The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - LIVE Reaction To Astros Picking Up First Baseman Christian Walker

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Matt Thomas of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" and Ryan Hollins, former NBA center and Space City Home Network commentator, react to breaking news that the Houston Astros and free-agent first baseman Christian Walker are in serious talks and are progressing towards a deal. The Astros' failed pursuit of Nolan Arenado led to a pivot to Christian Walker, which would leave newly acquired Isaac Paredes at third base and most likely shut the door on a reunion with Alex Bregman.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've got some breaking news here on the show. Connor, that's one. That's two. You want to go four? Oh, you're going. Now, this is not a five. I'm stopping you right here. According to Ken Rosenthal and Chandler Rome,

the Astros and Free Agent First Baseman, Christian Walker, are in serious talks and are progressing towards a deal. We'll discuss that next. Christian Walker, an Astro. And the best part is he was not offered a qualifying offer, which means they don't have to give up a draft pick. Or he declined the qualifying offer. So they'll lose the first round pick.

They will lose their second and fifth round selections in the 2025 class. Who cares? Details on Christian Walker next. 1144 on Sports Talk 790 712-2-2-790 7-1-3-212-5-790. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790. There is no explanation for this. It just goes on and on and on.

It's amazing. He's not even cracking a smile. This defies all logic. My goodness. Stay in that bubble. Christian Walker, according to Jim Bowden of MLB Network. Chandler Roman on it as well. Ken Rosenthal.

It sounds like what Jim Bowden says, as long as the Astros and Christian Walker, the physical goes okay, he is now a Houston Astro. Reports were he was looking for a four-year deal. Whether or not that is, what the Astros gave him. We do not know. There are not particulars being reported at this point, but Christian Walker is your

new first baseman. Isok Peretti, who the Astros got in the Kyle Tucker trade, is your new third baseman. And Ryan Hollins that will officially, I shouldn't say officially, but that basically closes the door on

Alex Spreggman possibly coming back to be Houston Astros. So the new Astros infield apparently is set for 2025. That's huge. Matt, and you know what it says. It shows you how serious the Astros are about winning. And some were worried kind of with the free agent of the trade rubblings that, you know, was this a group that's going to kind of tear it down and start over?

The Astros said, no, no, no, no, no. We're gearing up to go after another World Series, man. This is exciting news. Yeah, the numbers for him last year, 251 batting average. He had 26 home runs, drove in 84. his OPS was 803, which is considered good. His OPS Plus, where our friend Ross Villar Al, if you're 100, you're considered an average player. His OPS Plus was 121.

He's 33 years old. He is a first baseman. His career OPS plus is 114. His career OPS is 793. And the Astros apparently are going to be grabbing him. Now, I want to make sure I'm clear on the compensation, not that it really matters. if it indeed is true, the Diamondbacks will be owed from the Astros a second and fifth round pick in next year's draft picks, especially in professional baseball or a dime a dozen. You want them to hit, obviously, because you're replenishing your minor league system.

But you don't have to worry about John Singleton playing majority of first base. You don't have to worry about Isaac Perretti's being the first baseman trying to figure out what you can do at third base. Your infield is set. So it has been an interesting week. Last Friday, Ryan, they got rid of Kyle Tucker, and that certainly sends shockwaves, letting a guy go with a year-loaf in his contract. You got a third basement in return.

Now you replace it with the first baseman. While, again, it's good news because you're not adding another power-hitting guy to a corner infield spot. Bregman now has one less team that would be going after him. I think the dollars and cents were there. My guess is that Alex Bregman's representation told the Thanks, but no thanks. And now it's going to be down to some other teams.

So we can now can officially be mentally prepared to see Alex Bremen wearing a different jersey in 2025. It's a part of the business sometimes. You know, obviously we don't know. I'm sure some level of those reports are going to end up coming out. But hands off to the Astros, because a lot of times, man, you can step in a free agency. And while you might say this is not the perfect pick, but you can swing and miss. So to come out with the best defensive-minded, you know, first baseman in baseball right now, I think that's huge.

And that's something, again, you got an organization that's still very serious about winning. Not going into Dark Ages, not going to, you know, step backwards, you know. And you got to be excited for the Astros fan base. This is big time. This is great news. Now, again, Jim Bowden is saying it's based up a physical being completed. And again, I don't know much about his history. He is 33 years of age.

He played on, I'm going to take a look at his career numbers here. Just to see what he's done the last few years as my computer tries a refresh here. Six feet 208 throws right place, first base, right-handed, obviously. Let me look at his bio information here. It's terrible me to look at the internet while I'm trying to a radio show at the same time. Come on, Matt. I know. This is not good.

It's not good. Okay, in 2023, he batted, had 33 home runs, 130, 103 RBIs. He's had one, two, two 30 plus home run seasons. He had a 26 home run year last year with Arizona. He had 29 for the Diamondbacks in 2019. He started his major league career, very short amount of time at Baltimore, but the majority of his career from 2017 to 2024 as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Okay.

OPS plus OPS career bat have 793. His high watermark of OPS was 825 in that 2019 season act. And 2020, and OPS of 830 dropped a little bit this year. Played 130 games this past season. The year before that, 157, the year before that 160. So he's been fairly durable as a major leaguer. We'll give you more details on him as we move along here.

Ryan, I appreciate you hanging out with me today. It was fun. A little baseball. breaking news on the middle of the show was interesting. You learning about bull riding was interesting. And we did get video of Vanessa actually on the video

Bull riding a couple of years back, so I hope you got a chance to see that. Where's this video at? It's on my Twitter account. Go look. It's on your Twitter? Let me go look. Yeah, yeah, go look. That's her. Wow. Very talented, right? She is.

Yeah. All right, and please bundle up because you're going to be in Toronto tomorrow. I'm going to freeze our rear ends off. You know this, right? Stir fry? Maybe. I've told the audience before how much you would love the stir fry. It's what you live for.

I do. I do. It's with you, Matt. It's our thing. It is our thing. You're my guy. You are my guy, too. Thank you, Ryan.

We'll see you on the plane tomorrow, friend. Thank you for visiting. That's Ryan Hollands of Space City Network. All right, so we got a lot to get. The news at noon is going to be chock full of stuff. We got Texans. We had the rockets winning last night, and we had the Astros apparently ridiculously close to grabbing a new first basement.

1156 is our time. If you want to jump in on not only Christian Walker coming here, but this is it for Bregman. Are you all mentally ready to him to sign somewhere else now? There's no chance. It's zero percent chance. Paredes at third. Walker at first provided everything works in the semantics of the contract

and whatnot, we're done. That's it. Alex Breggman is no longer going to wear an astral uniform. Let me know how you think about that. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. The news at noon is coming up in a minute.

We are going to wake the strippers up. Maybe some more Christian Walker highlights. Do you think on the news at noon, Connor? Would that be a part of the opening conversation? I can do that. We can do that. We've got to get people ready for it, especially if Robert Ford's going to be calling a lot of those home runs for him.

713-212-5-7-90. So Christian Walker apparently is super, super close to signing with the Houston Astros to replace whatever combination of first base the Astros had last year, especially after the Jose Abraud situation went so bad. 7-13-212-5-7-90.