The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith on the Astros : "Casting a Wide Net"

Episode Date: January 24, 2020

Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle joins Matt to discuss the Astros Managerial search

This is the Matt Thomas Show. 203 on the Matt Thomas show. Our Friday visit with Brian T. Smith is always one of my favorite segments of the show of the week. BTS, Brian McTaggart, MLB.com reporting a few minutes ago that Brian Osmus is next on the list for candidacy for the managerial spot for the Houston Astros. And I told the audience about 50 minutes ago, I don't know what Jim wants because Jim's not calling you or me and telling me a type of manager. He's had a variety of different samples of old school, new school, metrics, former player, long-time manager. So I'm just going to throw it out to you. If you were to bend Jim Crane's ear, what kind of manager do you think the Houston Astros should have in 2020?

You need a combination of everything, Matt, because AJ Hinch was 99% a perfect combination of everything. And I said this last week on TV. I've written in The Chronicle. the Astros had the perfect manager, right? And the perfect manager was A.J. Hinch. And so now, because of all of this, you have to replace them. Whether that was Manfred's decision, whether that was Crane's decision, whether Cranes' and force, whatever it is, he fired A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luno in one franchise-changing,

era-changing suite. And so once you make that decision, you've got to get it, you've got to get the follow-up decision, right? You know, the Astros used to all they used to do is screw up. I mean, they had the prospects and they had the plan, but they mostly screwed up, and everything changed for this organization. Not when they hired Jeff Luno in terms of winning. He had the plan. He had the process.

He had the process before the 70s sisters had the process. It changed when A.J. Hinch came in to Minutemey Park and said, we're winning. You know, I don't care what the plan is. I don't want to talk about 2016 or 2017. I want to talk about 2015. That immediately connected with Jose El Tuvay. You get Altovae on board, who was the best player at the time. Every mouse followed.

So when they make this decision, it's going to have to be a combination of everything. I mean, you've got to have somebody who understands the obvious modern value of analytics. Just because Luno leaves, that's not going to disappear, and everybody's followed. The Astros lead with that. You've got to have somebody, Matt, who can handle the endless media storm. It's not going to so much be local. We've already asked all those questions, and they'll be asked again at spring. training, but we know when they go to

Arlington, when they go to New York, when they go to Boston, when they go to L.A., it's never going to end. So you've got to have a manager who can, like A.J. did all the time, wear it and stick up for his players and have that presence. And then you've got to have somebody who can keep the clubhouse together if this team starts rough or if they hit a rough spot in June, and A.J. always did that. So it's a huge combination. And the one thing Crane has done right with this is he's getting as much input as he can.

And I like that they're casting a wide net, and it hasn't been an immediate decision. They didn't just promote a Spada. They're doing it right. Now they've got to make the right higher. Is there any one of them that's more intriguing to you personally than the rest? There are several that are intriguing to me. I'm not personally attaching my name to any of these people because they, you know, they all have some issues. But, and I don't want to mention him first because of the Arlington thing,

but Jeff Bannister is intriguing. Brad Osmiss should be, but Brad Osmiss, I don't want to say it's failed, but, you know, he's been fired, what, twice now. The angel situation just never worked with him. The tiger situation was a mess. Brad Osmast, though, he fixed a lot of things. I'm not crazy about the idea of Dusty Baker. It feels, you know, Buck Showalter makes sense on paper for one second.

And then you think about him, you know, not getting along with some of the players and there's immediate division a couple months in and that's not going to work. It's a really tough hire because your roster's built to win now. Your lineup is loaded. You have Verlander, you have Grinky. You are not rebuilding. You're not trying to win 90 games. You're trying to get back to the World Series.

there aren't a lot of managers in baseball who can fit all those requirements. And the couple of the ones that can Matt, they've been fired in the last couple weeks. Well, I think it's, I think Jim himself is making it hard for us to predict because as I talked to you, there, I mean, you have, you have won into the spectrum from Dusty to Eduardo Perez, who was only a bench coach when AJ was out here, who's now a broadcaster to a couple of managers who have recently been fired because of losses, but they're new school. I mean, that's why I think, unless you're just a sizzling, hot-take person when the

decision is made, there should be nobody out going, what in the world is you thinking? Because some of them have all had tremendous success, but yet every single one of them at one point had been fired in their major league careers. Yeah, and you look at Venable and you look at Perez. I'm not crazy about the idea of the aster's hiring Edward of Perez. Everybody that's mentioned, that's probably the one, because there's a lot of bad. story with him and the 13 team and and maybe if he gets the job I'll get into that as a chronicle he's not saying the bad guy there were some things that happened back then that

weren't really how you want to you know build a team win a pennant uh but i'm sure he's evolved and changed it was a rough time back then when it came to the astros everybody was getting fired and everybody was constantly thinking you know uh they they had to do something to get the next job. Dusty Baker doesn't make sense at all, but he does if you want the veteran presence who's been through the fire, who can shoot the bleep with the media all the time. I mean, you know, Dusty is one of the most well-liked and respected names in the game. Joe Walter would be tough, but, you know, you have to be afraid that he's going to also

constantly be at it with players because he's had that issue before because he can be too tough. it's not a decision. And if you're crane, like I said, the one thing that he's done this far is there's no type. It's not like he's going for a type. And so you have to think, Matt, they're interviewing so many people that when he has

the one, just like AJ, he'll know it's the one. You know, they'll have interviewed 10 people. Every type, young, bold, veteran, analytics, inexperienced, whatever it is. And when they finally nail it down, you have to, A, hope it works, because there's some luck

involved and B, they'll have cast such a wide net that they won't have anyone else to look at. Other topic involved in the Astros this week was Jim Crane said that earlier than the week he was going to have some sort of, and it was kind of vague, but I'm assuming press conference media availability where he is going to have his guys go up, whether it's three, five, ten, or 20 and basically try to put this to bed through a real voice and saying some things as compared to what they said at Fan Fest where Alex were just repeated himself and Jose was speaking rather vaguely. There has been a lot of public conversation about that.

Astro fans that call this show don't feel the need to apologize. You have national folks that are saying, yeah, it needs to be done. Then you have a segment, another segment of population, maybe a mixture of Houston and maybe a a mixture of national fans and media that say, you know what, this is just a opportunity for Jim to try to mend fences when maybe these players don't want to apologize and it may be half-hearted. It may not be sincere. What do you come in on the, will the Astros and should the Astros get to spring training and try to do as much as they can open their books a little bit? Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's absolutely, I mean, it's asking before this. This is all unprecedented, right? We've never been through this in baseball history. The Astros never been through this in franchise history.

Jim Crane's ever been through this, Altuve, Burlander, McCuller, Springer, et cetera. At some point, and I believe it should have already happened. But it's the off season. We're not even in spring training. Everyone's met together. Burlander, Grinky. Maybe what happens? Let's just be honest.

Maybe Zach Grinky just takes the mic and says everything that everyone's been bonding to hear. And Zach Grinky is the sole. There is no chance in the world what you're saying, and you don't even believe it as it's leaving your mouth. Here's the thing. This is on the players. I mean, Hinch was fired, Aluna was fired, but if you go off the report, and this is coming from the commissioner of baseball, and apparently the most thorough investigation in baseball history, I still find that hard to believe that it was more thorough than the Mitchell report and everything went down with steroids.

That being said, that's what baseball said. the players are mentioned. The players have barely spoken. I mean, Lance McCullors was sort of contradicting what Crane said. And as I just mentioned, you know, Burlander hasn't been around. Grinky hasn't been around. Springer hasn't really been around. So I'm at spring training every year.

You're there, Matt. You know what it's like. I mean, it's different. It's supposed to be fun and new. And the guys are getting back together. And it's everything you love about the Astros. It's going to be so different this year. So I truly believe it's going to come down.

of the players. And, you know, Verlander's going to be in the Hall of Fame one day. Altuves on that track. These guys have been through so many things. What do they want to say? What do they want to do? At some point, it's not about Jim Crane. The new manager isn't going to have any type of real feel for these guys. He's going to be on the job for two weeks. The players have to own it. And if they want to say something, say something. And if they don't, that's fine to get ready for a year of questions. And just because they don't say something at spring training, they're still going to get the questions everywhere they go. This is not going to end this year.

Yeah, and Ross and I have debated this a little bit. You don't want to put somebody in front of a microphone and they don't mean it. But the question is going to be if you don't have, if you have one person taking the wrath of the entire team, does that mean the other guys don't believe it or the other guys don't have the stones to come up and say something? I mean, there's a lot of ways to discuss this issue one way or the other.

I would have to, at the end of the day, believe that silence will not be golden. If you just pretend it doesn't happen and you pretend to give the same cliche, if you don't address it in somehow, some way, then it's going to make things even worse than already what you're going to be having to deal with in every single time you go to during the course of the regular season. Yeah, and look, normal PR would say you come out, you address it, whatever, you get ahead of it, you have your statement, you stick by it, and you don't move from that statement. Again, that's PR 101, just like firing, Luno and Crane was because you're protecting the brand and you're protecting your financial investment.

But it's not going to be that simple because they can come out and they can open the book. Well, if you start opening the book, you know, you're going to start pulling on those threads. And oh, did so-and-so cheat? Did this lead to so-and-so getting an award? They shouldn't have. I mean, that stuff will be endless. So I don't know. I don't have an answer right now.

I don't think the players do. I don't believe that if Crane has one, it's going to be the correct answer. there's no correct answer for this. And ultimately, Matt, this is what will happen. It'll be a local divide and a national divide. There are some very, very, very, I get the emails. There are some very, very frustrated, hurt, saddened fans. But you can already start in the feel like a huge part of the Astros fan base is,

like screw the national media, screw, you know, all the other teams. They're out to get us, blah, blah, blah. That's already starting to build because you already have that backlash. They're tired of it. Hey, let's move on and play baseball. But the national, that's never going to go away. I mean, the Astros will have to win the World Series this year and be clean to even start to turn the tide.

And I fully believe it's going to take five, ten years for this thing to go away, just like it did with McGuire and steroids or Barry Bond being close to the Hall of Fame. It's going to take five to ten years for this to really get out of the conversation. And that's much more national than it is local in terms of fans. and the hate that a lot of people have for the Astros right now. Great insight, as always. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week, my friend.

I appreciate it, Matt. Thanks for having me on. You got it. That's Brian T. Smith from the Houston Chronicle. You can follow him on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith.