Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right, Astros lose last night, 8-3 to the Cardinals.
00:03Hopefully it's better tonight.
00:04Hopefully it's more watchable tonight.
00:08Easy segue into this article, Seth, that you sent me before the show.
00:13MLB 2025 Watchability Index, ranking the most fun teams to watch.
00:18And I would say normally, like, we might not dig into this article,
00:21except for the fact that the Astros seem to be, above all else,
00:26not quite watchable right now.
00:27You know, it's, pitching's been okay.
00:30Pitching's been good, actually.
00:32But the hitting has been, the hitting has not only been poor,
00:35there's been no pop with this lineup at all.
00:37They're not hitting for power whatsoever.
00:39Just very few.
00:41Even El Tuve has just been an average hitter in terms of power.
00:44And so it's, it's led to a boring brand of baseball
00:49and not made any better as I was looking over this list of the most boring teams.
00:55It was ranked by most watchable.
00:57But almost every opponent the Astros have faced so far
01:00is in the bottom half of the watchability index.
01:03Oh, really?
01:04Okay, so they haven't even had good opponents to get, like, that rub off of.
01:07Yeah.
01:07No, if you go and you look through,
01:09the Twins are the 27th most watchable team right now.
01:14Just scrolling through, the Angels, 25th most watchable.
01:17The Mariners, 23rd most watchable.
01:21The Cardinals, 19th.
01:24It's been a lot of boring teams playing against an Astros team.
01:28It's 17th most watchable right now.
01:30Where is San Diego on this list?
01:32San Diego 5th.
01:33All right, we get San Diego this weekend at Dyken Park.
01:37Yeah.
01:37You're looking for some watchable baseball.
01:38There's some coming to town this weekend.
01:40The Padres are a good, good baseball team.
01:42All right, so the way they do this is they do it empirically here.
01:46It's a point system.
01:47And the biggest, as far as watchability goes,
01:50the two most important categories are star power,
01:53where they're using the MLB rank top 100 list as a guideline,
01:58the top 100 players, which the Astros actually score pretty well in.
02:01They had seven or eight of the top 100 players in baseball.
02:04They're among the leaders.
02:06Yeah, so star power, you get a maximum of 10.
02:09Young talent, you get a maximum, it's a 10-point scale.
02:13Base running, defense, minutiae, which includes mascots, uniforms, broadcasters.
02:20I'd be interested as to why they're ranked so low defensively.
02:24They've got a number two defensively.
02:26Okay, I'm just laying out the scoring system real quick, though,
02:29for the people listening.
02:30You get star power and young talent, 10-point scale,
02:33and then base running, defense, minutiae,
02:35and there's a bonus for just the guy who wrote this article,
02:38David Schoenfeld, to add five random points if he wants to.
02:41Those are all five-point scales.
02:43So the Astros, do the hokey pokey, turn yourself around, add up the scoring,
02:48and the Astros are 17th on the watchability list.
02:53Middle of the pack.
02:55Right.
02:56And with a total score of 19.5.
03:01Star power, they get a 7 out of 10, which I would agree with.
03:05I mean, they've got decent star power on the team.
03:08The young talent, they're not doing so hot.
03:103.5 out of 10.
03:14I feel like that's an underrating of Cam Smith.
03:17They would have based that on, you know, the pre-draft.
03:21I don't know.
03:23His ascension has been high enough that they haven't accounted for the fact that he makes it exciting just by virtue of his presence.
03:30Cam Smith, Hunter Brown, I would say, too, I'd throw in there in the young talent category.
03:34This is where you're pointing at your frustration.
03:40They have the same score on defense for watchability as they do base running.
03:45And a 2 out of 5.
03:47They're a good defensive team, and they're a horrific base running team.
03:52Right.
03:52They're not good.
03:53They're slow.
03:54They don't make good decisions on the base paths.
03:56Like, this has been a bad base running team for a long time.
03:59This is a – I think this is a pretty – especially in the infield, a pretty damn good defensive team.
04:05Yeah, that's why I was curious about the defensive side of things.
04:08On the base running part of things, there is a dynamic.
04:11As long as Myers can keep hitting, like, an average Major League Baseball player and keep doing what he does in the field, that's just fine.
04:18That would be awesome.
04:18If he was an average hitting baseball player for the rest of the season and continue to play defense.
04:24But on the base running side of things, you know, him and Pena being on the base paths together adds some excitement because they're both fast and aggressive.
04:34So I think there's potential there.
04:36Dubon, ever since he started using the torpedo bat, has all of a sudden turned into – well, he got out of second last night.
04:43That's neither here nor there.
04:44Put Cam Smith in there, too.
04:46Right, right.
04:47Cam Smith has serious speed on the base paths also.
04:49Yeah.
04:50So I think that as of right now, there's a lot about the Astros where it feels like, all right, they're certainly doing way better than they were last year at this time.
04:59But there is still upside with some of the new additions and some of the younger guys that I think they could become a more exciting baseball team.
05:07Yeah.
05:07It's just – the promise – it's an under-livered promise at this point.
05:11Okay, the bonus points – remember, there's a category for bonus points where David Schoenfeld, the author of this article, can just give you bonus points.
05:18Again, it's a watchability index.
05:20It's not a power ranking for how good the team is.
05:22It's how watchable are they.
05:24He gives bonus points for three things.
05:26One point for each of these.
05:28Hunter Brown's changeup, Jordan Alvarez's presence, and the adventure that is Jose Altuve in left field.
05:36I will say that.
05:37Altuve is not boring in left field.
05:39We're talking about watchability.
05:40He's made a couple of really nice catches so far.
05:43Yeah.
05:43I'd say he's about even in terms of impressive catches versus, ah, crap, just hold on to the ball.
05:50Don't let the ball drop out of your hand before you throw it.
05:53The only – yeah, the only, like, bad error I can – I mean, I know he's had some mistimed jumps and things like that.
05:59Like, the only bad one was that one where he, you know, he's scooping up a base hit, looking to throw it either to third or home.
06:05I can't remember which, and he just flubs the ball, and it rolls 10 feet to his right right there, and they give up a run.
06:13Middle of the pack, though, for watchability – I'll be honest with you, just having watched these first 16 games,
06:18practically every inning of every game, over under at 17 as to where they would be on the watchability index,
06:25I would have put it below.
06:27Now, I think this is more of an overarching for the whole season thing than just how they've looked in the first 16 games or whatever, you know?
06:35No, but it also – and I think it does include the fact that they've played some boring baseball teams themselves.
06:39It's their – it's been kind of a lackluster, oh, we're putting our toe in the water here in this season.
06:47And as we pointed out earlier on the show, they're 7-9, which is the exact same record that they've had in every season since 2020 except for last year.
06:57So it's not a harbinger of doom.
07:00It's not a sign of greatness.
07:02It's that – it's a reminder that it is very early and that a lot of stuff is going to change along the way.
07:07I still feel – for all of those areas in which they didn't rank real well, I still feel pretty positive about most of them.
07:14And I feel like they're erroneously ranked defensively lower than they should be.
07:18Defensively, I can get with you on that.
07:20I would have put them at a four defensively.
07:22I mean, the corner outfielders are shaky based on reputation, but Altuve and Cam Smith have not been an issue so far this year.
07:30Jake Myers is an elite defender.
07:31And then the infield, you know, Paredes is not Alex Bregman, but he's not Raphael Devers either.
07:37Like, he's a good – you know, and Pena has won a gold glove.
07:40Brandon Rogers has won a gold glove.
07:43Christian Walker has won three gold gloves.
07:45You know, it's – so it's a good – and, you know, Yiner is what he is.
07:48They can't throw – they can't throw any runners out.
07:50That's part of defense too.
07:52They give up – I think they've given up 19 out of 20 stolen bases this year.
07:56Yeah, they're not holding guys the way that – that was a point of emphasis.
08:01And that's where it's easier to steal these days and it's more of an impact.
08:06That's been an issue.
08:07The nerdiest argument I got in this week or last week was when I was talking about Jose Altuve's defense and that overall in the outfield, he's been – he's been all right.
08:18It hasn't been horrible.
08:19So, I got into an argument with one of our listeners about his defensive war and it turns – this is the problem is he was going by baseball reference.
08:26I was going by fangraphs.
08:28Oh, yeah.
08:28Yeah.
08:29Two types of war.
08:30Fangraphs incorporates the stat cast data into their defensive ratings.
08:35Okay.
08:36So, I feel like it's more accurate.
08:37And by fangraphs, at least going into the weekend, he was still – he wasn't bad defensively.
08:43And his overall war was 20th in the league.
08:46It wasn't bad at all.
08:46So, he was better on fangraphs than he was on –
08:49Yeah, yeah.
08:49He was better on fangraphs.
08:50Okay, got you.
08:51Who – which were you?
08:51Were you team fangraphs in that argument?
08:53I was team fangraphs, yeah.
08:55Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:55Well, because defense – like, the nerds have had a hell of a time really figuring out exactly how to quantify defense.
09:03It's hard.
09:03It's been interesting.
09:04Yeah, it's hard.
09:05I'm not holding a grudge against them.
09:06No.
09:07Most watchable team, according to this scoring system – again, the Astros were 17th.
09:12God, I long for the days where they were a top five watchable team.
09:14Number one is the Dodgers.
09:16Boo.
09:17Number two is the Red Sox, which is interesting.
09:19They get a 10 for young talent on their scoring system here.
09:26The most painful part about the Red Sox finishing second on this, Seth, is in the article.
09:31It's got a picture of Alex Bregman walking through the Red Sox dugout, celebrating a home run with the –
09:41Wally, the green monster, and he's got the – it looks like Oscar the Grouch, but with orange eyebrows.
09:49He's walking through the dugout celebrating a home run, and that makes me sad.
09:52Because in the years past, he would have been celebrating a home run without this silly mask on
09:57and would have walked up to the camera and stared at it.
10:00That's a – you know what?
10:01It's – it's – I even hesitate to bring this up, but there is a part of this team
10:06that just feels like they lack the personality of the great Astros teams.
10:13And whether it's the dugout celebrations or whatever, and maybe they just haven't congealed as a group
10:18because they've got new faces and everything, I don't – I don't want to care about this, but I do.
10:23And I feel weird about it, but they're just – they're boring.
10:28Hot take.
10:29They do not have the same personality of those other teams.
10:31Hot take alert.
10:33The ethos, the boring aspect of this team, the energy of this team, would be higher,
10:41would be better if Dusty Baker were the manager.
10:44They would be way less boring if Dusty were the manager.
10:46Joe Espada seems like a swell guy, but he does not have the personality
10:51or the presence of Dusty Baker.
10:55Not clamoring for Dusty Baker to come back as the manager.
10:57I'm just saying as long as we're talking about the energy of the team,
11:01if Dusty were the manager of this team – because he would be salty at some of the things
11:04that would be – that would be said about a team that's 7-9 right now.
11:09Why don't you ask me a negative question?
11:10Exactly, exactly.
11:10Yeah, we even had one –
11:12He doesn't get chippy with anybody.
11:13Yeah, we haven't gotten a spot of getting chippy with Chandler Rome or anything.
11:17In a year and a half, he hasn't gotten chippy with anything.
11:20Yeah, listen, man.