The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - What's Happening With Alex Bregman? Stefon Diggs's Possible Future In H-Town, Brian Bogusevic IN-STUDIO

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross," Brian Bogusevic, former Astros outfielder and Space City Home Network analyst, and Adam Wexler of "The A-Team" discuss the latest with third baseman Alex Bregman, who is weighing his options in free agency. Do the Houston Astros have a chance of signing Bregman? Ross, Brian and Adam also:further evaluate the Kyle Tucker tradereact to Stefon Diggs latest comments on a possible future in Houstonpreview the Texans facing the Kansas City Chiefs this Saturdaygive their latest "Gut Feelings"recap Week 15 in "Connor's NFL Rewind" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10.1. In the AM here on Sports Talk 7.90. What's happening, brunch timers? Hello and welcome in to a Tuesday edition of the program. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he continues to be on vacation.

And today we have a very, very special guest taking time out of his busy schedule for us. Brian Pogasevic of 9.000. AT&T Sportsnet, I was just about to say. Space City, Home Network, pre-imposed games coverage. He was a regular guest here on Sports Talk 790. I'm hoping we can keep him as a regular guest. Selfishly, I'm hoping we can poach him and keep him on the Matt Thomas show around the team's same time slot. But Brian, thanks for hanging out.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. This is a good time of year. This is when I usually start getting the itch a little bit. It's been a while. Okay, getting the itch to talk. Okay, so we're going to start bothering you. We're going to have you luck on every week or something.

It's not like there's any baseball to talk about or anything happening in Houston, right? No, nothing on the field. There's plenty to talk about if you want to talk about contracts and trades. Yes, the hot stove heating up. We'll get to that with Brian. He will be with us until noon. We'll have some gut feelings coming up. I'll explain that to you.

It's very easy. You have a gut feeling. You say it. That's coming up at 11 o'clock. We'll have Adam Wexler at 1 o'clock. We got news at noon. We got all kinds of stuff coming up here on the show. We also have you, if you want to get in.

At 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7-90 to get in that. way. So we're going to be talking a ton of stuff, but obviously we're going to start off talking baseball. But I just want to ask you, you know what? I don't really know you that well, Brian, so I'm going to get to know you a little bit on the air. How did Houston become home for you after your career? Well, kind of not really by choice. I got drafted by the Astros, so I started, obviously spent a lot of my early career here and around the city and with the organization. But I also am married to a girl who's from Houston. My wife and I met in college. She's from Houston.

Okay, and Tulane. I don't want to say Tulane or anything. I want to say Tulane is correct, correct? Two lane, too lane. Yeah, so Houston just, it just kind of happened. That was never really the planned, but I spent all my off-seasons here while I was playing, and by the time my playing career was over,

it was just home, and now, you know, I wouldn't want to leave. Now you're here, and you've been around on, well, it was AT&T Sports in at the time, since 2019, I believe? Yeah, so my last year playing was 17. 2018, I did nothing at all that involved baseball. What was that like? Strange, but nice. Nice, but it got boring?

There are very few people who walk away from their sport and are just completely done with it. It might be the right time. You might see the writing on the wall and everything, but you still have that urge to play. You still feel like you should. So not being there, like spring training started and I wasn't there. I was like, man, what is going on? Why are they playing baseball? Yeah, that has to be in you, right?

To make it to the major league level like you did, I mean, you have to have that kind of passion, that kind of innate feeling of the baseball is that much of your life intertwined. Well, absolutely. And just being a creature of habit and the cycle of your life and how your year progresses, once you get past the holidays and you start ramping up and all of a sudden it's January, February, to not be getting ready for a season was just a really weird thing. Yeah. All right. Well, so you ended up in the biz, and now you're here, and we're talking Astros. And, well, as Sean Salisbury was saying, when we're handing off the shows, you got any eligibility left? How are you feel?

There are some openings in the outfield for the Astros, if you're ready. Yeah, there are, but not any that I could fill properly. So what was your first reaction? First, hearing about Kyle Tucker possibly being traded, there was the stories. I think it was what Chandleron, Ken Rosenthal talking about it with the Cubs and the possible pieces. and then it happened. Was it at all a surprise to you that those conversations started and then heat it up as quick as they did when the trade got made? Or you were like, yeah, this is kind of something I saw coming?

Well, I think when it's, by the time it's all said and done and you can lay out all the mechanics of it and all the pieces that came back, it starts to make sense. But as it was happening in real time, it was one of those things where as a former player, you see your team in a very, short-term window. You don't see very much past this season, and there's no doubt that having Kyle Tucker on your team for this given season gives you a better chance to win. But when you start looking at the state of the organization and payroll things and farm system rankings and everything and trying to build for a longer big-term picture, which is what a front office does, it does start to make sense. And the fact that it progressed so quickly, you know, when you hear those first rumblings and Fromber might be available, Kyle Tucker might be available.

You just say, okay, that's just the GM meetings. That's just guys having conversations. That's just due diligence. And then all of a sudden, once there's a team, another team attached to it, then it's like, oh boy, this might be real. And then also in a couple days later, boom, pops up. Yeah, that's what it kind of felt like to me is once I saw the article, I think like I said, it was Chandler Rome, and they were mentioning the possible pieces coming back in Isak Paratus and and Cam Smith and etc. I think it was, I don't remember, it was somebody else as well. I was like, okay,

that's when it kind of felt imminent in a way. Yeah, you get a team attached to it. You start getting names put out there because, I mean, these guys who are reporting on trade rumors, they're not just making things up. They're not talking in theory. Well, some of them are. Well, the good ones are not.

Yeah, right. And when, you know, so they're hearing that from somebody, and that means that names are being exchanged by the two sides. And when that's happening, that means the thing the thing is starting to get rail. Yeah, I feel like, at least to me, for a one year, not necessarily a rental, if you would call it, a rental is more at the trade deadline and I guess in the last day. But for what the Astros got back, obviously hurts not to have Kyle Tucker, but it seems like the writing was on the wall with the Astros and Dana Brown and Jim Crane. He

wasn't going to be back on a major deal. The Juan Soto deal, he's just astronomical. I feel like they got a pretty good return. What is your opinion on what they got back? No, I initially I like it. Time will tell, right? When you're talking about being on the prospect side of the trade, the only way to determine whether or not it was successful is when you're three, four years out. And really the Cam Smith piece of it is going to determine whether it is a good deal or a great deal.

And Isok Paredes is a guy that the Astros have liked. He was in, you know, rumors to be attached to the Astros at the trade deadline. Last year, Hunter was Nesky. He's got a good arm. He's got big time stuff, the kind of guy that profiles as somebody that, you know, maybe the Astros can get the most out of. But the Cam Smith piece of it is going to determine if you got a future star and another building block type of player, or if you just kind of got something back instead of losing a guy in free agency.

Yeah, that's the thing about, too, about Hayden Wozinski coming back is we kind of feel like whatever pitcher, the Astros sign, He can have like an ERA of six from the Colombian League. And we'd be like, yeah, maybe the Astros can turn this guy around. Maybe they see something. Like it's almost in Astros we trust, especially when it comes to pitching. They can just turn, I mean, anything into gold. You're absolutely right. And the way that I've learned to look at pitchers coming into the Astros organization

isn't to look at numbers because they're often irrelevant. What it is is you look for attributes. You look for big velocity, or you look for a breaking ball with a ton of spin, or you look for one pitch that has good peripheral numbers that maybe wasn't used as highly as some of the other pitches, because these are the things that they find and tinker with, and Kikuchi was a great example of it. Let's just start throwing more off-speed pitches, and all of a sudden you've got a completely different pitcher. The firestorm, when you say Kikuchi came over here, and everybody looking at ERA, ERM,

I'm like, the last thing the Astros and their pitching people are looking at is ERA when a pitcher comes over. Yeah, that was the perfect example. That was a guy who had underperformed his stuff. And the Astros get the most out of guys with good stuff. What do you think about ESOC Paredes? You know, if you look at his numbers, they are strikingly similar to Alex Bregman's numbers. Now, he doesn't have to be a one-for-one replacement for Alex Bregman. He can slide over to first base if that deal gets done.

So I like that addition there. And there's a reason that they were looking at him at the trade deadline last year. There's a reason that they were looking at him when they're searching for trade partners. It's because they like what he brings. He's a good plate discipline. He hits for a little bit of average. He's got some power that, you know, knock on wood could play a little bit better in home games. And the Crawford boxers, let's go.

But we've seen that before, right? That was a part of the Tray Mancini deal was this guy. hits a lot of balls in the air and the pullside and it never materialized so you can't just count on that but it is a guy who you think can overperform what he's done in the past I mean the guy wasn't all star

in the past so it's not like he's this undervalued player and you've got a couple years of team control with him yeah that's what I think especially under Jim Crane is it seems to be the philosophy as I keep bringing up when it comes to Garrett Cole getting signed away and now Alex Breggman likely being signed away Kyle Tucker was going

to be signed away to where you look at these big deals that get signed. These players can only live up to those deals. Like Juan Soto can live up to making $50 million a year, but he's not going to exceed that. He can only underperform or live up to it. And that's what I think the Astros and Jim Crane kind of do is try to do, is they kind of find people who will outperform their contracts, will outperform their value at the bottom line of the payroll. They're looking for excess value in everything they do.

That's why they like young players. who are still playing on the minimum. That's why they like to sign players to deals early in their career that are teams. Shout out, Yordaun. Yeah. It's like, 26 million, I think, the last three years of his deal or something like that. Look at that contract compared to some of these free agent contracts that are out there. But like you said, when you're paying the top of the market, best case scenario is you get a fair deal.

There's not going to be any excess. And if you want to put together a full team that is able to compete year and year, out and have the depth that you need to do that, you can't be paying a ton of players at the top of the market unless you just want to blow through and have a three, four, five hundred million dollar payroll. Well, which it seems like Jim Crane does not want to do. All right, we got a lot to discuss. We are going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

It is without Matt Thomas. Brian Bogosevic is here. We're going to take your calls. You want to talk some stroes. We can do that. 713-213-5-790 is the phone number. Anything you want to get to, 7-13-212-5-790. to discuss with Brian and you as we go along. He'll be with us until noon. We got gut feelings

coming up at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas, Ross via real. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Not following instructions, Connor. Come on, man. What did I tell you to do with Matt out? Where did I tell you doing Scrooge's out this week? I didn't know you wanted the whole week. Yeah, baby. Come on. Tis the season. Before we get, until we get our cease and desist from Sunday 99.1

for playing too much Christmas music, every break, let's go. How do you feel about Christmas music? Brian Bogus Evic with us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm a fan of Christmas music. I love it, but small doses. Small doses. Okay, well, let's see.

We're on the 17th that we're... It's time. Okay, okay, okay. All right. We're good. You don't want to... Now, I think Sunny, they flip over. I believe September 1st is when they...

No, I'm just kidding. They Yeah, here we go. Gets some people going. Now, how do you also, while we're here, how do you feel about wham? Again, small doses. You know what? I'm with you on both.

I used to hate this song. And now I feel like it's a jam. Get some people going. It comes in on the mall or at the mall or at the grocery store. It's a toe tapper. And whoever he's singing about is just a terrible person. That's what it sounds like. Dump somebody right after Christmas.

Also, it sounds like he could be being dramatic. I'm not sure. You never know. Wouldn't be a surprise. You don't know with George Michael. All right, anyways, welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt Thomas is out. Brian Bogusevich, graciously, has chosen to hang out with us until noon. You can get in if you'd like at 713-212-5-790. If you have any requests for Connor along the way, just let him know he'll play whatever you want. We're going into full Christmas music mode here because I'm off Thursday and Friday.

Matt only likes to play Christmas music on Christmas Eve and that's it. Oh, no, after Thanksgiving, it's a fair game in my house. My daughter, who's eight, did try to start shortly after they went back to school this summer. It was like the beginning of September or August? Oh, we're back in school. It's Christmas time. Oh, I mean, hey, when you're eight years old, you're always counting down the days of Christmas Day. That's just how you roll. All right, 713, 212, 570, the phone number, if you'd like to get in, obviously, with a professional baseball player in the fold.

We're talking some baseball here, talking some about the Kyle Tucker deal that was made. And then it just begs the question, where do you go from here? What mode are the Astros in? Because I felt like this was my feeling before the deal got made, that if Bregman is going to get signed away, which still hasn't happened, but still seems extremely likely, likely, then I'm like, you know what? Maybe trade away Tucker and Frumber. You get a little bit, you try to get some prospects back that are maybe in a couple of years they're going to be ready, kind of. of a soft reset, a retooling, not necessarily a rebuild, and then maybe be ready to contend in a couple of years. But if they're going to sign Anthony Santander, which has been floated, if they're going to trade for Nolan Aronado, it seems like Jim Crane is ready to try to keep this train rolling, which is what he said would always happen.

Well, I think the situation that the Astros are in right now is they're trying to do both. They're trying to play the long game while also continuing to try to compete on a year and year out basis. And what has become obvious is that they recognize that the farm system needs to be addressed. And after years of losing out on draft picks, of being buyers at the trade deadline and trading away prospects, they need to stockpile that farm system, particularly at the high minor leagues. Because there's two ways that you compete over a long period of time. You either restock with young cheap talent or you go out on the market and you buy talent. and they've shown that they are not going to go out there and bring in a ton of these high contract, high salary type of players. So you've got to restock from within, and it's just not there at this point.

Yeah, they're in a tough spot because you can't, if you're Jim Carain feasibly, even though the fans are going to want it, you can't spend like the Dodgers and the Yankees. You can't pay everyone. But also both of those teams have top 10 organizations in terms of farm systems. So you're behind the eight ball in both ways. No, absolutely. And everybody knows the path to success that the Astros want to take. And they want to have long term, they want to be competitive long term, but they want to do so within the confines of reasonable salary. And they've done it for so many years on having these waves of talent come through. It started with guys like Carlos Correa and George Springer and then Alex Bregman. And then we saw all of a sudden this wave of young pitching come in, which was a little bit unforced. seen but gave them that second boost to have that second iteration of this competitive organization but now it's got to be done a different way they don't have the top tier draft

picks you know they're not picking first second overall every year like they were 10 12 years ago so so these prospects have to come from somewhere yeah and the prospects did come from the Kyle Tucker deal but then on the flip side with the Arnaud I'm just trying to figure out what's going on I guess and as you said it seems like they're trying to do both and I guess that's where we're going with this. But if Nolan Aronado were to come here, that means you were trading away something. And also, if the second piece of that, which was

a Chandlerone that said that they would have, or whoever, floating out that if Aronado came to the Astros, they would have the Cardinals pay some of the salary down. Now, if that's happening, they're probably going to want even more or better crop of prospects on the way back. Absolutely. And

the Aronado situation is complicated. He was traded from Colorado to St. Louis. Colorado is already paying. a portion of his salary. St. Louis is taking on the balance. So you could end up getting a guy at a number that is more palatable, but it just speaks to the sort of duality

of where the Astros are at. They make the Kyle Tucker move, which is more of a long-term play. But when you have Jose Al-Tuve currently on the roster, when you have Jordan Alvarez currently on the roster, Fromber one year away from free agency, they are still in win now, compete now. It seems like it. So you have to try to do both. And it's a, it's a tough situation

that Dana Brown is in. But I'm sure that when he was given this job in his meetings with Jim Crane, that was what he has been tasked with. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he probably said, yeah, I could do that. You know, when you're in the interview, you can tell him you can do everything. I'll sell you the world. Win World Series and build the farm system. Of course I can do that. I got no price. No problem, man. And we'll be good in five years. I can do that. That's no problem. I could definitely see Dana Brown saying that, but I mean, he's been, it's a tough task that he's been given in the first place.

In the first place, it was, we've got no farm system, and now we need you to make deadline deals to improve the team, which he did, trading away, unfortunately, some key pieces for Justin Verlander, which I contend still, right move at the time, almost got them to a World Series. You don't know, you can never guarantee

a World Series. Win one freaking home game against the Rangers, please. Can you win one home game? And they would have won, and that deal would have been great. Well, and I still think the deal, just because they didn't win the World Series doesn't mean the deal wasn't the right move. Now, obviously, that's the Trump card. That's the one you can say, hey, you win a World Series. It doesn't matter what we did.

Everything is justified. But the fact that they got to where they were, that he was the piece that they needed at that time. Because it's just about putting yourself in the situation, in the position to have a chance. Without him, they weren't going to be good enough to make a run at a World Series. him they were, even though it didn't work out. Yeah, and then the same thing, unfortunately, with the Usa Kikuchi deal. I mean, they very well, I think at one point, what were they, 9-0

with Yusei Kikuchi, and then I think like 500 in games down that stretch that he didn't pitch it. And, you know, when you're talking about those two deals, we're on the other side of it of what we just talked about with the Kyle Tucker deal. Time will tell, right? Even though we didn't win

a World Series with Yusei Kikuchi, if Joey Lopifito doesn't end up being an everyday outfielder if Will Wagner isn't anything more. He might get $3.50. If he did, we lost the trade. You know, you have to look a couple years down the line, which we're not in that situation yet.

Even with the Justin Verlander Mets trade that happened, we're not going to know for a couple of years if Ryan Clifford turns out to be a star or not. Yeah. But also, I would just say like in a vacuum, if the move needed to get made to try to improve the team, which is what Dana Brown was tasked with, is. unfortunately do both, build the farm system and keep the team contended. And oh, by the way, don't have much of a farm system. It's tough for me to crush him for both of those deals because I understand that his marching orders,

first and foremost, before even building a farm system is to win a World Series. Absolutely. The situation that the Astros are in, have been in, and will continue to be in for the next couple of years at least is win now. There are going to be moves that are made for the future. this Kyle Tucker one is a good example, but the focus, first and foremost, is on this season, which makes me think that they are not done operating yet. Yeah, I think definitely moves to be made. There's one big move I want to ask, Brian, if it will be made, if this person will still be on the roster come opening day. We'll ask him that when we come back.

It's called a professional radio tease for you there, Brian. That's how we roll in these parts. We've got phone lines open. If you want to get in, you've got questions for Brian. How does he feel about the Tucker deal? You want to talk some stroes. You can do it. Brian Bogussevick with us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Matt Thomas is out on vacation until Thursday, and you can get in at 713, 213-212-5-790. Dibon. Dibon, fantastic play by Maricio Duvon. This is Maricio Duvon. Sports Stock 790 and the I-Heart Radio. You're home for the Astrid. That's what I'm talking about. A little Dean Martin here.

the Matt Thomas show with Ross you like the old rat pack stuff Brian yeah it's good okay reminds me being a kid my grandparents used to play it and that's what I always listen That's what we're bringing it back baby It's coming back Dean Martin's coming back I don't know if you heard Coming back from what I don't know I'm just kidding

713 212575790 is the phone number Brian Bogusevick is here Until noon on sports talk 790 It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross Matt Thomas is on vacation until Thursday We got some gut feelings coming up at 11 o'clock and you can get in if you'd like as well at 713-212-5-790. So we have had, of course, the moves that we do know.

Kyle Tucker is gone. Alex Bregman will wait, which, by the way, real quick, is the market cooling off on him? I thought it sounded like something was imminent in the winter meetings. And I would have guessed if we did gut feelings, which I think maybe I even said this last week, I would have figured he'd be signed by now. It's typically how it works.

When there's one big piece like Soto after that domino's, falls, everything typically falls into place. But I would imagine that after such a large contract gets done, right, this resets everything. This, his deal, Soto's deal resets the entire industry. So Bregman's numbers go up is a way. I think everybody's numbers goes up. I know Tucker's did. Absolutely. I mean, if, if you are going to pay Juan Soto $750 million, is it that crazy for Alex Bregman to ask for, say, $300 million? It's not even half the contract. And I know it's not an apples to apples comparison. But I think it's just going to take a little bit longer for things to shake out because of that market reset that happened with the Soto deal.

Well, at least one of them can actually play defense when it comes to Bregman and Soto. That's a lot of money for a guy who does one thing. He does it really well. He hits really well. He hits really well. He doesn't run the bases very much either. Well, $765 million? What was it? $65 million? 15 years. That's, okay, well, speaking of the first segment I asked you, what was your reaction to the text? What was your reaction to that number when you first saw it? I was about to take my son down to the batting cage and start getting some work in is what my reaction was. How old is your son?

Six. All right. Get after it. We got time. We got time to work. Oh, you got plenty of time. No, Soto is a generational talent as a hitter. It's a unique situation that you have a guy entering free agency when theoretically he hasn't even hit his prime

age years. So when you're talking length of contract, but just that number, it's just so big. It's so much bigger than anything else. You know, you start comparing it to a guy. The extension that Mookie Betts signed or the free agent deal that Bryce Harper signed is, Juan Soto twice the player that that Bryce Harper is? I don't believe. No. I don't believe so. No, he's not. So it's just, it's, it's weird when you see that number because I don't think things are going to fall in line behind it. like they typically would. Every time you get that big time free agent deal, the next deal always kind of parallels it.

I think this is just going to kind of be a one-off for quite some time. And it's interesting because you just brought this in my mom. We're going to go off track of where I was going to go. But you're talking about your son and how you would get him in the cages. Do you think, like maybe when you were coming up and now we're seeing the way that baseball is, what was the emphasis on plate discipline? because it seems like that is so much more important now than maybe it was 20 years ago. Well, you've seen sort of an evolution of what teams value.

If you remember when analytics and Moneyball first really took over the industry, it was all about walks and home runs, these kind of known quantity plate appearances, and we know what's going to happen and we value the on base and we value the power. But what you ended up getting were a lot of guys who hit in the low 200s, got on base at a decent clip, hit some home runs, but didn't drive in a lot of runs. And now you're seeing teams waking up and valuing guys who, yes, have good play discipline and walk a lot, but also have really good back-to-ball skills and can hit for some power, but also we'll put the ball in play because those are the type of skills that produce a lot more runs for your team versus just what is a productive play to pair. So it's sort of the industry catching up to what the players can do. Adam Dunn was ahead of its time. Adam Dunn would have got paid a lot of money in like the 2012, 2015.

You go back and look at his numbers. It's like, we used to make fun of this guy for striking out. But his OPS was high. He was hitting like 40 bombs a year. He got on base. He walked a lot. And I remember like, you know, as a dumb punk kid making fun of Adam Dunn. It's like, you go back.

This guy should have been making, like, oh, I'm not one. Soto money, but he could have been a star, way bigger star. A guy with a close to 400 on base percentage and 40 home runs a year. That's your high-end free agent at this point. That's all we looked at was batting average. All I looked at, I guess, was batting average. Just like, come on, man. Adam Dunn, we need to retroactively, I don't know, do something for him.

Give him some kind of award. Double pension. Yeah, double, yeah, there you go. Double up his pension. That'll probably make him feel a lot better. Also a Houston area, what New Caney legend, I believe. But yeah, so if, let's say, you like you with your son, are you getting him into baseball? Or is he interested?

Are you trying to let him do his own thing? Or if he comes to you and says, I want to play baseball, you're letting it come to him? He plays t-ball. Okay. If anybody who's stood on a t-ball field for two hours in the heat of the Houston Spring knows that it's not very close to baseball. Yeah. But, you know. He's like every other kid, he plays a million different sports.

He loves one, and then it's the next season. He loves the other. Okay. But how would you even coach or like let's say you were coaching high school or you were instructing? I don't know. Do you do any instructing or anything like that? Nothing for just for your six year old, which is probably not a lot. Just stay on the base paths. Let's go. First base is that way. Focus. First base is that way. Go to your right. Don't go to the left. This is home plate. Yeah, I don't even know. Would you try to drill that into as far as those types of because in 20 years or now the game could be changed and what people are looking for? Or stick to fundamentals. What I have found, because I have friends with older kids and they play travel ball and stuff, and you see the way players are being developed, the way specifically hitters are being developed. And there's so much focus on swing building, right?

We want to have certain bat paths and create exit velocities and get these kinds of launch angles, all of which are valuable metrics and can tell you a lot about the kind of hitter you are. But what isn't taught very much is putting together. an at bat. The philosophy behind hitting. What pitches am I looking for at certain parts of an at bat? What does the pitcher do well that I want to stay away from? What do I do well that I want to attack? Those things aren't certainly taught in a batting cage. Those are things that need to be talked about around at bat, sitting in a dugout, digesting what just happened in an at bat. And there isn't a lot of that going on right now because it's so easy to flood kids with information, flood kids with data and put a trackman in a batting cage and show an 11-year-old how hard he hit the ball. And it's like that that's good and that's useful.

But that doesn't do anything when all of a sudden you get a two-o change up and you're wondering why the heck didn't that guy throw me a fastball. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Hmm. A lot to think about. All right. 713-212-5-790. Brian and Pearland is holding one to talk. want to talk to Brian. What's up? Brian and Brian. Let's go.

Yeah, absolutely. But you got a kind of an injury-related question for you guys and then a question for both you guys just to kick around in terms of free agency and Bregman and all that. In terms of injury, I know we have a lot of guys out. You got Garcia and McClears, I guess,

who are the two closest to coming back? And really kind of, we saw Garcia and those guys last year get ramped up to where they're kind of throwing off a mound and getting ready to go. what is that kind of next step that at this point in the off season, you would think their arms should be fully rested where they should be fully ramped up and ready to go and all of that to where they're basically chopping at the bit to get to spring training. What should be that next step as a player we should be looking for,

or as a fan that we should be looking for that that player would be doing where it's like, okay, he's on the right path, we can see it. Obviously, you can always have setbacks like Arkiti did when he went on his rehab assignment. but kind of, you know, it's just getting frustrating now with McCullors. It now being going on over two seasons where he's been completely out. I think his last pitch was, what, the 22 World Series? You know, he's missed all of two seasons. So what is that next progression from a player's standpoint to like that we can look at or that you can see?

And then when it comes to Bregman, do you all think maybe the decision isn't being made right now because the offers maybe aren't there like they weren't with Correa. They were expecting that $200 million, and those dollars just aren't there. So he's maybe waiting to see if the Astros are going to come up a little bit. Or is it just kind of due diligence waiting maybe after the holidays? And then could you all see Paul Goldschmidt? Is it 37-year-old first basement free agents? We've been down this road before.

But on a one-year deal, putting Paratus at third, if other, you know, if you're not able to get the right package for Aeronado, there's something like that you guys could see in Goldschmidt coming back home. All right, let's start with the injuries. When's Lans McCullors Jr. coming back? That's a heck of a question. No, I want to date right now, Brian. Come on, man. You know, it's been, that's been a really long road.

There have been obviously multiple setbacks, multiple re-injuries. for a guy who's been through that much, until he's back out on the mound throwing competitive pitches, you just don't know. And he's going to continue to rehab and continue to try to get himself into that kind of shape and condition. But the question doesn't become when. It becomes if.

If he can get to a point to where he can sustain a major league workload, then we'll see him. But we just don't know if that's going to happen. Yeah. And then part two, I think. Is the market slowed for Bregman, or do you expect something to happen soon? I think something, if it doesn't happen in the next few days, it probably isn't going to happen. Like one or the other.

Nobody's going to be sitting there taking calls on Christmas Day, I wouldn't imagine. It feels like Scott Boris might. Scott Boris. He'll be wheeling and dealing on those days, sure. I think the market has changed. You know, we talked about the implications of the Soto deal and how that changes everything. But, yeah, the fact that there hasn't been a deal done means that, the perfect scenario hasn't presented itself yet. If the team that Bregman wanted to go to came to him with the offer that he was looking for,

it would have been done. So is it not materializing at all? I'm sure that's not the case, but probably maybe not the dollars, maybe not the team, maybe not one or the other, but there's certainly still variables in play. Yeah, I wonder if the way that you mentioned it is, is just the price of poker gone up? Is Scott Bora saying, hey, I got $50 million a year for, Soto and maybe we were talking about 27, 28 a year for Bregma, but now that's going to be $32 million a year or whatever. I would imagine that whatever offers were being fielded, whatever numbers were being

thrown out, as the Soto deal became imminent, everybody kind of cleared the table and said, okay, let's start from scratch. Once that deal gets done, then we will restart our negotiations. And once that deal was done, the numbers all change. Yeah. And then I think the last part of Brian's question, one-year deal for Goldschmidt, I think he was talking about. As a contingency plan to a contingency, sure. It sounds good. To the backup, to the backup plan. It's not going to be your first priority.

It's not going to be something that's going to get done. You would want to do early in the off-season. But if you end up in a situation where you have a former MVP, gold-glove first baseman on a short-term deal late in his career, that's not a terrible place to be. So I'm sure it's something that the Astros will continue to check. in on but it's not going to be plan a or B. All right, Brian Bougasev with us here

on the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. He is on vacation. You guys want to get in. You can at 7-13. 21-7-9. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. We also got gut feelings coming up at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790, where I need to talk to you about your health and well-being. How did you feel it when you woke up this morning? Did you feel full of energy?

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Get the ball rolling. Don't even wait to the new year's. S-Y-N-E-R GenX Health.com. That's CentergenicsHealth.com. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal. On Sports Talk 790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas.

he's on vacation. He'll be back on Thursday. Brian Bogasevich here with us. We got gut feelings coming up at 11 o'clock. We got you if you'd like to get in. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7-90. So I've been operating with this

as basically in my head the last, I don't know, probably year and change. Bregman's gone, right? I mean, even though it feels like the market's cool, do you think there's any? or if you had to put a percent chance on him being back in a Houston Astros uniform? It's probably pretty low. 0.1, 0.0.1? I think it's higher than that simply because I think all things being equal,

he genuinely wants to be back here. I don't think that he sees the grass as being greener on the other side. And he's a player who winning is important. It's a guy who's been in deep playoff runs every year of his. career and that's something that goes along with his identity as a player and he's not going to just chase dollars to go somewhere else unless there's just not competitive offers where he feels like he can go and win i think it's no accident that alex cora and the red socks or at least alex cora's side of the red socks pushing for him the tigers have been mentioned of course a j

hinch over there these guys know the value of alex bregman i think not just on the field and off the field. And that's my question to you is what does that matter to where we've seen guys like Taylor Scott go on interviews, other pitchers talk about how there were things like Alex Breggman's writing his own scouting reports that aren't in the Astros

regular scouting reports like things for these pitchers to keep an eye on. He's been in late this year he took over as far as like he was in a lot of mound visits where he wasn't as much before. What does that bring to a team and maybe Jim Crane and you know, Brian

Cashman and whoever else aren't necessarily putting a number on that. What are you as a player? How much, how much of a difference does that make to where if you take Alex Bregman off the team, the impact that it has? Well, culture matters, leadership matters. And to get through a major league baseball season, which, you know, it's been said over and over how much of a grind it is, you need to have guys who know how to get through that grind. You need to have guys who know how to get through that grind. You need to have guys who can set the tone in a locker room of showing up every day, doing everything that they possibly can to compete on that given day, and then also make players around them better, set a tone of how things are going to work in our organization

on our team. And if you are a very good team, that can make you a great team, that can make you a contending team. If you are a young team, that can push you into that contender type of team. And I think those things are very valuable, obviously, to any team. But if you are an organization that is maybe lacking those things otherwise, it becomes even more valuable. And those are the situations where somebody could potentially overpay what you would see as being value for just on-field production. And as far as like the, I guess the scouting reports and talking with the pitchers and the mound visits and all that type of stuff. You know, that's a real thing. There have been stories in the past.

You've heard stories. Cal Ripkin used to call pitches from shortstop. Derek Jeter used to have input with, you know, defensive alignments and things that were going on on the mound. And it takes a special type of player not just to understand those different facets of the game, but also how to communicate them in a way that doesn't seem like you're overstepping boundaries. You have to have a certain level of respect that, Players have to look at you and know, not only does that guy know what he's doing,

but he is aware of everything that is going on on this field. He's seeing things that I'm not seeing. Okay, so Shay Wickham can't just show up in the mountain visit and start calling pitches. Probably wouldn't go over well. He goes up, should I tell Justin Berlander. How about a slider right there, man? That would be great. I would actually love to see it.

It'd be very entertaining to watch what happened. Yeah. Sam and Alvin, go ahead. Hey, guys, what's going on. I got a quick story first, and then I want to get to Alex Begman. But first off, Brian, good to see you, man. Happy to have you on this morning. It's great to hear you.

So I want to tell a quick story. So I'll just, the neighbor of Marwin and the Dolls in 2016 and 2017. And Marlon and I used to talk. And we had a late night conversation one time in 2016. And I said, Marlon, why can't we win? We can't win. Why can't look at those towns. We could win.

And Marlon told me the ownership doesn't want to spend the money. And I said, no, no, no. Look at all of our young guys. Just, it's coming, right? We're going to get all these guys. We're going to lock them up. We're going to have a great time until 2028. So now the Alex Bregman thing, and it's like, you know, Brian, I heard you say, like,

could Alice command $300 million after the Soto deal? That sounds like a stretch to me, right? But could he command 200? Why can't we pay Alex Bregman a little more than $200 million? And from a fan's perspective, right? We didn't get Correa. We didn't get Spring. I guess we got Burlander, but I don't know if he's going to put on an Astros out in the Hall of Fame.

I believe that at the end of Alex Breggman's career, where that's an eight, nine, ten years, he's going to be in the Hall of Fame. And that's another statue that we could put outside the park. From a fan's perspective, all I want to see is one of these kids that came through in 14, 15, 16. I know we got two of a day, but man, I want another statue. And it's like, I would love to get Jose Altuva statue and Alex Brickman's statue. So why can't we just pay the money to keep them around? Well, they do pay money to keep guys around. It's just they do it on their own terms.

And they've paid Jose Altuva a couple of times. They've paid Yordan now. And it's not about... Breggling got paid the first time. And when you're operating in the financial constructs in which the Astros operate, And, you know, make no mistake about it. They, their payroll gets right up to about that luxury tax threshold. Yeah, they went over a year.

It's not like they're not spending money. They're just not doing crazy things. Every individual deal that you make will affect subsequent deals. So could they go out there and give Alex Bragman the $250, $300 million deal? Sure, they probably could. But does that mean maybe they don't lock up Hunter Brown long term? Do they not lock up Yiner Diaz long term? Do they have other things on their shopping list that they can no longer do because of a deal?

Right. Steve Cohen can go out and sign Juan Soto to a $750 million deal. And then he can turn right around and give Pete Alonzo $250 million because Steve Cohen is the richest owner in all of baseball. And if you're not going to operate that way financially where you're just going to throw money at all of the issues, if you are looking for value, you've got. got to be disciplined. And when you start looking at some of the other guys who the Astros have lost in free agency, tell me which one of those contracts you would want to have right now. I mean, I guess you could argue Garrett Cole's been pretty good.

That's about it. That's the one that you would say has been... Correa? Springer's been hurt the entire time. Who else? Would you have one of the Astros would do the Verlander to the Mets and be paying the full $40 million? No. No.

He wasn't worth the money. that they traded back from, at least not last year. You know what? I think I would have liked to them signed the same deal that Charlie Morton signed the Tampa Bay, but that's also smaller to a lesser extent. And that in and of itself was a fairly palatable deal. It was only a couple of years. It was under $20 million.

Yeah, I think somewhere around there. All right, we've got to take a break. We are well past a break here on Sports Talk 790. When we come back, gut feelings with Brian Bogusevic. That is a first here on Sports Talk 790. You got a gut feeling, something. Did you want to make a prediction on 713? 212.5.790 is the phone number.

713, 212.5.790. Back with gut feelings after this quick break. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. All right, I made a mistake. I fudged up, guys. We used to do, and we're still getting used to this 10 to 2 slot here on Sports Stock 7.9. Okay, I'm still getting used to this 10 to do slot here because, well, a number of reasons.

we used to do when we first started on this time slot. Gut feelings at 11. Now I remember we moved into 1130. So all the dozens of you that called in to get on, you can go ahead and hang up. We will do gut feelings coming up at 1130 here on Sports Talk 790 and the Matt Thomas show. And this is how bad I'm mailing it in with Matt out. We're going to do it with Adam Wexler.

I want to hear some gut feelings from him. So we'll do it with him as well at 1.30. So Brian Bogus Evick hanging out until noon, really appreciate you hanging out, Brian. We'll get you your gut feelings. I know you're ready to go. You had all your gut feelings, but you're going to have to wait till 1130. I'm bursting with gut feelings. You're bursting with gut feelings. All right. 713, 21, 2, 790 is the phone number. You can still get in, talks of baseball. We can make some gut feelings coming up at 1.30. The phone number again, 713-212-5-790. So yes, as far as the spending. And we were kind of talking about that. We had the caller like, why don't they just pay everybody? But why don't they just pay? pay everybody. And two things. As you mentioned, and we kind of talked about, they're not going to be able to spend like Steve Cohen. They're not going to be able to spend like the Dodgers and the Yankees and those types of teams. And I understand we want to get mad, not we, but some fans want to get mad at Jim Crane. And first of all, if you call him cheap, you're an idiot. You haven't been paying

attention. The payrolls have been high. They've been top five in baseball, top 10 in baseball, basically since he's been here. He is not a cheap owner. Talk about the Tampa of Bay Race. Talk about the Oakland A's. Talk about, I don't know, the Pittsburgh Pirates or what. Those are the teams that are cheap. I think I saw a, I guess I need to fact check this, but I saw a graphic. Is it true? The biggest, the biggest contract, like, is it on their roster or of all time signed by the A's? Was it three years, 67 million to Severino? That's like the biggest free agent contract they've given or of anybody on their team. It wouldn't surprise me if it was. I don't know that for sure, but certainly, you know, the biggest contracts in his franchise,

history are going to come in the last 15 to 20 years, I would imagine, and they haven't, who have they signed? I can't think of anybody. Is it? I can't believe that they're out there spending at this point, moving to a minor league park for the next couple of years. Although there are collective bargaining implications of spending no money, so they've got to sign some players.

Okay, I found it. Yeah, the biggest extension that, yeah, it's the biggest contract they've ever signed. The biggest free agent contract in A's history, I just fact-checked. Luis Severino. Luis Severino, three years, $67 million, ever in their history. So now, I understand you want Jim Crane to run with the big dogs and they have on the field, but come on. It could be worse. No, it could be a lot worse.

When you have that kind of history of not spending money, of not keeping your players around, I would imagine as a fan, you almost have to feel like you're essentially a farm-class. club for the rest of Major League Baseball. Not because there have been some very good Oakland teams in the last, maybe not five years, but in the last 10, 15 years. But they just constantly turn over and are constantly losing guys to bigger markets. Your windows are going to be limited to a year or two of being good. And then you're going to have to turn that over, flip those guys for prospects,

and then hope some of those prospects hit. Now, of course, that's also an extreme. And we're talking about two extremes, basically. what the Mets are doing and then what the A's are doing. And the asteros are closer to the farthest extreme as far as expenditures. So I understand we want Jim Crane to just pay everyone, but he has to be fiscally responsible. And oh, by the way, I understand that we want to look at numbers as far as revenue and spending. Jim Crane didn't buy this team to lose money or to be a net zero.

He bought this team to make money and contend, and so far they've done that. There's a reason that owners put them. in a situation to become the owner of a sports franchise. It's because they are very smart business people and they make a lot of money and they don't like to lose money and they don't like to waste money. So to say that somebody is just going to go out there and do whatever they have to do, spend whatever amount of money, it's unreasonable to think that. But I do think there is a shift in ownership behavior these last couple of off seasons. And I think that it's going to be interesting to watch. In the last couple of collective bargaining agreements, when these luxury tax

thresholds have been put in, they've essentially acted as salary caps. Teams have not wanted to exceed them. If they do, they do so minimally and then try to reset the next year and get underneath so that they don't have to pay taxes. Steve Cohen has blown through that. The Dodgers have blown through that. San Diego doesn't seem to be concerned with that. There are these handful of teams, these likely suspects who have broken the wink-wink. It's not a salary cap, right? Yeah. And so it's going to be interesting to find out where that next tier of teams goes.

Do they still try to operate in that $180 to $200 million payroll world? Or do they say, okay, we're going to have to change our spending habits to compete? Because the gap between halves and have-nots is widening. and if you feel like you're going to be left behind as an organization, you've got to change your plan. Yeah, I'm wondering about that because of what you mentioned, and it's something we've kind of been talking about on this show and these shows and on this station, is could you see a change coming with maybe harsher luxury tax penalties, A, and B, some sort of loophole closing with all this deferred money that the Dodgers are doing?

Something is going to have to change. I can't imagine that the majority of owners are happy with the way a handful of owners have operated. And I'm sure the players and the players association is happy that there are guys who are now willing to blow through those numbers and give all of this money regardless of its now or deferred down the line. But that was not the vision that owners had when they put these luxury tax numbers into the last collective bargaining agreement. So there's going to be some significant changes, and we know that any time there needs to be significant changes in the collective bargaining agreement, it makes for a difficult negotiation. Because the players are going to be sitting there in a position of power saying, okay, you guys want to change that? Well, here's X, Y, and Z of what we want in return. So it's going to be a bumpy ride, but it's something that there has definitely been a shift in the spending habits of a handful of teams. Yeah, it just feels like, as you mentioned, the pendulum swing. a little bit too much between the

halves and the haves not. I don't know exactly what's going to correct it. Or are we saying Otani's once in a generation, so that's a one-off. Soto's once in a generation generation, so that's another one-off and maybe this will kind of cool down in the next couple of years and won't be as talked

about as much? I think there is some merit to the uniqueness of the Otani and Soto situations, but all of the sudden you see the same couple of teams popping up all of the negotiations for all of these top tier free agents. The Dodgers are scooping up every big-time free agent that comes out of Japan.

The Mets are in play for everybody at the top end of free agency. So in order to kind of disperse that a little bit more, something's going to have to get. All right, there you go. Brian Bogussevick here on Sports Talk 790. Getting some good stuff on baseball. You want to get in. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-790.

We got gut feelings coming up at 1130. be on hold. We'll get you next here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. The incomparable. Aretha Franklin here on Sports Talk 790, the Matt Thomas show with Ross. How can you tell Matt Thomas is out? It is Christmas music that you're hearing and it's not Christmas Eve. That's how you can tell. He'll be back on Thursday. I am here with you. We'll have, I think, Chris Gordian tomorrow. Thanks to Dan for hanging out yesterday. Adam Wexler will be here at 1 o'clock.

In the meantime, Brian Bogus segment has been hanging out, doing a great job. Appreciate you again, Brian. For talking some baseball with us. Phone lines open at 713-212-5-790. The phone number, 7-13-212-5-7-90. Gut feelings coming up in the next segment. Steve and Huffman has been waiting, so Steve, the floor is yours. Well, thank you.

And good morning to everybody there. Okay, I want to get into break. There's a reason that things aren't going the way his agent, Scott Boris, wants him to go. And here's my gut feeling on that. Didn't he have bone chips removed from his elbow this off-season? I believe he missed some time last year, here and there with nagging injuries, things, you know, where he had to sit. And that's understandable. The guy is turning, well, he's 30, I think, right now.

So, you know, I know Boris likes to do these 10, 15-year contracts, and, you know, and I respect Jim this way. I think Jim is probably going to give them the best deal that any of those guys out there is going to give them six years at 30 years of age with 160 million. If I was pregnant, I'd take it and kiss him behind both ears. I'll tell you why. Who's going to want to give somebody 10 years when things are starting to go a different direction? and also Boris is telling the other teams, well, he can play second base. I think that was a mistake floating that out there, not like it's a secret, but, I mean, to the baseball guys, but, you know, to shorten the throws.

I really think his best deal is, you know, because of all these things that I just mentioned, is going to be staying here. You know, Tucker was a whole different situation. But I just, I think teams are. hesitant on giving him a 10-year deal because when he hits 40, who's he going to be? I mean, we can look at history. Look at Mike Trout. What is he in the fourth year of a big contract?

He's played only 30 to 40 percent of the games. If you're the owner of the Angels, you can't be feeling good about writing those checks. Ren Don is another guy that they thought they were going to get a lot of time out of, and he's been hurt more than he's, I think probably even more than that. So I think long term, I think right now I would be shocked if Bregman and the Astros didn't come together and get this deal done. I like your optimism, Steve. Yeah, I think first of all, a lot to cover there. The idea of Alex Bregman playing second base isn't a response to an injury.

That is a response to don't feel like you need to be locked into him playing third. If you have a third baseman, you can still sign my client. That's what that is. That's what that is, but doesn't, isn't the market, wouldn't it be less, I mean, on average, annual value for a second basement than a third basement? Third base, more of a premium defensive position, probably I would say. But then you make the counter argument of the numbers that he puts up offensively add more value as a second basement. That's true. That's true.

That's really, the positional versatility part of it isn't what is holding anything up or isn't. necessarily a significant aspect. It's money. It's money in years. And if, you know, the deal that has been reported, the Astros put out there, which was six years, 1506, or whatever that is, if that, if that has been presented to him, then the question is, well, what's he waiting for? Well, he's waiting for somebody to go seven years. And he's going to wait for somebody to go to eight years and see what shakes out. I mean, you're in contact with all of these different teams and getting all of these different numbers. At some point it's going to be, all right, everybody, give me your best offer, best number,

and then you make the decision. I don't think he's not in a position right now where he has to jump at everything because he is the top available player at this point. He mentioned the deals for Trout in Rendon. And you kind of mentioned this. We were talking about the players that got signed away from the Astros. And outside of Garrett Cole, it's been kind of a mixed bag. at best.

Do you think there ends up in a time, and I guess it's going to take years and years and years, to where teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, at the end of these deals where they feel like they've got burned? Because it happened, like, at the end of Alex Rodriguez's deal, that was a horrible deal for the Yankees. At the end of Derek Jeter, when he was at the end of his career, Albert Poole holes as well.

And it feels like owners would maybe try to learn from those deals, but it kind of hasn't happened. No, it hasn't. And the reason it hasn't is because as big as some of these yearly salaries are $20,000, $30 million, $50 million. If you get a guy, we'll use Soto as the example, right? If he has the kind of season that he's capable of having, where he hits close to $300, he hits 40 home runs, he's on bay. The value that he adds is in excess of $50 million. And that doesn't, that's just on field. What one war is worth versus, the kind of season that he has. It's comparable. And that doesn't even take, take into account your bump in season ticket sales as soon as you sign a guy like that, jersey sales, merchandise, all of those things. Advertising. They're getting value for these contracts. So, yeah, is there going to be some dead money at the end? Maybe, but it's kind of just cost of doing business. Yeah, that's what it seems like, I guess, I mean, unless it's like an absolute disaster,

like yeah, Trout the last few years. The Rendon deal is a terrible deal. It's a disaster, yeah. There are certainly a lot of those. And general rule of thumb, most of those long-term deals, anything over eight years, really hasn't worked out all that well for anybody. But they keep doing it because if somebody's offering you five, the next guy will do six to make the deal happen. And the guy next to him will do seven. So it's going to keep happening. Yeah, I didn't realize it was this bad. I just pulled up Mike Trout last five years.

53 games played 36, 119 and 22. Congratulations. Although also he played 53 in the COVID year, so that was only 60, but was the max. But 82 games and then 29 games last year. Yeah, it's bad. I mean, he's gone from a guy who the first, whatever it was, six, seven years of his career was on this generational track of if he retired today, is he a Hall of Famer already? To now where you're looking at, you know, four plus years of sort of pedestrian production. He's great when he's out there.

He's just never out there. Well, career, 378 homers, 991 OPS, 3 MVP's probably still in if he retires today. He would be. And because you take into account that he's done it all as a center fielder and he's stolen bases. And he is the epitome of the war baby, right? He accumulates so much war that anybody who uses that as their metric, he's the guy. A five-time war leader. Yeah.

That's pretty crazy. It's just, it has not been good lately. And it's changed the course of that franchise. All right, 713, 212, 579. The phone number, Luis. Next up. What's up, Luis? Hey, morning.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. How you doing? I wanted to check with you and Brian. There is a guy called Santander. He's a guy from Venezuela. He's a switch heater is from the Baltimore Oriental people to a pre-agent. It's younger than the Los Angeles for the Dodgers.

And with that right field, offense, he could really put a lot of homers in and for the Astros. It's not bad defensively. Why, I mean, why the Astros haven't taken a look at him and also do you think it might be a possibility?

All right, guys, I'm going to hang up on least. Thank you. Thank you, guys. I didn't catch the last part, but Santander has been kind of mentioned with the Astros. Yeah, I can't imagine that they haven't been in contact with him at the very least, if not, you know, hopefully pursuing him. He's a guy that fits. He fits the mold of what the Astros look for. He can play

multiple, you know, he can play either corner position in the outfield. He is a switch hitter. He makes contact. He hits for power. He's a guy. The question is going to be to become is, is he too desirable a free agent? He's a guy that fits a lot of needs for a lot of different teams and, you know, going into this season, this is his age 30 season. So if you're talking about a five-year deal, a six-year deal. It's the same conversation that we just had with Alex Breggman. Would the Astros want to have Santander on their team next year?

Absolutely. But is it going to take a seven-year deal to get that done? It very well might. Yeah, I imagine there have been conversations and his name has been floated with the Astros, but yeah, if you're not going to pay Alex Bregman, it's like to long-term to extra

year's deal like you're saying. I'd be surprised that they're going to do it for Santander, especially considering all the value that that Alex Breggman has brought over the years. Well, absolutely. And until the Alex Breggman situation sort of remedies itself, I don't know that you're going to see the Astros too hot. Really on any of these other position player free agents, he's got to still be Plan A. Until he's off the board, there's always a chance that he returns.

And we know that the Astros would prefer it that way. So I don't know that going out and signing a guy like Santonde, and completely closing the door on bringing back. Bregman would be the course of action that they would want to undertake. But no, you're absolutely right in that. Anthony Santander is a guy who would fit very well onto this team, especially now with Kyle Tucker being gone. All right.

Time for another break here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Brian Bogusevich is here. He's going to give us his gut feelings coming next up. You can get in with your gut feelings as well. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. a prediction you'll want to make, something that you're feeling in your gut, you want to put it on record. You can do it next segment at 713, 212, 5, 790.

Listen up, girls and boys. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. 1130 in the a.m. here on Sports Talk 790. It's time for some gut feelings you want to get in. You got some gut feelings for us. You can at 713, 212. 5-790. The phone number again, 7-13-212-5-7-90. A prediction you want to make. Something you feel in your gut. You can do it at 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. So the way this segment works is we make our predictions. But first, Brian, we will go ahead and look back at the predictions from last week. And I'm honestly just stalling as I pull up my document. Okay, I've got it. Let's see. Matt Thomas made a prediction. He said Alex Bregman will sign with the Boston Red Sox.

That has not happened yet, so we'll see if that is going to be a value, is that's going to be valid or not. My prediction last week, Alex Breggman, going to be a New York Yankee. Do you have a prediction? Let me, just in case. Do you have a prediction yet?

Do you want to do that for this segment? Or you want me to wait? I don't want to put you on the spot just immediately. No, no, I've got one. Okay. I've got one. And it's in line with yours and Max as well because it has to do with Alex Breggman.

So I'm going to go here. My gut tells me that Alex Breggman is going to end up being a Detroit tiger. Ooh, A.J. Hinch reunited and it feels so good? So, so when you look past just the production on the field, you know, there's going to be a lot of people who are in the market for a third baseman who plays gold glove caliber third base and puts up good offensive numbers. But there are going to be a handful of organizations who really need to bring in a culture

setter, a guy who can take a young team and bring legitimacy, much like Justin Verlander did when he was traded here in 2017. Now all of a sudden, hey, we're bringing in the big boys and we're playing big boy baseball. I think Alex Bregman can be that for a young Tigers team who probably surprised themselves a little bit last year. Maybe we're a little bit ahead of schedule and saw AJ Hinch go pretty hard after Carlos Correa. Very similar situation, a guy who could come in and changed the course of the franchise. They missed on Correa. They ended up with J. Baez.

That did not work. Same thing, right? I think AJ will really try to convince their front office and their ownership that Alex Bregman is the guy who can go in there and take a good young team and bring some real contending legitimacy to them. Yeah, sometimes I'm about to make a fantasy football analogy here. So here we're going to go. Sometimes, let's say there's like a hot running back on the waiver wire and I don't really need. a running back, but I'll pick up that running back. That way nobody else gets them.

What about the value of the tigers picking up Alex Bregman, keeping him away from the Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, not only making themselves stronger, but preventing those other teams from getting strong in the interim. You know, there's certainly some value to doing that. You know, all the teams that we've heard tied to Alex Bregman have all been American League teams. There hasn't been a whole lot outside of the American League. So if the tigers think they're going to be legitimate contenders here moving forward, you take him off. I don't know that you necessarily overpay the market to do that, but it's certainly something worth taking into account.

But the fact that he is a proven winner, the fact that he has helped so many of his teammates become better versions of themselves, I think that is worth overpaying what just the production numbers say. And that's really, I mean, the stories the last couple of years of the Minnesota. twins, especially when they were in the playoff last year and they're facing off against the Astros, is that Carlos Corre did a good job of setting the culture there, teaching them how to win. They had a younger team. They hadn't had a whole lot of playoff success

really as a franchise in the last decade plus or whatever it is, and him being somebody who has set that culture. Absolutely. And look no further than the World Series this year. There was a lot of stuff that came out from the Dodgers side

talking about how they felt they matched up with the Yankees and how the Dodgers players felt that they played a winning brand of baseball that would eventually allow them to prevail in that World Series. And now all of a sudden you bring in a guy who has spent his entire career playing a winning brand of baseball and bring that to a good young team, but still a young team that hasn't really won a whole lot. All right. Keeping with the gut feelings from last week, Connor McGovern, you also said Alex Breggman

is going to be a New York Yankee. and well, we'll see on that. I'm going to stick with the Yankees, I guess. Well, it's a gut feeling. I can't change it. Connor, you got anything that you would like to predict is going to happen next up for any of the Houston teams or anything else in sports? Yeah, the Rockets have the Pelicans, Raptors, and Hornets coming up. I see the Rockets winning all three of those.

Oh, three and oh? Yeah. Let's go, baby. And then West playoffs. I say Mahomes doesn't play against the Texans, but the Chiefs still win because their defense is just that much better. Oh, come on. Come on. We haven't talked about the Texans a lot.

You follow NFL much? Yeah. Are you a, who should, you got a squad? Are you, uh, I know you're from Illinois. I grew up a Bears fan, but it's been 20 years since I've been able to follow the Bears. You didn't watch that. You didn't watch that game last night. There's nothing worth following the Bears for it.

But I have become a de facto Houston, Texas. That's what I'm talking about. Houston Texans fan. I'm with you, Connor. I think that Pat Mahomes is not going to play, so I will lock that in as a gut feeling for me. He will not play. It doesn't make sense. sense to rush him when they have, they have a game on Christmas Day as well, as do the Texans.

And there has been a lot of money spent putting together that Christmas Day package, which means they need Pat Mahomes to play that game. They need Pat Mahomes to play. I don't know if he'll even play that one, I guess. We'll see that. But yeah, if he's going to play, he's going to play one of them. But I'm going to say the Texans win, Connor, you Texans hater. I hope it's right.

Suck it, Carson Wentz. I hope you're right. It just one feeling in my gut. I don't know, Andy Reed and Carson Wentz. It feels like there could be some black magic happening to, where Carson Wentz throws for like 300 yards and three touchdowns. Andy Reed, I feel like that is his MO. Like everybody thinks, oh, they're not going to do it.

Oh, yeah, watch this. Yeah, they won with Alex Smith. They didn't, did Chad Hennie? Who was the backup that came in before in the playoffs or something like? Or close to the end of the season, they won with him too? This is one of the old Michigan quarterback. Yeah, was it Chad Hennie? I don't remember.

But, yeah, it feels like I could definitely see. I'm going to say, I could see a scenario where Carson Wentz starts this game and the Texans lose. I choose to be positive, though, Connor. I'm going to say the Texans Texans beat the Chiefs. I don't know if they're going to cover that two and a half. Look, even with Pat Mahomes,

every game they play is a field goal game. You're going to have a chance. Yeah. You're going to have a chance. Or at least you're going to delude yourself into thinking you have a chance. You want to get a gut feeling in 713-213-2-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I will also predict that the Astros do not.

Now, this is probably the heavy favorite, but Astros do not end up with Nolan R-N. I understand why is mentioned that he will be here, but it just doesn't jive. It just doesn't make sense to me that they would give away Bregman, give away Tucker, and then tradeaway prospects, which you would have to do, I would imagine at least a decent stock of prospects if you're also going to have the Cardinals send cash back with Nullin Aronado. No, it makes sense. I don't foresee the Astros if they do lose out on Bregman going back into the third base market.

They've already done that. They have Esock Parade is he can fill in at third base. I think what they do in that situation is they pivot off. a third base and start looking at first base or another outfit. Christian Walker or do we know what kind of market he's as far as years in value? It's less. It's less years. The guys who can provide a little bit of thump in the lineup at the corner at first base or

right field aren't commanding the length of contract that some of the other guys are looking at. Yeah. I just, I don't know. It kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense with me. I understand why the Astros would be mixed up into that market, but also the report from Chandler-Rome says nothing eminent. So that's why gut feeling Nolan Aronado, not a Houston Astro.

I think that's a good gut feeling. Okay. Anything else? Any other gut feelings? You want to predict how's Tulane going to do in the Gasparilla Bowl? I have no idea. You know, my radar for Tulane football goes on when they sneak into the top 25 midway through the season. Yes.

And as soon as I started watching, they started losing. losing, so I probably will not be watching. Oh, man, come on. Market value, this is what Spottrek has, market value for Christian Walker, three years, $66 million. He's 33 years old right now. I think we've played in that three-year deal for a first baseman before. What's the worst that could happen?

I know exactly what the worst that could happen is. Yeah, I guess we do. All right, time for another break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Brian Bogus Evick is here. If you want to get into gut feeling, you can. Connemar Governe here as well. We got news at noon coming up at 12. We also have an NFL rewind. We got Adam Wexler coming up at 1 o'clock. And you, if you'd like to get in at 713-213-2-5-790 back after this quick break. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues on Sports Talk 790. Final segment with Brian Bogusevick here on the Matt Thomas show.

without Matt Thomas, with me, Ross, and some Christmas music. Gets the people going. All right, welcome back. Final segment to go here. On the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We've been talking a lot of baseball. Anything else you want to get off your chest, not baseball-related? Brian, you got something you want to talk to do some Texans talk? How are we feeling about our Texans? Since you said you're a de facto Texans fan. Well, I like where they're at

just general direction of the, organization. In terms of, you know, are they Super Bowl contenders this year? I don't know. There are some holes. It doesn't feel like it. No, but if you have the coach and you have the quarterback, you're in a pretty good situation and they've got the coach and they've got the quarterback. So the next, you know, five, ten, whatever year, however many years it's going to be, it's a good time to be a Texas player. Yeah, see, that's what I say as well. And we were talking about this yesterday because they beat the dolphins and I put it out on Twitter like, how are you guys feeling and everybody's like upset everybody's mad i'm like you can't be pissed off okay they're nine and

five they clinton division with three weeks to go are they tier one super bowl contenders no we were hoping that they were going to make that leap but they there is i feel like i can poke holes in any team in the nfl the bill's defense is terrible the lion's defense is terrible the chiefs have been in a bunch of close games the the ravens have lost five games i mean i feel like any team that you look around, nobody's perfect. No, absolutely not. I mean, the parody across the league is such that you can

make an argument for or against pretty much any team, but as somebody who spent a large part of his life cheering for an organization that was not relevant in the Chicago Bears, to be in a situation where your team is relevant, where you're competitive on a week in, week out basis, where you can

sit there and dream about, hey, if some stuff lines up, you know, maybe we go on a run here through the playoffs, it's a pretty good situation to be in. I feel like the Texans fans, now Astros fans are spoiled. We are. Terribly spoiled. Like, I can't, but like they won 88 games in the division last year,

and everybody's upset and mad and talking about how Jim Crane sucks, and Dana Brown needs to be punted off of the earth and all this other stuff. But that took years. Texans fans got spoiled in one year. One year. Well, again, I'll draw the comparison to the Chicago Bears where they were in a situation where they're drafting at. the top of the draft and they take a franchise type of quarterback.

And you know what isn't any different this year than last year is watching them play football. And for the Texans who have turned it around almost immediately when they draft CJ, it's pretty remarkable. And you get a couple of pieces around and you've got some payroll flexibility. They're going to go on a run at some point. Yeah, I hope so. And it could be this year. Now, I don't think it's going to be this year because they have issues with the offensive line. but they've also been shuffling that around because of a lot of injuries and stuff like that.

So I choose most times in life I choose to be optimistic. I choose to be optimistic with the Texans. Yeah, it's a good time to be a fan of the team because they're always going to be significant and relevant. There aren't going to be many wasted years. All right. And then how about you, you have you a bunch of a basketball guy? Eh, a little bit. A Tulane College basketball?

No. Do they have a team? I'm sure they do. No, I grew up in 1990s Chicago. Oh, wait a minute, you're a Bulls fan. Basketball was my favorite sport growing up, as it was pretty much every kid, my age, in the city of Chicago. Well, here in Houston, too, because we let you guys have a couple of championships. Hey, hey, hey, Michael Jordan was playing in 95.

I saw him drop 50 in the garden when he came back, all right? But, you know, it's just I'm so far removed from that fandom. My following of basketball is casual at best. Okay. All right. But this weekend of college football, you talk about, like, as being a fan of college football, you just wait for these sort of like event-type games or these big weekends. What we're about to get into this weekend, like, I am beyond excited for this weekend of college football.

All right. Let's do some college football talk. Would you think about the way that the bracket shook out with the top 12 teams and being choose? Alabama left out, I think, was the marquee. I think the committee sort of put themselves in a position where they had to make the decisions that they made. The way teams were ranked coming into it, you don't want to devalue playing in the conference championship games and all of that. And so you end up with SMU. I think the most predictable thing that has come is that instead of arguing over who the fourth versus fifth best team in the country is, we're arguing over who's the 12th versus 13th.

Is there anybody that didn't see that coming? So we're never going to give them credit for getting it right. Everybody's going to always have a gripe. But to have these next three weeks in a row of awesome college football is just, it's the best. Yeah, it's going to be cool. I love the 12th team playoff. But somebody, I think I saw it on Twitter somewhere was talking about how if we went back to the old BCS system, it would have just been Oregon, Georgia, let's get this thing done, those teams earned it.

And that's the national championship. would have had very little to discuss after that. But no. But it... Yeah, we wouldn't even have it argued. Maybe Notre Dame, probably not. And there are certainly some things that need to be tweaked, some things that, you know, I don't know if they didn't see it happening with conference champions having to get the buys and everything.

But there are tweaks to be made. Yeah. But all in all, the extra games, I mean, it's a huge win for us. I said it when it was announced, though. And now every year, we have to remember every year in college football is different. Now next year you might not have as, this is a wonky year. You had Georgia with crazy losses, Bama with crazy losses, other crazy like Indiana out of nowhere. Every year is going to be different.

So complaining about one year and saying we need to make material big time change off of one year, I think is an overreaction. But even before the 12 teams were announced, I felt like automatic bids for the top four conferences was ridiculous. And that is born out this year where you have a team that is the nine seed in Boise State gets a top four. in the buy. And a team that is the, is, should be, is ranked 12th also gets shot up. And, and it is to the three and four seats in the college football playoff for all the marbles are Boise State and Arizona State. Something's not right. Who we're not sure how good either those teams actually are. And I think just, you know, general rule of thumb, having absolutes, having automatic anything is probably a bad idea. But I mean, we're sitting there and the committee

is ranking these teams one through 12 on a weekly basis. So why not when you, you put them into the bracket, why not just take the top four teams and give them the buy? Yeah, that's the way. I think they should do it. And at the very least, we talked about this a little bit off air. They have to reseed because Oregon right now, they have the, the number one seed probably has the toughest path to the championship as far as the top four. Well, I think without a doubt, I mean, probably they're Oregon's first game against either Tennessee or Ohio State. That's probably the toughest opponent that anybody's going to face in that round. And then looking ahead to, you know, potentially facing the longhorns,

in Dallas for the semifinal game. It's a tough path for a team that I think is unquestionably the number one team in the country. Yeah, I wasn't too happy to have the Longhorns lose the SEC championship to Georgia, but Clemson at home, winnable, and then Arizona State

after that, winnable, and then we're talking about semifinals in Dallas against Oregon. As a Longhorn fan, I can't be too upset. No, I think that's a heck of a consolation prize for not getting the SEC championship. Hey, they're undefeated against teams not named Georgia. Just saying, just saying. All right. Well, that's going to do it. Brian, thank you so much for hanging out, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate it. A couple hours flew by. It's fun to be here. All right. Well, maybe bother you down the road in the off season getting ready. You'll be back, of course, with Space City Home Network. Come spring training, start of the season-ish. Yeah, no, we'll be on there. We usually get some of those first weekend of games on. So we'll probably be putting Astros games on early February. All right. Any big plans between now and February? No, I'm just hanging out.

Okay, just hanging out, chilling. We'll appreciate you coming by, and thanks for hanging out. We'll bother you down the road. No problem, thank you. All right, there you go. That is Brian Bogusivic. Thanks to him for hanging out for a couple of hours. My name is Ross V Real.

I'll be flying solo in the next hour. We'll get Adam Wexler at 1 o'clock when also you at 713-212-5-790 if you'd like to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. News at Nood. Coming up next. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 1202 in H-Town.

What's happening in lunch timers? Hello and welcome to the third hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, Brian Bogus-Evick, much many thanks to him for hanging out. Really appreciate him for the first couple of hours. I'll be flying solo, but really I'm just making Connor McGovern do all the heavy work. We'll get to that. He's going to bring us the NFL rewind coming up at 1230. We'll also have Adam Wexler coming in at 1 o'clock.

and I will also be hanging out with him for a couple hours. It's the holidays. We're short-handed. You got these divas like Matt Thomas and Adam Clinton taking time off. So we've got to fill in somewhere. So that's what we're going to do. I'll be hanging out with him later on. But right now, all the top sports news items of the day.

What is happening in the world of sports? It's time for the news that do to hear old sports talk 790. Let's hear it. Let's hear your news anchor voice, Connor. This is the Sports Talk 790 news. desk. I'm Connor McGovern. This is the news at me. That's what I'm talking about. All right. What do we got, Connor? The Houston

Texans are your AFC South champions. With the win over the Miami Dolphins plus the Denver Broncos defeating the Colts, the Texans are back-to-back division champs. This marks the third time in franchise history that the Texans have won back-to-back division titles. Houston has now captured the AFC South eight times in total. CJ Stroud and Dimeco Ryans are the first quarterback head coach duo at NFL history

to win their division and their first two seasons. Demico Ryans spoke yesterday to the media about clenching the division. Going to the AFC South is huge for us. Great accomplishment by all of our guys is always our goal. You want to make it in the postseason. You have to win your division. It starts there. And so we're just thankful for everyone who played a part in us, you know, reaching the first step of our goal. And that's getting in, our credit to all of our guys and the work that they put in. the way they played yesterday. It was just outstanding to see them play that way,

play complimentary football and find a way to win games. And so very proud of our guys and proud to win the AFC South. Battle Red Ross, your Texans are division champions. And I'm happy, and you know what? I'm optimistic about the Texans. I'm not going to be whining and talking about how they're not contenders and they're mid and they're the worst nine and five team ever. If you're telling me that they're nine and five,

they're champions of the division with three weeks ago, they are not mid. They just aren't elite, unfortunately. I don't think that the Texans are a tier one Super Bowl contender. I think they're probably the fourth or fifth most likely team to come out of the AFC, but I think they've got a shot. And I am the same person that sat, well, maybe not in this chair. We might have been in different studios and talked about Bill O'Brien when they would go nine and seven

and win the division and talk about how terrible it was and how there just really wasn't much to forward to. Hold on. Talk, Connor. I mean, all right, I'm good. During those times, it was Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, Brock Osweiler, those were your quarterbacks in those years. This time, yes, you have offensive line issues. Yes, if Joe Mixing goes down, you ain't going anywhere in the playoffs.

I'll say the same thing for Nico Collins and C.J. Strout. But this defense has lost Jalen Petrie. Aziz al-Shahir has been. has been suspended for his dirty play against Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars, but at least he's going to come back. And this defense, a team in the Miami Dolphins, which had scored 30 plus points in three out of their last four games, they held them to 12. They made two a tongue of Oloa look completely pedestrian.

So I get why we're not happy that they're not amongst the elite. But can you really be a spoiled fan base one year into this? basically one plus year and you're not even having the second year or the playoffs. You guys need to get some pep in your step when it comes to the Texans. And all the complaining that you're doing

you're 9 and 5. We'll see what happens against the Chiefs. I understand you can kind of lack enthusiasm when the team steps up and plays the big dogs. But the big dogs that they have played this year, Vikings, okay, blowout loss. Bills, which are looking like world beaters and everyone's

talking about them as Super Bowl favorites, the Texans beat the bills. And that wasn't like the first week of the season. That was like week five-ish. So we were still into the year, and things have changed since then, of course, and Josh Allen is playing lights out. But the bills have a horrible defense,

and you've done really well against Josh Allen before. You literally beat them on the field. And if Keimie Fairbairn could make field goals, you probably beat the Detroit Lions. And also if they don't play to lose at the end of that game and collapse. Holding that team to 26 points is an accomplishment. talking about the Detroit Lions, and they have a horrible defense. There's no perfect team in the NFL.

Yes, you are a tier two rather than a tier one contender, but all the hemming and honing and whining and crying about the Texans, get over yourself. And remember what we had in that Bill O'Brien era, when the team was being led by the likes of Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brian Hoyer and Brock Osweiler and the Money Mills, two years of Money Mills, you're whining and crying, You got C.J. Stroud.

Your back-to-back division champions, act like it. Texans fans. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get on my soapbox there. Go ahead, Connor. That's all right. We're going to stay with the Texans, actually. Wide receiver, Stefan Diggs made an appearance on Good Morning Football

and talked about his recovery efforts after tearing his ACL during the Texans' week eight game against the Colts. But Diggs also talked about how he landed in Houston, his connection with his teammates, and alluded to a possible future. It was crazy, like, going in, you know, not being even apprehensive. I spent some time with the guys on the off season, and I kind of like, it was kind of weird because it was like, dang, like, it's been like I knew them before. Like, even though I had somewhat of relationship with tanks,

it was like I knew them before. Like, they were relatives of mine, like family. So going into that season, I was, it was so, it was just so much fun. I woke up every day with a smile. It was a little hot. I would say if anybody's going to Houston, it's a little hotter in the summertime. So be careful. But definitely something to be excited about, you know, moving forward.

You know, I know what the future holds, but I definitely got a home in Houston. You know what I love those guys over there. good people. Hmm. Doesn't know what the future holds, but knows he has a home in Houston. Diggs also said that he would be on the Texan sideline for the Christmas Day game against the Ravens.

He was also very diplomatic calling it a little hot. It is scorching hot. It's freaking 80 degrees in the middle of December. Can we please? Can we please? I'm not asking for it to be 15 degrees. I don't like snow. I don't want to get into the negatives.

But when you live in Houston, you sign up for mild win. You don't sign up for hot winters. And that's what we're getting right now in Houston. Stefan Diggs, it's a little hot. That's very, that's the nicest thing Stefan Diggs has ever, probably anybody said about the city of Houston, calling it a little hot.

It is scorchingly, unbearingly hot. Unbearably? Whatever. All of that. It's terrible. Barely hot. Ugh. 80 freaking degrees the last couple of days.

At least it hasn't been super sticky and humid like it was maybe over the weekend, but this is embarrassing. This winter, though, is pretty mild. It's hot out. Yeah, it's hot. Like I said, I want mild. I want mild. I want like 6570.

That's mild. This is hot. Like, you get up to 80. You shouldn't be sticky and sweating in shorts on December 17th. It's not right, Connor. It's just not right. All right. But mentioning that it felt like family in Houston,

I don't know if that's lip service, or if he really is thinking about coming back here in Houston. I would love for him to come back because that would mean a certain host who put their name on the fact that he would be only here for one year would be wrong. So that would be cool. That would put a smile on my face.

But we'll see what happens with Stefan Diggs. I think actually him getting hurt opened the window of possibility for him basically being here on a one year prove it deal to other teams. Maybe you put that back one more year and do one more prove it deal and sign another one year deal

with the Houston Texans. That certainly is within the realm of possibility in my opinion. What else you got, Connor? Speaking of veterans, we've got an ex-rocket. James Hardin was deciding where to sign following the 2022-2020 season. And according to Sam Amick of the athletic, head coach IMAIDOCA helped influence Hardin's decision with Yudoka saying, quote, my main thing for us was what fits best with our young guys to continue to grow?

But also out of respect for James, I told him, you're at the stage where you want to win and we're not there yet. And it wasn't just James. I had five, six veteran guys who went to championship level teams who wanted to come that summer. and I said the same thing to all of them. They all went to other places, but they had Golden State, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and all these teams wanting them to come. But I told them, we're not there.

Go try to win a championship. And so it's just about fit and where we're at. Our young guys needed the reps. Hardin went on to sign with the Clippers, so Ime Adoka turning away some interested veterans ahead of last season. Interesting. Now, the way it was reported previously was that Ime Odoca told the rocket

don't sign James Hardin, as in like we don't want him here and the thought being as a culture fit. So maybe it's both. Maybe at one side he was like Rockets. Yeah, don't do this. We don't need James Hardin. He's not going to help us.

That's not something we want to do. And then on the same time telling James Hardin, we're not ready to win yet. That's what you want to do. Although it's not like James Hardin has been winning a ton with the Clippers, although they made the playoffs last year, right? And if everybody would stay healthy, which they didn't, maybe they would have had more of a shot.

So that is interesting. And Coach Udoka telling everybody to stay away, maybe that means he will still be an attractive target coming up for the Rockets, depending on how things move and shake with guys like Fred Van Vit, possibly coming off the books. But they did make the big signings to both Alper and Shingoon and Jalen Green. So I don't know how much wiggle room they have with the cap in the next couple of years. You want an offbeat story? Yeah, let's do it.

Okay, so I know you follow the combat sports. A little bit. Did you see that? Connor has agreed to fight influencer Logan Paul, the older brother of Jake Paul. Are you serious? Boxing exhibition in India. No, I didn't.

McGregor said he would make his return to the Octagon after this boxing exhibition. So McGregor, he's 36, was once the biggest star in the UFC. Hasn't fought since he injured his leg about with Dustin Poirier in July of 2021. He pulled out of UFC 303 with Michael Chandler last June because of a broken toe. So Logan Paul,

just like his younger brother, Jake, he's a YouTuber turned boxer. and he previously fought Floyd Mayweather. So who you got, Ross? What's the weight different? What does Logan Paul fight at? Because he's got to be weight. I know that Jake Paul is like, well, he was well over 200 pounds.

And Connor McGregor doesn't fight. He fights well under 200 pounds. Logan Paul, according to Google, is 6-2 and 205. 6-2 and 205. Yeah, so he's going to be bigger than Connor McGregor, but I don't know if he's going to big enough. I'll go with Connor McGregor by December. decision. I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. I told you all on air, by the way, that Mike Tyson

was going to lose by decision because he's 58 years old and he's, I mean, he had been recently hospitalized and even talked about after the fight how he had lost all his blood and had to have a bunch of transfusions. I didn't know that, but it seemed like a dire situation for Mike Tyson that they tried to cover up. Conner is at least only 36 years old, but he's also not a boxer. Can I just say I don't care who wins? Sure. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the Pauls. I'm sick of them being in boxing and making a bunch of money off of it.

All right. Time for a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas. My name is Ross via real. I am with you until 2 o'clock. I'll actually be with you after that hanging out of the A team, but Adam Wexer will be driving the show. Then he's going to join me at 1. We've got the NFL Rewin coming up at 1230.

We also have anything you want to talk about. We did some heavy baseball talk with Brian Bogussevich talking about Kyle Tucker going away. How we're feeling about that? Alex Breggman has the market slowed? Will it continue to slow? Have the numbers changed after the Soto deal? I do not know. How would we feel about Aronado?

We're talking about Anthony Santon Dere. Anything Astro is related, rockets related, anything you want to get to. 713-2-790 is the phone number. 713-212-5-790. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790 All right, how many Jonas Brothers are there? Well, there's only three in the band, but there's four in the family.

Oh, some of them aren't talking to each other, correct? No, they're together. Okay, is everybody good? Yeah, they were beefed for a little bit. Dan Matthews, big Jonas Brothers fan. He is? Yeah. We've talked about it before.

You guys got to deep dive? If they're coming to town, him and I are going. Okay, that's cool. You guys starting a podcast? What's a no one? the Joe Bros. Jonas and the Whales? No way, that seems mean. Not appropriate.

Jonas Brothers? You might get sued for that one. That's a bad idea. Anyways, welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas, and without Brian Bogussevick, and we will have Adam Wexler coming up at 1 o'clock. We've got the NFL rewind coming up at 1230. So a couple of minutes here if you want to get in. We've been talking all things sports with Brian Bogus Sevick.

I mean, he was a drop in knowledge on the college football playoff. That was fun there in the last segment. And we've also been talking about, of course, your Houston Rockets and the Houston Texans. As I said, I mean, I guess I understand where we want to feel maybe less than enthused about the Texans to where they scored 20 points against the dolphins who don't. don't have a very good defense. A lot of it, the production did come on short fields. You look at the overall stats of the game. And this is one thing that I like to do because turnovers, I think, don't always tell

you the whole story. If a team is turning the ball over and fumbles happen all the time and sometimes they get recovered, sometimes they don't. But interceptions, of course, do matter. Derek Stingley, ripping away that ball from Tyreek Hill. I mean, that was a plus play that a lot of DBs don't make on the field. That's an earned turnover for the Texans. But if you look independent of the turnover battle, which I like to do to say, okay, who had more yards, who had more first downs, who controlled

the clock, who really was better in this game? There's some guy I follow that also does he looks at those types of metrics and way more in depth than I am. I think EPA is a metric that he looks at and like how bad did your team really lose that I believe what he calls it? So if we look at just like the regular numbers, 18 first downs for the dolphins to 12. Not good. You lost comfortably by that metric. 224 yards to 181 yards for the Texans. I'm sorry, advantage dolphins there.

Not good. Not what you want to see. Overall team passing yards. 104 passing yards for the Texans, 77 rushing yards as well. not good. You also got some gifts from the other team in terms of penalties. Eight penalties for 64 yards.

You yourself had seven for 70. I mean, the penalties weren't great by the Texans. And the Miami Dolphins won the time of possession 33 minutes to 26 minutes. But the thing that really has me excited about this team is that it kind of

doesn't seem to matter. You lost Aziz al-Shayir. Christian Harris had been gone for the majority. of the year. You've had guys like Henry Tooto go out for times. I'll show you it was hurt and now he's been suspended and Mario Edwards got suspended and all like, and for the most part, this defense has really stayed intact and really played well to where, I mean, okay, a bad game against the Titans where they scored 32 points against you. There were some busted plays and big production given up in those moments.

Outside of that, defense has been rock solid. They've been one of the best units in all of football. And if you have C.J. Stroud at the helm, who also has not looked as spectacular as he has in years past, but still a couple of times a week makes you go, wow. Oh, my gosh, to where Davis Mills wouldn't have made that play. We can go back to, okay, maybe Deshawn Watson would have made that play as far as like 2019 Deshawn Watson, but not 2024 to Sean Watson because he's been terrible and then he ripped his Achilles. But you have a special quarterback who can go out there and win you games. He proved it last year. And I still think he has that capability within him.

And then you have a really solid defense. Yes, you aren't. As I say, a tier one contender. But you're in the mix. You're in the mix. If you're the Houston Texans. And three weeks to go, you've already clinched your division. And we'll see how much they have to play for, how hard they go for top seeds and all that type of stuff. But I mean, at the end the day. You are in and I believe guaranteed a top four spot as a division leader are the Houston Texans. Yankees Keith holding longest in the phone

lines. What's up, Keith? Hey, how you doing, man? I'm doing great. What's up? Well, I was wrong about the Yankees getting Tucker. Yes, you were. I'm calling now because and Soto. Didn't you have him getting Soto too? I don't even want to talk about Soto.

Not at all. So I'm calling about the rocket. I know that you're a big rocket fan like me. Yes. Who can we get that's going to help with our shooting? Who's out there available that we can actually get? Uh, I don't know, man. I'd have to look at who's all on the trademark.

The only name that I've really heard mentioned with the Rockets has been Jimmy Butler, and that's something that Rafael Stone has kind of, dismissed publicly. And although he has been a better three-point shooter the last three years, he hasn't, for his career, the balance of his career's not been great, but he has improved. And as far

as other guys moving around, as far as the market, I'm honestly not really sure with the trade deadline a couple of months away. I know they've been talking about, on ESPN, they was talking about the Rockets involving

Jabari Smith in a trade, which I said a long time ago that we probably need to trade Darry Smith and get somebody that can actually shoot. But if you're saying, I mean, I don't think we want Jimmy Butler. I don't see what he asked to the team, for real. I would say toughness. He definitely would be philosophically aligned with E. E.E. Adoka and plays good defense.

He's a score. He's a playmaker. He's one of those guys, which right now the Rockets don't have. Final two minutes. where's the ball going? Where's the offense getting created from? What can we do where the team kind of has us figured out? But we're going to have somebody who can impress their will on the other team's defense and score no matter what. And Jimmy Butler is a guy who has a track record of doing that. How do you feel about it?

I think he's too old. I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense. I think he makes this team better. Bottom line, if you give away Jimmy Butler, I mean, I'm sorry, DeBarre'sman Jr. And I don't know if it's going to cost you picks and stuff like that. I wouldn't be super enthused about trading for a 35-year-old, but I think for the immediate impact, he would be good. But does he make them a championship contender? Probably not. And long-term, I think it would end up being a move. The Rockets might live to regret. I feel the same way.

I'm just trying to figure out, you know, and I both know that they can't shoot. They need a shooter. There's got to be somebody out there that they can actually add. Yeah, I mean, there's rumors. that the pelicans are going to be blowing everything up. I don't know if Brandon Ingram interests you. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, he's a decent shooter, but he's not like a knockdown guy.

But somebody that could be available on the market. It feels like Jimmy Butler needs to go on like a win-now situation for a team, whoever they may be. All right, that's all I got. All right. I hope you have a good day, man. Thank you, Keith. I appreciate you getting in, and thank you for making the call.

All right, time for a quick break here on Sports Talk 790. is the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas, with Ross. You got Adam Lexer coming up. And also next up, we're going to take a look around the NFL as we take an NFL rewind here next on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues on Sports Talk 790. Yeah, we just don't have instrumental hits at the top of the charts anymore. Maybe it was the discos. maybe it was the heavy drug use.

I don't know what it is. We got to bring back instrumentals being at the top of the charts. I believe Fifth of Beethoven might even have been a number one hit. Back in 1976. Okay, I made the year up. I'm not exactly sure what year it is,

but it's a jam, and we always use this song because Matt complains about NFL cliched music. So for some reason, we go to something from the 70s, very Matt Thomas of him, and that's okay. We use this song when we go to the NFL Rewind. What happened this weekend and yesterday in the NFL? Normally, it's me, but when Matt is out, I make Connor do all the grunt work.

Connor McGovern. What do we got for the NFL rewind? Week 15 in the NFL kicked off with kind of an underwhelming game offensively, with the Los Angeles Rams defeating the San Francisco 49ers 12 to 6. Inclement weather was definitely a factor, but thanks for making me losing fantasy, Brock Purdy. From midfield, pressure coming, purdy hit, Purdy, Sacked. Game over. Christian Roseboom clenches it.

The Rams have a three-game winning streak, and they sweep San Francisco, 12-6 the final. L.A. has won three-in-o, three-in-a-row against the Niners for the first time in 23 years. The 49ers are definitely struggling. Might be in their best interest to rest star veterans

with only three games left in the season. But with the win, ESPN Analytics gives the Rams a 52% chance to make the playoffs and a 49% chance to win the division. Wow. As they are just a half game back of first in the NFC West. Huh. How is it a half game back now? No, they're tied.

They're tied for the lead because of the Seahawks lost yesterday. I'm sorry, a couple days ago, sir. Do the Rams have the tiebreaker over the Seahawks? Oh, maybe that could be. Are the Seahawks have the tiebacker? I don't know. I'm looking at the standings and it has the Rams in first. Let me see.

Seahawks, the Rams. beat them the first time and they played them the last week of the season. So right now, the Rams do have the tiebreaker. So yeah, maybe you just, maybe those standings you were reading from before Sunday night football where the Seahawks just got trashed by the Green Bay Packers. But speaking of the 49ers, I mean, we're just chalking up to injuries. I mean, they've had guys hurt. Trent Williams has been hurt here and there.

I think maybe did Fred Warner miss some time? Of course, Christian McCaffrey has been out all season. the second he came back for a couple of weeks he was out again and then they lost Jordan Mason they've been playing Isaac Garrendo who also had a foot injury are we writing off the 49ers I guess if they can win out maybe they can sneak in

you mentioned the playoff odds let me pull up what ESPN has I mean I think star players getting hurt is kind of exposing I mean Brock Party himself was hurt but kind of exposing the fact that he's just a guy yeah Brandon Iyukes spin out all basically for the the entire season.

I think he tore his ACL. So they've been missing some pieces. But yeah, Brock Purdy. Supposed to be that dude. Hasn't really been that way. All right. Who's better right now? Brock Purdy, C.J. Stroud. C.J. Stroud.

Yes. 15 touchdowns, nine interceptions on the season for one. Brockland, Garrison, Purdy. I made that up. Dolphins on the road.

Lions at home. at the Cardinals. Niners aren't making the playoffs. I don't think. What do you think about those rumors I've heard as well that Kyle Shanahan could be traded, possibly to the Bears or another team? Why would the Niners do that? I have not heard those rumors, but that'd be kind of crazy. That would be wild. All right, what else you got on the NFL rewind? The Raven stomped the struggling giants with a 35 to 14 win. The Raven struggled earlier in the season, playing down to lesser opponents with losses

to the Raiders and the Browns. But that was not the case on Sunday with Amar, Jackson tying a career high with five touchdown passes. Sean Bateman splits to the left inside the numbers. Lamar stands in the shotgun on second down. Likely comes in motion to the left. Lamar takes the snap. Looking to the left, firing the end zone. He's got a man.

Touchdown. Rashad Bateman is second of the day. Lamar Jackson putting himself back in the MVP conversation alongside Josh Allen and Seekwon Barkley. But the Ravens have a tough test in front of them facing the Steelers on Saturday. The Ravens have lost eight of their past nine games to their big. biggest rival, and the Steelers can clinch the AFC North title with a win.

34 touchdowns, three interceptions for Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson had more touchdowns than incompletions in that game. And it feels like that's not the first time he's done that in the NFL. Also has run for

743 yards and three touchdowns. He has lost four fumbles. So still overall, though, seven turnovers 37 touchdowns, and he might not win MVP. Josh Allen, very deserving. I mean, I'd have to look at the numbers between the both of them. Baltimore has lost more games.

Both teams have bad defenses who haven't been playing well all season long. And Lamar did get bottled up by the Steelers and the Eagles who have good defenses. So we'll see what happens as they play the Steelers again this year. But man, if you're Lamar Jackson, I mean, he's a, he's a, His numbers right now are eclipsing what he got last year when he won. He threw 24 touchdowns seven picks last year and won the MVP, but the team was better. That's usually what factors in.

So we'll see how it shakes out. A lot of season left. If they went out and he plays well and Josh Allen and the bills went out, Josh Allen of course plays well, it's going to be a tight MVP race to be sure. What else you got? Connemah McGiven. And probably the best game of the week,

the Buffalo Bills handed the Detroit lines their second loss of the season and a 48 to 42 win. Quarterback Josh Allen extended his own win streak with a sixth career game of multiple passing touchdowns and multiple rushing touchdowns. Going to roll out to his right. Alan's going to throw it to Davis and he's into the end zone for a five-yard touchdown reception. Alan with his second passing touchdown of the game and with that passing touchdown, Alan has become the first quarterback in the NFL to have 25 passing touchdowns and five runs. washing touchdowns in five consecutive seasons.

He is a touchdown machine. The Lions have their 11-game win streak snapped. And even though Jared Gough threw for nearly 500 yards and five touchdowns, they still lost Dan Campbell. Dan Campbell made some questionable coaching decisions, especially with the onside kick with 10 minutes left in the game. With the loss, the Lions fall to 12 and 2. And the NFC's top seat is now shared with the Philadelphia Eagles

who won their game against the Steelers. Yeah, interesting. Did the Lions and Eagles play this year, or do they play this year? Do we know that? Can you look that up for me real quick? I'm not sure if they play, but I believe the Lions are still ahead because of, in conference record. Conference record. Okay, so then, yeah, if they're ever ahead before that, that must be when there's no head-to-head.

So I couldn't remember. I don't think they've played, at least off the top of my head. I don't think they're scheduled to play either. But, yeah, Josh Allen, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson. I mean, it's a choose-your-fighter type of situation. I know that Sequin Barclay has been talked about and maybe he'll get in the mix, but we know when it comes to MVP, it's a best quarterback award, and it is what it is.

That's what it's come down to. I think last, what, last non-quarterback, I think was Adrian Peterson. Dude had to run for 2,000 yards in order to win that award. So that ain't happening. I don't think, although Sequon could get to 2,000 yards. I don't know what his latest pace is. But coming down to those two guys, both of them had bad. defenses and honestly that lets them rack up as many yards as they've had to.

Mar Jackson's not going to have to get six touchdowns or throw for five and Josh Allen's not going to have to get six touchdowns if their defense were any good, but that all factors in. It just says what it is. It'll be interesting to see how that race comes down to the wire. Anything else, Connemaghan McEvin? I mean, speaking of the Eagles, they just won the Pennsylvania State Championship defeating the Steelers 27 to 13. Much was said about the relationship between AJ Brown and quarterback Jalen Hertz, but they seem to have cleared the air after the Eagles picked up their 10th straight win. It'll be second in goal.

They'll spot the ball at the five. Hurts in the gun. Barkley to his left. A.J. Brown out to the far side by his lonesome. Hurst, this time backs up. Lux, fires complete. A.J. Brown! In the back of the end zone.

The Eagles are a win away from clinching the NFC East and at least a top two seed. Despite a loss, the Steelers clinched a playoff berth after the Colts and Dolphins both lost. Yeah, Steelers who the Texans are chasing as far as the seating in the AFC. We'll see how that goes. But as you mentioned, A.J. Brown, the squeaky wheel, gets eight receptions, 110 yards and a touchdown. Devante Smith with 11 catches, 109 yards and a touchdown. Some production for the Eagles there who've really been coming on strong. NFC shaping up to feel like it's the Eagles or the Lions.

But, of course, anything can happen in the playoffs, and we shall see. All right, time for a quick break here on. The Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas. He is out on vacation. I am here with you. Adam Wexler, rumors are he is in the building here at Sports Talk 790. He'll be joining me at 1 o'clock. You can get in as well.

Anything NFL you want to talk about? We've been covering Kyle Tucker stuff, Alex Bregman, anything you want to get to. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-790. The Rockets have Red Nation. Matt has Maddie Nation. Things are going to start happening to me now. You've made it.

I'm somebody now. More Matt Thomas. Now. Should I just let this whole thing play? I was thinking about it. I guess I won't. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Adam Lexer joining whenever he sees fit.

Connor McGovern is here. Thanks to Brian Bogussevick for hanging out. Bogie was great. Bogie was awesome. He's really good. I actually have already talked, I started talking to Brian and Gordy about getting Matt replaced. That would be fun. So far, yeah.

I'd like to see how that would play out. Hopefully those conversations can bear fruit. We'll see what we're doing. We're trying to make some negotiations here, see what we can do. Well, if he's going to be, you know, as you said with, man, who'd you say it about? Availability is rather important. You were talking about a football player, I believe, or Bregman maybe somewhere earlier today. Oh, Mike Trout.

Mike Trout, that was it. Well, bogeys available. That's right. M.T. That's right. We're sitting. But I'm just, of course, tongue and cheek because I'm going to be out the last two days of this week. And I just came back from like a two and a half week vacation.

So obviously, I'm joking, talking about Matt. But we're going to waxing out, getting on a little bit early. By the way, I don't know if I've given you fair warning. Come out of 1.30. We're going to do gut feelings. We're doing it twice. We're double dipping. So I want to hear your gut feeling.

So we're going to do that. Again, coming up at 1.30. I mean, I don't even know where to start. A lot of stuff. that we have covered and to cover. We're talking some NFL in the last segment, so let's keep it going with that. Just your feeling with the Texans to where I put out my signature, How You Feeling, tweet over the weekend.

And I can't say I was surprised, but I would say for a team that two years ago was led by Davis Mills and David Cully and was in the conversation, had literally the number two overall pick that how fast, this has to be lightning speed. Is this the fastest fan base to ever get spoiled in sports history? Because it seems like it's got to be close. Yeah, spoiled is something you could call them. Or isn't it nice to, I can see it for both sides. But isn't it nice that they think this isn't enough.

We want more. We're not satisfied. Like same thing on Sunday afternoon. I was at the game. And obviously anybody who's been to a game since their last division championship can see there's a clear spot for the eighth AFC South division title banner. And so I took

a little video scrolling across the top of NRG Stadium and saying, time to hang a banner. They've clinched a division. Now, it's met with the same kind of, we need to quit caring about that. We need to only hang other banners. Well, there aren't any other banners to hang because they haven't done anything yet. So clearly winning a division, we've definitely

reached the point where, no, that's not what we're after. That's not the goal, but it is a step. You guarantee a playoff spot. There's three games. to go. There's three games left. They've already clinched a playoff spot. And there's nobody that has a worse record than him. There's no one that has a better record than them that has clinched a playoff spot. They're right where they're supposed to be. If they were nine and five and they were in another division, they'd be Baltimore. Would that be so bad? A second place team

at nine and five. That's what Baltimore is. A second place team at nine and five. That's what the Broncos are. They're acting like the Texans are six and nine. And yep, they clinch, though. So I'm all for wanting more and saying this is not the bar, but you know, you win football games, you get to nine and five. There are a whole three teams in the AFC with a better record. You know what I hate to say? The only one they've played, they've beaten. And I don't want to do this to you, Texans fans. And of course, I'm Battle Red Ross.

I'm a Texans fan myself. It feels almost like Seattle Mariner fan. Seattle Mariner fan acts like they've ripped off 15 World Series in the last 25 years. and they're so entitled to all this greatness and all this. It's like, it's like, what? You're the Seattle Mariners. Like the Houston, Texas have never been to a Super Bowl. And as you mentioned, never been to an AFC championship game.

To what standard do we feel like they owe, the organization owes it to all of us to be extremely elite within two years of one of the worst seasons in the history of the franchise with the worst coach in the history of the franchise, David Cully. And thinking about like the Mariners, and how they were puffing their chests out, that was to the Astros. That was directed specifically at the team that they can't beat

and haven't beaten and probably will never beat. The Texans fans aren't directing it anybody. They're just saying, you know, we do feel a little spoiled. We heard everything that the people here on this station said, because I'm going to include myself, yeah, this team has a chance to go big this year, advance in the playoffs, dare I say, Super Bowl, And all they've done is win nine games.

And even this week, I mean, you got four turnovers. And you still had to get the fourth turnover on the last possession to ensure that we weren't headed to overtime after a touchdown and a two-point. It's, yeah, that is what the 2024 Texans are. The same thing could happen in a playoff game. Baltimore comes to town. It's 2316. Last minute, Lamar Jackson has the ball.

I mean, any of those things absolutely could happen here. Big game this weekend between the Ravens and the Steelers, the other Saturday game because the Steelers beat them already this year. Yes. The Steelers clinch the division if they win which means Baltimore's playing on the road opening weekend

and the Texans play Baltimore on Christmas Day. So the Texans will, if that happens Saturday, if the Steelers lose or excuse me beat the Ravens, then they win the division and the Texans will remain chasing the Steelers for a seed but the top four seeds will be

locked in who they are. Ravens, will be a wildcar team if they make the playoffs, which they still would be heavily favored to do so. 99% I believe are the odds. But that means they're going to play somewhere on the road. And the Texans, so to speak, would have a say in that in that they play them the following game. I got a hot take. I'm more scared of Lamar Jackson than Russell Wilson, but I'm about the same amount of scared of the Steelers. And T.J. Watt, who did miss some time, but should be healthy.

And that Steelers defense, as a team, I'm about the same amount of scared because you can score on the Ravens. let's just say you have to play both of them on your way. Would you prefer to play Baltimore here and Pittsburgh there? Because that's the setup most likely if the Steelers win on Saturday. I would say yes. I would too. Hmm. So we'll see.

But you might get even luckier and, you know, play, oh, here's what we want, here's what we want, which is always the worst thing to do. Exactly. That's what I was. Careful what you wish for. Now, the Steelers have been looking a little bit shaky, though. Their offense is getable, but I think Russell can make some plays. And that defense against this Texans' offensive line,

I think it would be some major issues, major issues. All right, we're going to take a break here. Adam Wexler is here. Thanks for, we'll pay him overtime for coming in for that extra segment. And, well, you're here as well if you'd like to get in the phone line. So the you and hold will get to you as well. Our number four of the Matt Thomas show is next. We've got gut feelings part due coming up at 130.

And you at 713-213-2-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Our number four of the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Ross, Vierry out with you. Adam Wexer graciously hanging out for an hour with me. I do appreciate him.

Brian Bogosovic was in earlier talking a lot of stuff. We've been talking some Texans. We've been talking some, I mean, Bogusavik dropping the college football playoff knowledge on us. Sounds like he's a fan of that. That was fun. Of course, we've been talking Astros and Texans and anything you guys want to get to, 713-215-790 is the phone number, 7-1-3-212-5-790. One of the reasons that I love having other hosts on this station on and we can kind of talk and freshen things up. And I don't think I've talked to you much and maybe haven't caught much of the show, Wex, but the Kyle Tucker trade

happened last week. First of all, what was your shock level? at least when it was first talked about, it felt imminent at some point, especially when the article dropped from Chandler-Rome and Ken Rosenthal about the pieces and the Cubs. And then when it finally happened, that wasn't a shock there. But the fact that they moved in that direction and we'll start with the return that they got back, your feelings on that. Yeah, I'm thinking about some of the players' names that were mentioned, specifically, say, a Suzuki. I thought that made a lot of sense for the type of offensive player he is.

And what he does to help a team win, get on base, can slug a little. little bit, he's probably going to be really, really helpful offensive player, along with Paredes that had the makings of what I thought seemed like a reasonable beginning to the return, was also aware of how much money he makes and wondered why they would be interested in that regard. So that's quite obviously why I'm sure he's not a part of the deal. So you lock in on those three players. You'd like to hope that you figure something out with a pitcher that another team didn't. Astros do have a history with that. Counting on that is probably a little much, but maybe there is something there.

He certainly needs to be a major leaguer all year, and for all of the years they have of control, talking about the Cyfair native, Wisniew. Peretti is pretty clear what kind of player he is. He's going to pull the ball a lot. If he homers, it's going to be to left field,

whether it's here or in any other ballpark. Interesting that some of his home numbers in Tampa and then briefly in Chicago at Wrigley were really bad, but his road numbers, basically as long as he wasn't playing in those two places. They were really, really good last year. He did have some distance between his splits that has widened over his career, but you've probably got a guy if he's out there for 150 games,

he's going to hit 25 home runs. He can drive in 85 plus and fits into a lineup where he's probably in the top five. Obviously, that depends on Bregman. And then bottom line, pretty simple, Cam Smith has to be a star. I mean, it's as simple as that. You traded a star, even in the last year of his deal. so your return might be skewed a little bit. It's one year deal. But one year from Juan Soto getting moved for incredible talent, really incredible talent. We already know because everyone's put out all the graphics, all the comps. Juan Soto versus Kyle Tucker is not the massive gap that many would have portrayed it prior to this deal.

Well, for one year, for the balance of their careers, it's a huge game. No, no, but I'm saying Juan Soto got traded with one year left on his deal, and Kyle Tucker just got traded with one year left on his deal. I mean, Juan Soto for his entire career, like the second he walked onto the stage, the big stage, he's been incredible. How old was he? Yeah, exactly. So I understand all that, but yeah, that's the simplest way to put it. Camp Smith needs to be a major league star for the Astros just like all of the other first round picks before him that they made.

Now it's somebody else's pick you've added right after the draft. He's had half a season of pro baseball. Now it's whether he's your third basement of the future, your right fielder of the future, but it's probably one of those two spots. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're mostly on the same page. But the thing that kind of confused me is, okay, you got the Tucker deal done. And then you're in all likelihood, 99.9% whatever you want to put on it, you're in all likelihood not going to have Alex Bregman back.

But I would also would have figured that a deal would have been signed somewhere by now and it hasn't been. But if those two things are happening, then why would it make sense to trade for Nolan Aronado? And giveaway prospects. It makes no sense whatsoever. If you think it makes no sense, I totally agree. Adding $25 million a year in salary roughly, we don't know what the Cardinals would pick up. Apparently the Rockies picked up some of it,

so it would be still trickling down from that. But whatever the Cardinals do pick up, what happens when a team decides to pay in a trade to make you take their player? Would you give them better players back in return? So that he makes it even worse. Because the Astros have to have some players ready to play Major League Baseball.

At some point, they have clear holes on this year's team. and they will have more holes on future teams quite possibly. So, yeah, that one doesn't make much sense to me. If you were going to commit 25 million over three years to Aeronado and losing, you know, why wouldn't you just commit a little more for many more years, twice as many years potentially, and keep all your prospects, keep all your players in the system and have Bregman play third base for another five to six years. Yeah, so I guess I'm trying to figure out exactly where the Astros are.

And is this, it's not a rebuild, obviously. They're not stripping it down. You still have plus players who, are a good value to. I mean, starting with Yordon Alvarez, Yiner Diaz, and then we'll see about Hunter Brown, Ronelle Blanco, Spencer Arrogatti. I mean, are all three of those guys going to continue to be

stars? Well, it's Arrogati to probably the least extent, but I don't know. It's possible. And then that also belies a question of what happens is your opening day starter? If I say it's Frambervaldez, you say what? Yes, it is.

Bronverbalde, that's a clear sign to me. You're going to to take a team that won zero playoff games last year and say goodbye to Tucker, Bregman, and Valdez, and think this is the direction you want to take. Now, some might view it as a, okay, let's take one year away, let's take a step back. Yes. Let's see if we can compete in the division. If we don't, we don't.

Okay. But we're primed to start winning again big in 2026. Then who did you get for Frommber? Where did you spend the money that you saved by not paying Bregman Tucker or Valdez? And admit, again, it doesn't have to be this offseason if that's the way you're playing it. But you can't go into 2026 without having spent a lot of that money and seeing return on Cam Smith and whatever the top prospect, top player you got from the Valdez deal. But competing without those guys this year. So just think about the second day of the season you're facing Juan Soto for the second time.

Who's pitching? Right now, Hunter Brown. Who's pitching the first day? Oh, Frommberg. Oh, you're saying if it's not Frommel. Ronald. Okay. And then you're going to close out the series with Spencer Argeti.

Spencer Arrede. Or Luis Garcia. That's your one, two, three. Or Lanter colors, junior. It's five. We're already into question of our territory. And this is with, you're presuming, they're healthy. You're not going to have a whole season of health.

Charlie Morton, game three. No pitching depth to begin with. They needed to add pitchers. JP France. We don't know the return for Frommber. So I recognize that as we have this hypothetical discussion. But it would be hard to stomach, I think, for fans, probably for Jim Crane too.

But if he's going to tell us the window's always open, then when he closes it for 2025, he better be blasting it wide open in 2026. I guess it depends on what we mean by window. But I mean, the trading away Kyle Tucker, and then if Bregman gets signed away, it's a different kind of window.

What if you landed a star in each of the deal? In the Tucker deal with Cam Smith and in the Valdez deal, you land a second star. You got Perides. Alvarez, Diaz, Altuve, that's, you know, five or six hitters in your line. I would say that's very unlikely.

I can't imagine you're moving Frumber then. You can't unless that's what's coming back. You can unless, yeah, but I mean, there's no such thing as a guaranteed star in a farm system anyways. And then if there is, you're probably not getting traded away for Framber Valdez. For one year of him, for one year of a guy who's been prone to blowups, and then you would have question marks about signing long term. Somehow even amidst those blowups, he's been great. He's been, like, over the course of any season for the last three years and compared me,

He's been great. I'm with you. I'm with you. I think he gets a lot more heat than he deserves. Same thing with what would happen with Ryan Presley. It sticks more in our mind the negatives than the positives. You look at the balance of it. And really, since giving up those three home runs against it was the Angels,

at the beginning of the season, like he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. For months. For months. Okay? I believe they make T-shirts about a streak he once had. Yes, that is true. About a quote, like he's been on, he's been, yes, a few blowups here and there. Yes, he makes us nervous, and yes,

playoff start wasn't very good. We do have to mention that as well. Yes, the recent postseason history for him, a little bit of a downturn. But prior to that last postseason, not this year, but the year before, he was incredible. He had a four-year run of very strong post seasons. Wasn't he a disaster in 21? Because everybody was a disaster at that point?

The COVID season? Oh, no, the following. I don't think so. When they made the World Series and they lost to the Braves in six games. I don't believe disaster would quite fit, but I think. He gets some bad stars. Yeah, we can get some people on that. Yeah, we can get some people on that.

While you do that, let's get James who want to talk some Astros real quick. What's up, James? Oh, thank you, gentlemen, for accepting my call. I would just want to elaborate on. I think the Astros kind of pull the trigger on the Tucker trade too soon. They still had at least 90 days to go before they can actually, you know, they just took the first thing off. I think they panic when they seen Soto get that kind of contract.

And in my opinion, Tucker is a better all. around ball player than Soto. So they kind of panic and say, no, we can't deal with this here financially. So let's move the player, Kyle Tucker. And I think they just, as far as I'm concerned,

they didn't get nothing that would guarantee them of equal value or close to for getting trading Kyle Tucker for the three prospects that they got. And my question is this here. Who going to play third base?

Who going to play right field? And we're looking basically, everybody keeps saying, we should win the division. We barely won the division last year with a half a season of Kyle Tucker and a whole season of Breckman. So I just wanted to know where is everybody getting this, you know,

perception that the Astros is a shoe in to win a division again. And thank you guys for that. accepting my call. Thank you, James. It probably has more to do with the other four teams, first of all. Nobody, I think, is looking at the Rangers or Mariners specifically as, well, look how much better they are. Look what they could be doing. It might happen without them making any significant moves, and they've made some moves of Aldi being back and adding a catcher for the Rangers. But beyond that, they're probably very similar to what they were last year, and for good reason, especially the

merit, they should have been. It seemed like they should have been much better. The Astros aren't better. I don't think anybody sitting here saying that. And if they barely won the division last year, then telling everybody, I'm sure they're going to win it this year, that does sound foolish to say. I'm not saying that. I hope others that are watching this situation closely aren't echoing that, because

they aren't. They're in the mix, and the offseason's not over. I don't know about panicked and took the first deal that they saw. No, I don't think so. I think the public gets a, well, Dana Brown just said they're listening. I don't think that was the first time other GMs knew that, or that the

Astros were doing that privately. This deal didn't come together in five seconds. These are players that they would have long since had in mind. Clearly, Paredes, they already tried to trade for. Cam Smith happened to be a prospect probably out of their reach in 2024 with where they picked. But as Cam Smith acknowledged in a nice article written by Chandler Rome on the athletic, Dana Brown told Cam, this is, you know, the first time I saw you, I could see how good you were. And so I don't think they panicked.

I think they knew this offseason. This is probably something I have to strongly consider. They talked to Excel and Kyle Tucker, his agency this past year and years prior. They knew where this was headed before Juan Soto got mega millions. It was headed to, all right, if he leaves after this year, then that's that. He's not going to sign here. I mean, it's a two-way street. Dana can yell it on our radio station as often as he wants.

Kyle Tucker is going to be an astro for life. It's great to hear, but he can't make the other side agree to their turn. He can only offer them what they feel is right. And he knows that offer from Houston was not going to be in the range they were going to accept. Yeah, absolutely. It's just not a surprise. And I think does indicate that the sides were not going to be close once Kyle Tucker became a free agent. So get what you can now.

It was the right move for the organization going forward. No matter what else happens to me. I don't think Breggman's signing back anyways. We'll see what happens with the Arnato stuff. But no matter what happens for the health of the organization long term, it was the right move. Probably fair to use the word disastrous, by the way. A 7708 ERA in those five games in 2021 for Frombes. Okay.

His two games in the World Series were awful. His three games prior to that were fine, especially when he went eight innings and allowed just that one run in game five in the ALCS. That was awesome. That was like. At Fenway, right? But yes, three of his five starts. He did not finish the third inning.

Disaster. I'll stick with it. All right. We're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, but it's with Adam Wexler and Ross. You want to get in, you know, talk some stroes, we're doing that, we're talking Texans, anything you want to get to. We've got some gut feelings coming up at 130 as

well. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you'd like to get in. 7-13-213-2-5-7-90. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal. On Sports Talk 790. What do you mean? What have I done? Stop preaching to me, John Lennon. You don't know what I've done.

Welcome back. to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas. He is out on vacation. It's Wexler Talk 790, at least what I'm gathering for the next couple of weeks. We appreciate you, Adam Wexer. The backbone of Sports Talk 790. We couldn't do it without you.

Yeah, back end of the day. Brian and Sean to start the day. Ross and Matt take you middays, and A.C. and I are with you to the end. Well, whenever they decide to show up, okay, I'm taking time off, too, so I can't even complain. We'll figure it out. We'll be with you here. here at 713, 2125790 on a sports talk 790, talking a number of different things at 713, 212, 5, 790.

We'll get some more gut feelings coming up here in just a moment. But I just saw this article. I think it came out this morning. MLB Free Agency Reset predictions from David Schoenfeld of ESPN, as he had listened. has listed some of the top free agents and their projected contracts and their landing places. First up on the list. Alex Bregman, first on the list because he started with best hitters. He has him as the number five overall free agent.

Projected contract, $187 million for the Alex Bregman services. I'm a little surprised he doesn't think anybody's going to be willing to go. seven years or more. I would say probably seven to me is seven, eight max. You think it's a pretty good assumption. Every player wants more years. Yes. Like if they're willing to give seven, he'll want seven.

If some teams willing to give eight, he wants eight. I kind of feel that way, too. We've seen a few players go the opposite direction, but the vast majority go there. That's $31 million in total above what the Astros reported initial first offer was. And so $31 million over six years. basically 5.2 million. Additionally, each of those years,

that's about where I thought he would be when the offseason began at 187 million. I don't think it's too big of a gap. It does kind of point out where the Astro's initial offer was, but that seems like a pretty reasonable spot. I'm sure Boris is still going to try to figure out a way, how can I turn that into a two? Is there, we can opt out here,

but if you do that, then it goes here. And if you got, like, he's going to want that there. But this is. The two number just some. I mean, we were at the beginning of the off season and the athletic, Tim Britton, had it at 179. This is at 187. The Boris numbers always got a two in front of it. Maybe that's unrealistic.

Yeah. I mean, I think if it were realistic, it feels like kind of something would be done. What do we make of? We were talking about what Brian Bogussevick earlier. So does this mean the market has cool? Does this mean Scott Boris has said, hey, if Juan Soto is worth $51 million a year, Alex Bregman's worth at least $30,000 million a year. You guys need to get with the program, and the price of poker is going on.

The price of Alex Bregman's services have gone up because of his value that he shows to a team relative to that of Juan Soto and the deal that he got. Yeah, there's one way, like, Juan Soto is going to roll in and out of teams, and he's going to help the other players on the team simply because I'm batting two, so if you're batting one, I'm going to help you. And if you're batting three, I'm going to pump up your numbers because I'm already on base. he's not going to help them with how to hit this pitcher, how to attack this pitcher, how to attack this hitter, at all the things that we know quite clearly, both Carlos Correa for a short time here as he became one of the veteran leaders of this team and then Alex Bregman similarly,

this is something that has extremely high value. It's not a coincidence that those two players, even in Minnesota and Carlos's case, winning is there for them for a reason. It's not just their own individual attributes. It's what they can do to help the other players. It sounds like something you'd say in football or basketball, but in their case, I do believe it is true on a baseball field in that clubhouse and preparation for how you're going to make these guys better because you have more information than they do.

And he shares it with him in a way that allows them to get better. Hunter Brown's a great example of taking some of that information, I believe, in becoming a better pitcher, someone they're now clearly counting on. you ask what do you make of him not signing yet and I think the other question similarly is what do you make of the Astros still constantly being or we're being told they're still in it.

Yeah. I think it's funny that that intangible it feels like Jeff Lunoe did a good job of building this team with baseball psychopaths. Like people who are sick in the head in love with baseball. The Carlos Corre, Alex Brangman, Jose Otuve,

rating for Justin Verlander, even George Springer. I mean, he's crazy. Like, he's crashing. Everyone's like, slow down, man. He's out there running full, like, face first into the centerfield wall because he's a psycho. And he loves baseball so much. And he wants to make every single play. And I think that's one of the things that's very unquantifiable, but I think had tangible

results on the field for the Astros during this run. And it certainly helps the player themselves. We heard a bunch of Coray interviews during his later. years here when he's talking about all the stats that Matt hates and he knows them all. He can recite them all. He really knows how they impact the way things work for a hitter. The stats that players in front offices are using in every single front office and every field and every clubhouse and every report? Yes. Would you limit the teams that we think Alex Bregman is going to end up with to four? The Yankees, the Red Sox, the Tigers, and the Astros?

Are you still holding a little bit of a, is it possible the Phillies are there? Is it possible the Cubs or d-bags are there. Yeah, back to the article that I was reading off of. He has Yankees, Mets, which is a little surprising. Red Sox, tigers, not surprising. Astros, I would be surprised, quite frankly. And then Phillies and Nationals. So from the Astros angle, how much of what the Astros just did, Tucker's not a teammate

anymore if he comes back here, how much does that dissuade Alex? Alex is going somewhere to win. All these teams we mention, other than the Nationals, are going to win immediately, immediately upon his arrival. The Astros probably will do the same, but he now knows it's me, Altuve and Alvarez, yiner, and I don't know. I don't know where Paredes fits in. I don't know if they're going to spend more money next offseason because I'm the splash this year. They didn't, even if he's back, they did not make their team better if Bregman re-signs following the trade of Tucker.

I don't think they got better, but they might be able to hold to where they are. He's got to be looking at all six of those years he signed for. Are we headed in the other direction? Are we getting worse? Can I tell you? I think the Tucker deal happened because the Astros are out on pregnant. I think it's the other way. I think it's done.

Yeah, baseball side says, yeah, of course he fits here. You save this money, go spend it on him. That might be the Astros viewpoint, but I think what you're saying is kind of what I'm alluding to. His viewpoint had already changed. Thus, they made the move. They felt necessary to try to compete sometime in the future very soon, but maybe not in 25. I think they're saying all the right things. Scott Bors doesn't want to embarrass anybody.

He doesn't want to burn any bridges. He's like, yeah, we're talking to Dana Brown. We're talking to the Astros. Dana Brown saying, yeah, we're doing everything we can. But I think he's already, he was already, the market has already surpassed what the Astros are willing to do. And that's one of the reasons that Tucker would deal with me. Just my gut feeling, which we will give some more of when we come back. You want to get in with some gut feelings.

We're going to do it with Adam Lexer. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 713-21-2-125-790 but before we get to that I have to ask you an important question how'd you feel when you woke up this morning that alarm went off did you jump out of bed you're tackling today you can't wait you got all this thing you're waiting they can't champing at the bit to cross off your to-do list well that's you that's awesome but if you're somebody who's like you know what i'm not feeling it today slowing down in workouts in my daily life my diet hasn't changed libido's not there what's going on maybe your testosterone levels are dropping the new

year is coming up. Get the ball rolling now as you can book an appointment with Cinergenics, who is known for the TRT treatment, the personalized TRT plan. More advanced and basic standard therapy. It's not stuff out of a bottle. They're going to give you stuff and send you on your way like some of these other clinics. They're going to tailor treatment specifically to you at Cinergenics. That's why you go to Cinergenicshealth.com. S-Y-N-E-R GenX Health.com. And they're also experts with GLP1 weight loss. You can be evaluated for prescription weight loss medications. They've got clinics all over town. You can get your life back and realize all your New Year's resolutions

by going to centergenicshealth.com. Centrogenicshealth.com. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Listen up girls and boys. That's been so appealing. Goes Ross and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show.

That's right. Twice and one day. That's how roll in here with Matt Thomas out and well two different co-hosts so I wanted to get two different sets of gut feelings from the folks and well from you guys as well if you'd like to get in at 713-212-2-5-790 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 so within the last couple of weeks

well last weekend and today I said Alex Bregman on my prediction New York Yankee I'm going to stick with that I also have Pat Mahomes not playing this weekend Texans will beat the Chiefs Suck it, Carson Wince. And the Astros not trading for Nolan Aronado. Connor McGovern also has Alex Brighman as a Yankee,

and you had just two, right? Rockets winning their next three games. Pat Mahomes doesn't play, well, this is two and one. And you had the Texans losing to the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday. Correct. Very rude. Brian Bogusevich says Detroit Tigers for Alex Breggman. He had earlier today.

Your thoughts, Mr. Wexler? I'm not left with many options, considering those are very popular ones, but my gut feeling... You can pick those. My gut feeling has always been the same two teams. Never thought the Tigers. I just don't think that's where he and his wife and their soon-to-be two kids want to live. She's pregnant again? He's going to get even more dad strength?

Uh-oh, maybe the Astros do need to sign him. He's getting double-dad strength? Double-dad strength. It's pretty far away from Houston home base or New Mexico home base. They spend all this time in Arizona. But I'm going to push him even further east. It's always been Boston or New York for me and not the Mets. I don't think the Mets are a ridiculous team to include because Cohen will spend.

There's no limit to it. There's no number that he cares about. There's no CBT that worries him. He smartly dumped out of the 2023 season almost as quickly as he went all in. Yes. And that allowed him to just go right back all in again, just two years later. But I don't think the Mets are really truly the landing spot for Alex Bragman. So since it's gut feelings, my gut feeling is he's going to be playing home games at Funway Park.

Boston Red Sox. Well, you and David Schoenfeld are in the same ballpark, literally, as he, did I mention in the last segment? He has his predictions as he put on. We were talking about the article and who's in on it. And he projected the six-year $187 million contract. His prediction is the Red Sox. He also says don't discount the Mets here. So just.

Martin Vintos moving to first. That's what he's saying. Totally reasonable. And that's kind of why I said all along, these positional flexibility nonsense with Alex, which team is he getting traded to where they prefer to play somebody else at third base? That made no sense to me. At some point later in his career, fine.

He's the best third base. in baseball that's not Matt Chapman defensively. What team wants somebody else playing third? That made no sense. Anyway, this is a good, to me, what the Red Sox have done this whole offseason is why that's my gut feeling. They're gearing up to outplay the Yankees and the Orioles and everybody else in their division. And this is, to me, like the last, we have to step in order to make getting crochet

worth it, so to speak, and hoping Duran is as awesome as he was last year. if they need to save a little money by moving on from somebody, they probably get something in return. I think they can be outstanding if Alex Bregman is on their team, and thus it fits into Bregman as well. He wants to go out there and win. And that's winning an American League East, you know, or being the champs and being better than the Yankees

without having to be Garrett Cole's teammate and being the Yankees. That seems appealing. And I certainly think Boston will treat him like, yeah, this is our guy. This is face of the franchise type person. this is key to the city type person. I don't know that he gets that in New York, for instance. He's just another Yankee.

All right. There you go. Adam Wexer with a gut feeling. Connor McGovern, would you like to add anything to your gut feelings from earlier today? Yeah, I'll go with the Texans. I'll say tanked out gets a touchdown. Ooh, okay.

I like this. Now, if you are familiar with the walking in with Wex, a phenomenon that takes place just before I enter NRG Stadium. Is that where you make walking bets? No. No. I did see somebody say, hey Matt, hey Ross, this guy who was doing this before she was, and it's not the same thing,

is stealing her bit. She stole her bit from someone else, too, anyways. That got her in trouble for like the first of ten times. She's got a couple more talents than you, though, West. I do not shoot the video from in front of me, and nothing on my chest jiggles in that manner, so it's not a proprietary issue. I don't think your views are as high, unfortunately. Much, much lower, and I'm not even encouraging you to make bets, but in that Connor just said,

Tank Dell, one of my thoughts going into the game was how about a TD for TD against the Dolphins? I thought he lined up well to find his way to the end zone. He was barely a part of their passing game, but he was a part of the punt return game, but it would be nice. He has not visited there much this

season, and I think that the overall Texans offense slowdown this year, and that's pretty good evidence of it. Football-wise, Pat Mahomes, they can't sit him until the playoffs in my opinion. Okay. And in order to make sure they can sit him as soon as possible, he's playing this weekend.

Pat Mahomes plays this weekend. Play and beat the Texans and go ahead and put yourselves in the position you want to be in to be the number one. The number one seat is just a little. I know they want to say, look, we can win anywhere. We just did it last year. As long as Pat's healthy, we're fine. We don't care. Hard for me to believe you don't care about an extra off week and home games the whole postseason to the Super Bowl.

Immobilized against DeNeil Hunter and Will Anderson. and Danico Autry and Tim Settle. I like this. I mean, do you think the Texans pass rush was awesome against Tua? I think it was pretty good. It was definitely very good. And it pretty much has been all week. All year, yeah.

They've been incredible. But I think they'll put him out there because they don't play him this Saturday game. Well, then he's probably not playing on Wednesday either. And now are you heading into Week 18 needing to win to ensure that you're the number one seed? And now you have to bring him back? Very, very interesting. I'll do one more quick one. I'll also say Anthony Santander,

not a Houston Astro, along with Nolan Aronado. Philip has a gut feeling. Philip, go ahead. Well, I got three for you, out. Okay, go ahead. Ross, I know you're going to like this first one.

Text State Am's going to make the final four. Of what? Of basketball. What other final four is there? All right, next one. Astros. All right, no, no, we're going to go to Astros last. Texans are going to win the AFC.

Not because of their offense prowess, because there is none right now. But C.J. Stroud, he's the guy, dude. He's the guy that overcomes adversity. Where is he at? He is getting ready right now. Just pumping himself up, pumping tank dump up, pumping Nico Collins, pumping all those guys up, just getting ready to go. We're going to win two games in a row against Kansas City Chiefs. And then on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, on Christmas.

against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. We're getting that back from last year. That's what I'm saying. And we're going to go on a winning streak. Maybe not the last game. I don't know. Maybe we'll chill the last game of the season. But then we're going to go on to the AMC.

And we're going to win that. Tell me right now. Next one. Last one. Astros are going to get first in division. Doesn't matter. Who cares? Who's that third?

Nolan Aronado, it doesn't mean anything. He'd be cool to have. And actually, Adam, Nolan Aronado was better at third base than Alex Breggman was last year. I'm pretty sure. Don't quote me on that, but I feel like he always is. But, anyhow, anywho, that's one guy. Kyle Tucker trade was great. I feel like that's what we should have done.

We got to get, you know, the Kukuchi trade last year. What do we have from it now? Nothing. We lost our, we lost Loper Vito. I love that now. where's he got now? He's on another team and now we have nothing. So, you know what? I'm good with everything. Astros, first in the West. Maybe we'll get to the ALCS again.

X's going to Super Bowl, and A&M's going to Final Four. Thank you, Mags. A lot of guts. Thank you, Philip. Nolan Aeronato, Matt Chapman, Alex Bregman, the three best defensive third baseman in baseball. If you want to pick one over the other two, that's fine. So A&M, not only going to make their first Final Four, their first elite eight ever in the history of the basketball program. And the SEC has really lined up a lot of great non-conference games,

considering that only one team even has three losses at this point in the season. Alabama and Auburn, a little credit for both of them. They've both played U of H already. Texas played UCon and Syracuse and NC State. I mean, those are programs that exist. No, Texas A&M is a reasonable bet. We probably get really good odds on it at this point in the year. Yeah, lock it.

up. They're one of the top 15 teams in the country. Putting them in the final four is not outrageous. Yeah, I'm not going to say it's outrageous either, but I also I'm going to say I haven't been following college basketball. Texans win the AFC, and Astros win the division. We're also two gut feelings from Philip. Or from our... That seems a little

strong. It was Philip. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Those of you on hold will get you just one segment to go here, but we will be sticking around as it'll be Adam Wexer. I'm tired, so I'm going to make him. He's going to be taking care of the show and curating things coming up two to six. That is the A team final segment of the Matt Thomas show

with Ross without Matt Thomas is next. This is Ricky Williams. I may have worn a wedding dress on a magazine cover, but it still looks better than any outfit Matt can put together. Let your wife dress you, man. Texas fine, Texas fine. Back to Matt Thomas

on Sports Talk, 790. All right, sorry. No disrespect to you and the Eagles. We got a couple of calls to get to only a few minutes left on the show. The Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Adam Wexler. here. We've been talking some baseball. We were doing some gut feelings, so let's get Gio

in a taskicida real quick with some gut feelings and all of you on hold. We'll get to you real quick. Go ahead. Geo. Okay. So I think Gregman will end up in New York, whether it be the Mets or the Yankees, but I do think he's going to end up in New York somewhere just because they don't want the Red

Sox to get him. So I think he'll end up in New York somewhere. Second, I think the the Rockets are going to end up in the Westbrook Conference finals playing against the Oklahoma City Thunder. What? Yep. I think E-May will make the necessary adjustments, and I think they'll add the right pieces, and I think they'll end up in the Western Commerce finally against the Thunder. And third, but not least, I think the game against Kansas City,

Daniel Hunter will have two sacks, Stingley will have an interception, and I think they'll run a punt return back. Thank you, guys. That sounds like a victory to me. If those things take, I mean, maybe there's a turnover as a result of some of the, those sacks for Daniel Hunter. You just got a touchdown on the tank del punt return.

So that's one or two touchdowns without the offense even doing anything. Fumble sacks. I mean, my goodness. Hey, if Pat Mahomes is in, as one Adam Wexler has predicted, he's not going to be super mobile and that's one of his best attributes is making plays on the fly,

extending plays with his legs, finding guys down field. And well, that also, I guess is what there was that last year when he had the high ankle sprain and they won the Super Bowl. All right, fine. Four quarterbacks in the AFC have been sacked 35 times or more.

Both if Mahomes plays will be on the field on Saturday. CJ's at the top of the list. Well, let's go, CJ's at 45. Mahomes at 35. Well, at least he's not coming for Derek Carr's record. Like they were showing Caleb Williams was, I think last night on Monday night football.

As of three years ago, the Bears' all-time record for most times sacked as a quarterback on their team, obviously, was Jay Cutler. I was going to say, Jay. Justin Fields almost surpassed him, and then he did surpass him, and now Williams has passed both of them, and he's the worst. Wow.

Just in the last three years. Well, records being set by the Chicago Bears, maybe not in the direction that they wanted to. You want a quick, believe it or not? Yes. Someone at my house this morning when sports was on in the background said, I thought the Bears got off to a pretty good start this year. What happened? Believe it or not? I would guess I'll say believe it.

Yeah, my response was. It was a believe it. My wife asked me about that, and I said, Yeah, they were four and two. And then they decided winning football games was dumb. So they stopped doing that completely and I've lost eight in a row. Four and ten, the Chicago Bears. Caleb Williams is doing things we've never seen before in the NFL. Eight, if I'm not mistaken, consecutive games without an interception.

And they've lost them all. That's a record. Losing all eight when eight straight games, it's got to be some kind of a record. He threw two. Maybe somebody did that like in 1932. when they didn't really throw the football. Probably with a certain number of pass attempts and things like that. Seth Lutman setting the record.

He's not throwing an interception since October 13th, the last time they won a game. They've lost eight consecutive games, despite him not throwing to the ball to the other team even one time. We're proud of you, Caleb. We're proud of you. For sure. Setting records on the other side in a good way is Josh Allen.

Is he your MVP right now? You might find this hard to believe, but I did some research on this earlier today, statistically speaking. I guess because the answer is yes because of Lamar Jackson fatigue. And overall, I think if the Ravens were 11 and 3 and fighting for a one seat and the bills were 9 and 5 and everything else was equal, I think we would be talking more about Lamar Jackson as well. Keep in mind, Buffalo would be 12 and 2 if they didn't lose to Lamar Jackson. That's true.

No, I'm with you. I'm with you. I was looking up their games over all this year. I was like, oh, Lamar Jackson's led their offense. 34 touchdowns and three picks? He's just, it's insane. And over these four games, so Josh Allen's running for this and doing that. And while he's thrown, he's run for eight more yards than Lamar Jackson.

I'll give you a hint. I think you already know the answer. We're talking about it. Where's number eight for the Ravens? Guess who leads the NFL in yards per carry? Lamar Jackson. I mean, it's, please pay attention. But Alan does have more.

more touchdowns. He has a lot. Guess who he doesn't have behind him? Derek Henry. Derek Henry taking touchdowns. Yes. But see, but that, I guess the counter argument is that makes him most valuable. He's more valuable to his team, I guess. It's always the best quarterback award, and it's always a narrative award, and it's also about team success. It will allow us. I mean, has a team with a 500 record ever, have a quarterback with a 500 record ever won MVP? Probably not. There's very rare. There's probably a number you need to get to, or within. If Baltimore finishes 14 and 3 and the Ravens have 10 wins, you're four apart, that's probably too far, but if they're a little closer than that, if Buffalo

has four more wins than Baltimore, that's probably too big of a gap to spin it. I'll probably enjoy it when the votes are announced and somebody didn't vote for either one of them. Did they change the vote where you can only, it's tiered voting now, right in the NFL MVP? It used to be you, that's your vote and that's it. Which is stupid. I think it was awesome. No. Because nobody else does it. And what are you going to complain about? We're going to complain about it not being teared. Like look at the He's the most first place vote. Trophy voting. Yes.

Like one person in the entire country thought Shadur Sanders should win the Heisman. Just one. More people thought Curtis Rourke. Yeah, that person's an idiot. You should be, just give us your vote. It doesn't, all the other stuff is just for points and for incentives and things like that. I think you should tear vote. I think you should

tier vote in a presidential elections too. What's up? Okay, you can, your third place vote, you can go ahead and give it to Seekwon if you want. But these two guys are the only people we should be voting for. for number one. Well, that was the same way for the Heism. There's only two guys you should have been voting for. All right. Well, with that being said, Adam Wexler, you are going to be on the A team. I'm going to be with you for a little bit

of that as well. Thanks for hanging out, though, on this program. Thanks to Brian Bogussevich for hanging out for a couple of hours. Thanks to Connor McGovern, producing doing a great job as he always does. I'll talk to you folks next in like five minutes. Here on Sports Talk 790, the A team is up next. Don't go anywhere.