It looked like the Astros and Alex Bregman were destined to part ways this free agent cycle. But not so fast. There are reports the door is still open for a reunion. Payne & Pendergast discuss whether this is a good idea.
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00:00And so now conversations, this is according to Chandler Roma, the athletic, is what I'm
00:04looking at right here.
00:06Conversations between the Astros and free agent third baseman Alex Bregman have resumed
00:10within recent days according to three league sources, reigniting some hope of a reunion
00:16between the franchise and one of its cornerstones.
00:19That possibility seemed dead in December when Dana Brown said talks between the two sides
00:23had stalled and then the Astros pivoted and spent $60 million on first baseman Christian
00:28Walker.
00:30They had traded Kyle Tucker for among others, Isak Paredes to play third base for the team
00:36next year.
00:37So for the last several weeks, the Astros there, the seats are all taken on the infield,
00:41right?
00:42Like if we're going third to first Paredes, Pena, Altuve, Walker, seats taken.
00:48It's a lot.
00:49You know, it's funny as you were just giving that tidy little summary, it occurred to me,
00:53man, that is a lot.
00:55That's a lot of big stuff, which obviously we all know and we followed, but to just sum
01:01it all up in 30 seconds like that, that's a lot of change that very much signaled to
01:06me and a lot of others at least, okay, they've moved on.
01:10Like you've just, you've, you've traded away Tucker for one, which is the biggest indicator
01:14yet that, all right, we're going to be operating a little bit differently.
01:17Now you signed a replacement for Alex Bregman.
01:21You've got the other corner infielder position hemmed up and that, that was going to be the
01:27end of it.
01:28I thought that was all right.
01:29It's too bad.
01:30I, I feel I'll miss Alex Bregman, but that's the sum total of it all.
01:33And I started to feel like as we watch Bregman's market gets stale, it would appear, think
01:38to myself like, wow, you may have overshot on six years, one 56.
01:41Like if you like the, the, the Astros, I think the last thing they anticipated was them being
01:45the high offer in all this.
01:47And we, we don't know for sure that that's the case, but because it could, it could be
01:51Bregman got a better offer, but it's a team he didn't want to go to, you know, that kind
01:54of thing.
01:55I do think that look, the Astros remain one of the best teams in the league at the analytical
01:59side of things.
02:00And a lot of the contracts now they're driven by the analytics by most of the teams in the
02:04league.
02:05And I wonder if maybe the Astros did really feel like, you know what, this is a dude,
02:09this is a generous offer that, and yeah, we're not budging off of it.
02:13Well, here's so to continue, this is what Chandler Rome says a lack of clarity in Bregman's
02:18market, which we just kind of talked about there across the past month may have allowed
02:22the Astros back into the fray, according to three sources unrest within the Astros clubhouse
02:29about the possibility of Bregman's departure and Brown declaring the negotiations stalled
02:36also contributed in part to Houston circling back.
02:39I'm going to tell you right now, I read that.
02:42I read that as Jose Altuve is still in Jim Crane's ear about all this because Jose Altuve
02:49the audio later in the show, we got to go back and find it if we can, but we remember
02:52Altuve at the very end of the season was very vocal, uncharacteristically vocal about Bregman
03:00and his contract situation Altuve had never said a word to my knowledge, at least nothing
03:04to the extent of how emphatic he was with Bregman never said anything to that degree
03:09about Springer, Cole Correa Verlander twice never Bregman.
03:18He did an entire interview where he, it was, it was, it was an interview is just a normal
03:22press session.
03:23He answered seven or eight questions and five of them were about Bregman with strong opinions
03:26on bringing him back.
03:28I have to believe that Altuve is a big part of this because Bob Nightingale was on with
03:33Patrick Creighton last night, listening to that on my way home last night.
03:36And it was a really good interview.
03:39And that's my biggest question about this set.
03:41I had the money because the Chandler reports that it sounds like it would still be the
03:45156 million over six years that Bregman would get in all this, which, okay.
03:51I mean, that feels like it might be a little pricey now based on how Bregman's free agency
03:54has gone, but maybe crane doesn't want to disrespect them by saying, Oh, you didn't
03:58take it the first time now it's four, you know, now it's 105 over four years or something
04:03like that.
04:04Right?
04:05Yeah.
04:06That's a, yeah.
04:07It's just money.
04:08I don't care about the money part of it.
04:09The, the, you know, like, I mean, I do cause crane manages to that competitive balance
04:12tax, but it's the money's the money.
04:15That's crane's problem more than anything else.
04:17The baseball part of it is what is intriguing to me.
04:19And nightingale talked about this.
04:20It's, it would seem like a lot of the spaces are full on this team right now to get Bregman
04:24back in.
04:25Like one of these guys is going to have to move to the outfield.
04:28How do they align defensively?
04:30Well, pretty, it's just played a number of games at second base.
04:33I want to say over 50 games at second base in this career.
04:37So the easy thing would be move Freddy's the second base move Jose L2B to left field.
04:43Jose's got to play left field and you can mix and match to like, okay, how many parties
04:47are sometimes I'll to be there other, other times, you know, that sort of thing, you know,
04:52where they can kind of bounce around, but it makes no sense to move Bregman out of third
04:58base position.
04:59Cause it go Glover.
05:00Okay.
05:01Um, so this, this starts, so Paredes the second base would mean L2B to left field because
05:09somebody's got to play left field.
05:10Let's feel for the Astros is now what first base was to Billy Bean in Moneyball.
05:17Like here's a glove.
05:18Yeah.
05:19I don't like the way he casually said that somebody's got to play left base or left field.
05:24Yeah.
05:25Well, and here's the thing.
05:26This is where, this is where I feel like Altuve is, is one of the main voices behind the quote
05:30unquote unrest in the clubhouse over this.
05:33And I don't think it's hard to connect the dots.
05:34I mean, again, Altuve was very outspoken about Bregman when this was a topic back
05:39in November and December.
05:40Um, according to Bob Nightingale, Altuve is willing to move to left field to make this
05:45happen.
05:46Right.
05:47I mean, she wants to bring them back.
05:48He's willing to switch positions and uh, yeah, they started to get up in an age a little
05:51bit.
05:52Uh, the defense and metrics, you know, work, work kind to him the last couple of years.
05:57Uh, you know, so, so why not?
05:59Uh, so hey, Robin, you want an MVP in the, at shortstop in Centerville.
06:05Okay.
06:07Robin Young was good at both.
06:08Yeah.
06:09Why not?
06:10Let's do it.
06:11Whatever.
06:12Yeah.
06:13It's now, as far as the last couple of years, he had a minus one run value, uh, two years
06:18ago is last year where really it just looked like, Oh wow, man, he's not getting to a lot
06:22of these balls.
06:23Yeah.
06:24And where I could see, all right, he doesn't look like your standard left fielder.
06:28Uh, I don't, I immediately, I started just having all these visions of, I, I've just
06:33got no appetite for watching Altuve in his declining years, not being tall enough to
06:39get to some of those, some of those balls and left fielder, especially left center.
06:44I don't, let's start with, he doesn't look like the standard anything.
06:47He's five, six, right, right, right.
06:50Which we have to remember.
06:51Right?
06:52Like, okay.
06:53It's a stupid, it really is.
06:54Cause as I was thinking that you're thinking specifically the instances where you're like,
06:57Oh, okay.
06:58He's not going to be able to launch up in that left center nook and make some of those
07:01catches.
07:02And a lot of guys can't make catches the dude, regardless of what their height is.
07:05I don't want to fall victim to that.
07:07Like, well, you want to have a first baseman who's really tall and can do the splits.
07:12I know it's, it's more nuanced than that.
07:14I think that if, if Altuve is genuinely declining as a defensive player in last year, it wasn't
07:21just a glitch.
07:22He can make up for some of that reduced reaction time and speed more easily in left field.
07:28I think then, then he can at second base, like the reaction time, isn't going to hurt
07:33him as much.
07:34Now it's a, there's a learning curve, you know, it's just like seeing the bat come off
07:39the ball that, you know, thousands of times over the course of a, of a baseball career.
07:45It means something, but I think he could handle that.
07:47So I'm not, I'm not opposed to it.
07:49No.
07:50I, well, okay.
07:51I mean, I kind of am, I, I, I, I, the, my unpopular opinion is.
07:57I would just, especially if it's 156 million over six, this is where I will circle back
08:01to the money.
08:03You know, the, I, I care more in, in the short term about what it does to the team defensively.
08:07Oh, let's move.
08:08Paredes, Paredes has played 53 games at second base.
08:12Let's stick him there.
08:13Altuve has never played outfield, but it's just left field.
08:15It's not center.
08:16Right.
08:17I did not appreciate his tone of voice at all.
08:19Let's let's stick him out there.
08:21I, that boy, this feels like you are.
08:24This feels like you're, you're doing a lot to accommodate a guy who went out on the market
08:30and found out his market wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.
08:34And that is where the six years, 156, like, okay, we're going to make all these accommodations.
08:40Then maybe Alex Bregman needs to make an accommodation as well, you know, and realize, you know,
08:45if there's a, there needs to be a given to take it to Alex Bregman can't just walk back
08:49in in my opinion and take the Astros offer.
08:51That's the highest one on the board.
08:53If they've already, if they already told him, Hey man, we're going to move on.
08:56We've got to make some decisions here.
08:59Um, and, and look, some of this is if the Astros hadn't made the horrible decision to
09:04sign Hosea Bray, you and extend Raphael Monteiro.
09:07This becomes a much easier conversation and maybe that factors into them being willing
09:11to pay Bregman is that, okay, we will, you're gonna have to bite the bullet this year.
09:14Cause we've got those bad contracts, but once they're off the books, Alex Bregman slides
09:19very neatly into those, you know, into that slot, right.
09:21You know, like once we don't have 30, 35 million in bad contracts on the books anymore,
09:27we can withstand having Bregman on the books.
09:29I don't know, man.
09:30There's just something, there's something about it to me where they, they, they clearly
09:34moved on.
09:35He's still sitting out there.
09:36It's very tempting to have him on the team cause he's an excellent baseball player, but
09:39I feel like there needs to be a little bit, a bit of a given a take.
09:42If all of a sudden we're having to move all these puzzle pieces around and now all of
09:46a sudden you've got two guys that are playing uncomfortable positions to accommodate Bregman.
09:52Who did he mention as the second, did he mention Biggio as the second baseman that had played
09:55in the outfield or did he mention somebody else?
09:57He mentioned, well, he mentioned Robin Yount at the end, Robin Yount won an MVP at shortstop
10:02and center field for the Brewers.
10:03The difference with, I thought he had said Biggio, maybe that's just where my mind was
10:06going.
10:07The difference with Biggio is he had played outfield at various times in his career.
10:11So it's not like he could go back and forth.
10:14His final season when he was 41, he was, he was a catcher for one game, for one inning.
10:22I don't remember that.
10:23Yeah.
10:24Yeah.
10:25It's listed in the stats as a catcher for one game.
10:26I'd have to see.
10:27If I had to bet, I would bet that game was like in September where they're trying to
10:30do one of those.
10:31He played.
10:32It was a ceremonial.
10:33Yeah.
10:34Yeah.
10:35Yeah.
10:36That, that feels like something like that.
10:37Here's a Bob Nightingale.
10:38One more Altuve will do anything to bring Bregman back.
10:41So you're saying like, this is Altuve wants Bregman back so bad, Altuve is willing to
10:46shift positions.
10:47Correct.
10:48Correct.
10:50See that's.
10:51Then he'll do anything to get him back.
10:52You know, I'm sure he plays second base some too, but they can, you know, Prettys has never
10:57played the outfield.
10:58So you know, we'll see.
10:59Maybe he makes a match and might be a spring train decision, but Prettys has at least played
11:04second base.
11:05He's never played left field before.
11:06This, I think this whole thing, the whole thing's fascinating for one thing.
11:10Like I'm not angry about it or anything.
11:11I've got my opinion on it.
11:13I don't know that I would do it.
11:14But if you just take the names off of it, like take the names out of it, just say that,
11:20Hey, this baseball team over here is willing to sign a third baseman and move their penciled
11:26in third baseman a second and move their second baseman to left field just to accommodate
11:30him.
11:31I would be like, well, that's insane.
11:33That's stupid.
11:34Why would they do that?
11:35But then you apply the names to it, especially as an Astros fan where, you know, all these
11:38guys.
11:39And I think that does speak to Bregman's leadership.
11:42Like that they, that they, that they, that these are the accommodations they're willing
11:45to make that, that I think it speaks to how important, you know, Bregman, we taught you,
11:50you bring it up all the time with Hunter Brown and him sitting down with, like he rescued
11:53Hunter Brown last year.
11:54You know what I mean?
11:55Like there, there is a level to Bregman's leadership anecdotally that we hear about
11:59that, that it does make it an interesting debate.
12:02I don't think I would do it, but, but I, if they do it, I'm here for it.
12:06That kind of thing.
12:07It feels, it feels like a Rudy type situation where Altuve's walking in and yeah, like he's
12:13basically, he's laying his Jersey on the table or he's just, he's like a union agitator
12:18back in the day where all of a sudden they have one of your most trusted employees.
12:23All of a sudden he's decided to unionize and Jim Crane is thinking like, I like this guy,
12:27but I know how to bust up a union.
12:30I don't know.
12:31It's Crane's in a dicey situation here.
12:34There's a part of me that if I'm in Crane's shoes, the thing I might want to say, but
12:38I'm going to bite my tongue is, Hey, listen, Jose, we've, we've already made the exception
12:44to the way we usually operate and it was for you.
12:48So we, we've kind of already did that.
12:52Now you're asking for more and I, I frankly, I feel like you're being a little bit ungrateful.
12:59That's Crane talking, not me.
13:01Right.
13:02Right.
13:03Okay.
13:04I'm just picturing.
13:05Aggregators.
13:06Yeah.
13:07That'd be funny.
13:08Yeah.
13:09We've already made the exception.
13:10You're familiar with him and he just pulls out a mirror and holds it up in front of Jose
13:13out to that.
13:14Yeah.
13:15Yeah.
13:16That would be great.
13:17Strikes me as the kind of guy that carries a mirror underneath his desk someday when
13:19they make the money, but the verge, the money ball version of the Astros, they do a movie
13:22about the Astros.
13:23That's what it'll get.
13:24No wonder.
13:25Or, or he might say like, all right, Jose, well just let's take your contract and modify
13:30it.
13:31And if you want them so bad, then I'm going to need you, I'm going to need you to bleed
13:35a little bit too.
13:36If you're forcing me to bleed, then let's just go ahead and modify your contract to
13:40accommodate Bregman.
13:41Techs are rolling in.
13:42Are we forgetting Jose has no arm?
13:44Yeah.
13:45There's that.
13:46Oh yeah.
13:47There's that.
13:48That's what I'm saying, man.
13:49Like this is.
13:50Yes.
13:51I am forgetting that.
13:52Yeah.
13:53Because I didn't even get past the actual fielding part to envision Jose trying to gun
13:58somebody down at third base.
14:00Right.
14:01Right.
14:02Oh.
14:03I remember how nervous we were when Yordan started playing left field.
14:06And then there were those times where Yordan made through some, through some rockets from
14:10left field.
14:11And you're like, Oh yeah, that's not going to happen with Jose Altuve.
14:14I could see.
14:15Okay.
14:16So Altuve leaves Crane's office.
14:18And then a little bit later, a couple of the pitchers sneak in like, Hey Jim, Hey,
14:27we love Altuve.
14:28We sure do.
14:29We sure do.
14:30In case you forgot.
14:31I'm like, let's really think this through before we move Altuve to left field.
14:36That's so funny.
14:37Crane.
14:38Crane.
14:39Crane's thinking of making this deal.
14:40And all of a sudden he gets a message from his secretary that like Fromber and Hunter
14:43Brown and Spencer Arrighetti all want to go golfing with him.
14:46That's where you do it.
14:47You do it on the golf course, like sitting on the golf cart and you're like, so like
14:49on the, like the 13th hole after like seven beers, you're like, we were really serious
14:54about this Altuve thing and left field Jim, you know, that's how you do it.
14:58Okay.
14:59Now we're starting to get.
15:00Hey y'all, why can't they just move Bregman to shortstop and then put Jeremy Pena in left
15:04field because you've got two guys who won gold gloves at those positions in the last
15:08two years and you're moving them around to accommodate like, no, why?
15:13So you can keep Altuve to play bad second base.
15:16Like and Bregman's not a shortstop.
15:17You're making a lot of accommodations for something that's already a little, it's one
15:21thing.
15:22If you go, if you bend outside the norm or go outside the box, but it feels like, yeah,
15:25you're making a lot of accommodations on the salary side of things.
15:28On the luxury tax side of things, not to mention Ryan Presley is an obstacle to any
15:33of this.
15:34You mentioned that you're right.
15:35Ryan Presley doesn't want, it hasn't as of yet basically signed off on his no trade club.
15:39Yeah.
15:40They got to get Presley off the books reportedly to make this happen.
15:42He makes 14 million.
15:43Now they're deep into talks with the Cubs and Nightingale talked about that.
15:46We'll get to that late in their show.
15:48Nightingale seems to think that's, that is going to happen.
15:51But you're right.
15:52They're, they're, they're kind of, they're kind of connected.
15:54All right.
15:55To put a bow on this, Seth, just injure.
15:57If Presley waves is no trade clause and they can make the opportunity presents itself.
16:02Bregman's ready to come back.
16:03I am a no on this.
16:05Are you a yes or a no on this?
16:07I'm a no, I just, the, the, the opportunity passed, man.
16:12Yeah.
16:13Like the opportunity pass.
16:14You got to let it go.
16:15Jose.
16:16Sorry.
16:17I like you just, you got to let it go.
16:18The opportunity is gone.
16:19The organization's moving forward and you get, look, you can blame Bregman for it.
16:22Yep.
16:23Don't blame crane.
16:24Yep.
16:25There are reports that other teams are interested, possibly, maybe Mike could in Alex Bregman.
16:31No Bregman passed on it.
16:33It's not on crane.
16:35It's on Bregman.
16:36I like it.
16:37Just, it just is.
16:38Hayden Pendergast.
16:39We are, we stand on no, no to Bregman.