time I checked, the Astros are trying to beat American League teams. Yes. Fangraph, I mean, I'm sorry, Bleacher Report did an end-of-the-season rankings. And, well, they have Mariners number one. Is this from this year? No way.

Sorry. You just rattle along, aren't you? And this is what the 2024 season gone. They have the Astros. The good news is they have the Astros in 24th. Yes, it is. I put them in the bottom third as compared to the bottom three. They have two Tier 1 listed as Tier 1 prospects in the Astro system.

I imagine you can guess the names of both of them. Melton and Matthews. Correcto. And it sounds like to me neither one are going to be ready for the start of this year. Probably not. They have six listed in Tier 1 for the Mariners. who they have as the best farm system. Now remember, just because you have all these prospects,

doesn't mean they're going to wind up playing for you. You're going to want to be using them as trade chips. Correct. So even if they don't, because here's the thing, you need to get prospects so you can use them for other deals. That was the biggest problem with the Astros is that it was so painful with them at the trade deadline, Ross, because they didn't have the prospects.

And you had to give away what you had because people realized your system wasn't great. Yeah, it's no breaking news. Building up the farm system is good for the major, Glovel and it's good for trade chips. I mean, that's what Dana Brown is tasked with doing. Alex on 790 at 141. Hi, Alex. What's going on, guys?

So, like, I think it was a year or so ago, whenever I heard that Kyle Tucker was at the winter trade meetings, I was like immediately this guy's gone. There's no reason for a player to be there if he's not trying to talk to people, right? So I kind of

accepted that he's been gone for a while and it's, I mean, it's only a matter of time until it actually happens. But what I think is hilarious is Yankee fans. I don't know if y'all follow Frankie's too loud on Twitter. He's like the king of Yankee fans on Twitter. They have this thing where whenever a player that they want is coming up to be a free agent, they all get real quiet, and they don't have anything bad to say about him all of a sudden. And then they get him, and then he's the greatest thing in the world.

And they're like, oh, we're going to win everything now. This is the best. Well, they lost Soto, and now they're all turning heel on them. And Frankie was commenting on this article that Jeff Passen just put out, or an interview that he just did with, I guess, Buster Only. And now the new popular thing is that Yankee fans are speculating on Soto's actual age. They don't believe that he's actually 26. And it's just, it's like clockwork, man.

Every single time, every single time this happens. They turn heel, and it's the funniest thing. And also the Mets are idiots. There's no way. There's no way Soto's worth that much money and certainly not that many years. That's crazy. I can't wait to see the fall and burn. Both of those teams, the window has closed on the Yankees,

and the Mets are going to find out. They're going to find out what's up. Because if you're spending that much on one guy, the Dodgers have almost a higher payroll, but not even close. And they won the World Series. There's no way that the Mets are going to be able to accommodate it. this. So I just want to hear what you all have. Thank you, Alex. I'm going to go to this again.

I feel like I ask you this six times a year. Give me a superstar, ridiculous amounts of money that was worth it. Is it? Garrick Cole? Is it Garik? Is it Bryce Harper? It's a really short list. Francisco Indoor led the National League and wins above the replacement this year. He's on a big deal.

Fernando Tatis was good, but he's been PD suspended. Machado has been very good. a big part of the Padres team. Okay, so what would you, let's put the percentages at it. For every one of the, every 10 moves made by teams that pay, Dodgers aren't regretting the Otani deal right now?

Who was the, who was the Ranger that was, that was a former Dodger that came over to the Rangers to help them win the World Series? Corey Seeger. Corey Seeger was great in 2023 and they won the World Series. I don't think they're regretting that deal. He did regress last year. Yeah. But he's

on a big 10 year deal. I'm just pulling up Here, I got the largest deals in Major League Baseball history, longest. Yeah. So at 0-1. We'll see. Okay. Judge, I don't think the Yankees are regretting that deal right now. His postseason wasn't great. That's true.

Bryce Harper? No. Corey Seeger? No. I don't think the Ranger. Yoshinobu Yamamoto. With the Dodgers? Excuse me? What?

Yeah, with the Dodgers. He was fantastic for them all year, and it was good when he was healthy in the playoffs. Garret Cole number seven, I would say no, they're not regretting that. Mani Machado, probably, I don't know, I don't think so. Trey Turner or the Phillies. Sandra Bogart's with the Padres, 11 years, 280 million, 280. That's kind of not a great deal right now. Okay, so let's put it this way.

I would say four out of every 10, why not being good value? But also, these deals are, they're supposed to be good deals right now. In 10 years is when they're supposed to be bad. So we look at five years from. now, then we should have a better... That's why the Albert Pooleuels decision was so bad. That's why the Angels going

for... Anthony Rendon deal has turned out to be so bad. Anthony Rendon deal has been a disaster. The Kevin Brown deal with the Dodgers wind up being a lot of money. And the Miguel Cabrera deal was terrible for the... Adrian Beltrane Beltray? Crazy money towards the end? Yeah. There have been some. And frankly, Mike

Trot probably was overpaid. Not because of his ability, but just his inability to stay on the field. We'll see how the raised feel about that Wander Franco deal. All right. Let's play, believe it or not, next. 145 is our time. The topic today is Juan Soto. Ross is going to busily work on that after he tells you about one of his fine seven-hunting sponsors. After I busily tell you, where you need to go ahead and

get the ball rolling, even before the new year starts. How about you can get your testosterone evaluated, then get the people that are going to give you advanced therapy rather than the basic stuff you're going to get other providers and then that way you can get the ball rolling before new year. That's why you need to go to synergenicshealth.com. If you've been feeling like the muscle tone hasn't been there, you're plateauing in workouts, motivation, libido, all this stuff, you're slowing down. What is going on? Cinergenics, testosterone, and weight loss clinics all over town. The personalized plan,

they're also experts with GLP1 weight loss. You can be evaluated for prescription weight loss medications there as well. Do it now. Do not wait. Book your appointment at centergenicshealth.com. That's S-Y-N-E-R, GenX-Health.com. CinergenicsHealth.com The Rockets coming alive from deep. Hey, everybody. This is Craig Ackerman from the Rockets broadcast team. Thankfully, and finally, I am socially distancing myself from Matt Thomas.

Wait bye to your cash cow, because it's leaving the pasture. Now back to your show. Five minutes remaining in the program, what should we do? We should play. America's fastest growing sports radio game show who simply called it be, believe it or not, and here's how it works. You call 713212-570.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's, believe it or not, is all things about Juan Soto. I'll read your statement about one. It's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. The statement's the erroneous full of bunk a minute,

you'll say this. Two believe or nots in a row, and all things about Juan Soto wins you a nice prize today. What do we have in the vault, Connor D. McGovern. We've got a pair of tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on the Lost Christmas Eve Tour December 26 at the Toyota Center. A pair of tickets to see Nelly and Jal Rule, a special guest Eve and Jermaine Dupree live on the Where the Party Out Tour, September 4th, the Williams Pavilion, and some 790 T-shirts. Bill, you're excited about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, aren't you?

No, sir, Nellet, baby, and I'm just getting hot in here, so give me these tickets. Juan Soto is the youngest player to hit 38 or more home runs for two organizations, the National National. and the Padres, believe it or not. My spirit has been telling me to say believe it, so believe it. You're not going by. Ross, that sounded really good, by the way. Nice job by you. Let's go to Kevin on 790.

Kevin, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Growing up, Juan Soto's favorite player was fellow Dominican Albert Pooholz. Believe it or not? Not. Yeah, it was Robinson Cano. Statement number two for the win. Juan Soto hit a 442 foot.

Let me try that again. Juan Soto hit a 442 foot home run in his first major league start. Believe it or not. 442. Believe it. Yes. You're winning. Congratulations.

All right. Sean on 7.19. Sean, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? You Matt Thomas. Juan Soto completely changes his stance and the way he holds the bat when he gets to two strikes. Believe it or not. not he does he does I didn't watch his games

duh he did say I was favorite part of the show that's nice Davis on 790 ready to play believe it or not Juan Soto's an avid fan of playing Dominoes and says it's his favorite game to play in the clubhouse

believe it or not believe it he loves Domino's Damon number two for the win when he was 20 years old Juan Soto turned down big sponsorship opportunities with Adidas and Pepsico due to being uncomfortable

was speaking English publicly. Believe it or not? Not. That is also correct. Congratulations. Brian on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Juan Soto is the youngest player to ever hit a home run in the world series. Believe it or not? Believe it.

No, is Andrew Jones. JP on 790, JP, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? As always, you and all the wonderful people that have to see, station, my brother. I love that rocket stock. Juan Soto's younger brother, Elion, is that how we say it? Elion? Is a position player in the Washington National's

Farm System, Alien. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yeah, that's right. Thank you very much. Nice words. You win a prize. Ross just brought me slippers from the plane. This is maybe the nicest thing you've ever given to me ever in my entire life. And for that, I thank you. All right, let me remind you.

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We got the nightcap tonight? You don't know. You don't even do the show anymore. You're so checked out on that show. Sorry. Yeah, whatever. two guys that never check out are Wexler and Clayton. They're up next with

the A team and they're going to entertain you between now and six o'clock right here on Sports Talk, Sepadite.