The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Discusses Astros Off-Season

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Brian Bogusevic Discusses Astros Off-Season

And we are so happy to have with us for another season of Astro Spring Training Conversation and regular season for the next hopefully 26, 27 weeks. We saw how to Brian Bogus Evic, Space City Home Network. Boggi, it's Matt Ross. Great to have you back. How are you enjoying the WBC? Well, it's good to be back. I like it.

I think it's fun. It's really nice, especially this time of year when the novelty of spring training is wearing off a little bit to see meaningful baseball. And every once in a while it kind of gets the feeling of playoff baseball and high stakes. So, yeah, it's a fun tournament. It's obviously new compared to most international tournaments, so it's not the same juice as the Olympics or the World Cup or whatever. But it's fun, and guys play hard, which is enjoyable.

What do you do to, do you ramp down or do you try, you obviously don't want to maintain because the spring training game on March the 20, if against the Marlins would not have the zest that a world baseball classic game would be. So if you were in that locker room, in that clubhouse, talking to those guys, how do they get themselves from the emotions of this big event to getting back into, hey, we've got a regular season that counts in a week and a half, and we need to take it down a notch, then ranch it back up again? It's hard to figure because we've only had a handful of these tournaments, so there is really

no best practices and protocols for it. I think, you know, if you get through it to that point and you've played that many games at that high of an intensity, you should be pretty much game ready and you're stretched out. You're playing these guys for the most part playing full games. So I guess give a little bit of a buffer a couple of days to relax and unwind a little bit and let anything recover that needs to recover. But then just try to roll into it. I mean, you're not going to replicate those kind of reps the last week of spring. training. So try to keep the timing that you've that you've gained and kind of try to try to

get your body ready to go day one. But I would imagine that they're there pretty much where they would want to be coming out of spring training. So you just kind of just kind of try to hold on. All right. So let me go from the other side of things here. What is the club like the teams? And again, there's just a few players gone here and there. But how do you think Joe and other managers in baseball have worked around this because they're trying for the end goal to get their team ready for the start of the regular season. Yeah, there's two sides of it, I think. I think the first side is everybody likes this.

Everybody likes, you know, full competition as opposed to exhibition setting. And they like the international play, and it's a good tournament. It grows a game. Everybody's on board with the tournament. So they do, you know, they help guys out a lot. They got some of these younger guys more reps in the first week of spring training than maybe they would have gotten to get them ready and up to speed for the WBC. But the other side of it is, is, hey, we've got a regular season to play,

and it's a long season, and we need these guys, and you're kind of just biting your nails as they're gone and hoping that you get them back healthy and ready to go. I mean, that's the downside to any kind of exhibition tournament, and certainly one that is happening, you know, a couple of weeks before the regular season starts is we can't afford to have any major injury. So, yes, you enjoy it and you watch it and you want your guys to do well and you want to grow the game. But at the same time, it's like just get our guys back healthy so we can move on to the regular season. Brian Bogos Civic with us here on 790.

Let's get to the Astros now. The number one story conversation piece this offseason was the congested infield and maybe the last. of quality or at least experienced bats in the outfield that might remedy itself early on, especially if Jeremy Pena is not going to be ready for the start of the season. You can move to parades to third move over Correa to shortstop. As you've seen it over the last five months, talk if you can from a macro view of things of how this thing has turned out. And if everybody eventually gets healthy, which hopefully will be the case,

how does Joe Espada navigate these waters? It's difficult because you're talking about five guys for four spots, but it's also five of the six best hitters on your team, guys who you want and need in the lineup every day. And, you know, I think what's happened here early with the pain of the injury is it's a good lesson on not doing things until you have to do them. You know, everybody all offseason is talking about a trade needs to be made. and throwing around names and everything. But over the course of the season, things tend to work themselves out and situations change. And we see that here quickly, although, you know, fingers crossed, it's not going to last very long into the regular season. But, you know, I think there are going to be, I think there's no one set answer, right?

It's not a at bat share at first base. It's not somebody moving to the outfield full time. I think it's a lot of everything, and over the course of time, you'll see these guys, these five guys in the lineup together almost every day, whether it's, you know, being able to mix in Yordan and the outfield occasionally to open up a DH spot or a regularly scheduled off day for a Karea or a walker where Paredes can slide into the corner. And just kind of enough everywhere to satisfy. that's got to be the long-term answer because that gets the most out of these guys who you need.

I don't think we're going to see a single set solution to this anytime soon. And I don't think you need to just because over the course of the next six months, there are going to be various times when guys are banged up or struggling or somebody is okay moving to one position or the next that it's going to be able to kind of work itself out organically. Moving to the outfield, especially on the young guys. I'm curious, I don't know how much hands-on looks you've been able to get so far this spring, but Cam Smith has been hitting a little bit and what you've seen out of Zach Cole, who's struggling some, and then maybe somewhere in between Joey Loprofito.

Yeah, I think, first and foremost, I think what we've seen from Cam Smith is very encouraging. you know, how many times last year were we talking about adjustments that he was making during the course of the season? And a lot of it had to do with getting the bat head out more consistently, catching the ball out front, being able to drive the ball in the middle of the field and on the pole side. And we've seen it. His setup is a little bit different. It's kind of the way he's holding his bat is flattened out. He's got a little bit more rhythm in his start.

And, you know, he hit a home run, I guess two, three days ago now that was just a bullet to his pull side, which he didn't do a single time in spring training last year. With all the production that he had, all the hits, all the home runs that he had in spring training last year, he never pulled the ball in the air like that. So he's making the strides that we want to see him make. And if he can do that more consistently, what we saw from him last year, he has good enough back to ball skills. He has really good instincts in the outfield.

If he can start driving the ball more than just pencil him into right field every day, And we're seeing good signs early from him. Zach Cole, he looks like he's caught in between an approach. You know, he's a guy who had really good results swinging the bat a lot. And kind of the thought was, hey, you need to tighten up the approach a little bit to be able to have that success continue over the course of time. And he looks like he's caught in between being patient and being aggressive and isn't really getting either right now. So that's going to have to work it, you know, he's going to have to work through that. And, you know, at bats and time will allow him to do that.

The question is, is that time going to happen in spring training? Is it going to happen in the big leagues to start the year or is it going to take some minor league at bats? I like what I've seen from Loperfito. I mean, he's driven the ball to all fields. You know, he's, he had some strikeouts early, but he's tightened it up a little bit. What he did, you know, he had 100 at bats or so in Toronto last year, his strikeout numbers were way to down. His contact numbers were way better. And that was always the question with him when he was here. We like the bat. We like the power. Is he going to make enough contact for it to show?

There are legit signs of it going in the right direction. So he might play his way into a lot of that bats in left field to start the season. I like what I've seen from him. And Taylor Schumel as well. He's kind of guy that I think we forgot about him a little bit. But this time last year, he was a guy who we thought would maybe play a significant role before, you know, injuries derailed most of the season. Brian Bogusevic with us here on Sports Talk 790 to the pitching side. Can you temper my enthusiasm for Mike Burroughs or should I just be all-systems go and get excited about his spring?

I'm with you. I mean, it's not just what he's shown, you know, on the mound. And this stuff looks great. I mean, fastball is a more power fastball than I thought it was going to be. The change-ups great. The sliders look really good. But it's the demeanor. You know, a guy who doesn't have a ton of major league experience, he got about half a

season's worth of starts last year, gets traded over to a new team. I was kind of expecting a guy who was, you know, a little bit giddy and happy to be here. And all that. Like, he looks like he is all business and, like, just put some real competition. in front of me and I'm ready to run through some teams. He has been really impressive and I think a guy who it was thought maybe, oh, he'll solidify the middle of the rotation. It's looking like he can ascend to the top of a rotation.

I like everything that I've seen from him and he seems to be getting stronger as the spring goes on and just like he's chomping at the bit. We have 8 million more questions for him. We'll leave with one here before we get two next. week's visit, how short of a leash going back to the outfield do you think that Zach and Cam have? And does that mean a guy like Bryce Matthews squeezes in the roster playing some center field moving guys around?

And how much Yorna Alvarez do you want to see in the outfield, at least maybe in the first two or three weeks of the season? Yeah, I think, so I think the leash for Cam is probably going to be a little bit longer just because of the ceiling is higher. And so he's going to get more of an opportunity to become that player at the big league level. I think for everybody else, Lopoito, Cole, all those guys, I think it's going to be a short leash because there's going to be a lot of options. And there's going to be a lot of guys that can be plugged in if you're not producing. So, you know, somebody is going to take that job over the course of the next two weeks, but it's not going to be their.

until it's not. You know, it's going to be there until they prove otherwise. So that will be a short leash. And, you know, Yoron, they don't want to do it, but it just might turn into a situation where you've got to if that is just, you know, every once in a while at home with the small left field so he doesn't have to run a lot or if it becomes a little bit more regular.

I think it's something that, look, this is not me saying I know anything, but it's got to be something that's in the back of their minds of like, hey, if all else fails, we can put Yordon out there every once in a while or, you know, 50% of the time or something just to free up at bat for other guys and make it work a little bit better. Bogey, great stuff. Looking forward to our Wednesday visits at 11 o'clock, friend. Thanks for the time and we'll talk to you next week. Cool.

Thanks, guys.