Latest / Foul Territory / New Astros Assistant PC Ethan Katz joins Crush City Territory

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New Astros Assistant PC Ethan Katz joins Crush City Territory · Foul Territory

0:06
Speaker 1: What's up, everybody? Welcome into another edition of Crush City Territory.
0:09
Speaker 1: I'm chandeler Rome, joined as always by Tyler Stafford, and
0:12
Speaker 1: today a very special guest, new Astros assistant Major League
0:16
Speaker 1: pitching coach Ethan Katz. Ethan, I know you're in snowy
0:19
Speaker 1: Chicago right now, but I hope you're staying warm. How
0:22
Speaker 1: are you and thanks for being here?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm great.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. It's uh, yeah, it's kind of
0:28
Speaker 3: cold out here, but we're making most of it.
0:33
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are eager to get
0:37
Speaker 1: to know you, eager to get to kind of put
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Speaker 1: a face to a name. You're a name that's been
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Speaker 1: in baseball for a while now. A lot of people
0:43
Speaker 1: know about you, but maybe haven't heard a ton from you,
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Speaker 1: and especially Astras fans certainly want to put a face
0:50
Speaker 1: to a name. Can you just kind of give us
0:51
Speaker 1: a little bit of background of how this offseason has
0:54
Speaker 1: been for you and kind of how this opportunity with
0:57
Speaker 1: the Astros came about and what intrigued you about coming
1:00
Speaker 1: to Houston.
1:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the you know, the off season was
1:04
Speaker 3: kind of care I talked to a bunch of teams
1:07
Speaker 3: and you know, Joe reached out one night I was
1:10
Speaker 3: cooking dinner, reached back out and he wanted to give
1:13
Speaker 3: me out to Houston and got a chance to meet everybody,
1:18
Speaker 3: which was great.
1:19
Speaker 2: It was a really good experience for.
1:21
Speaker 3: Me when trying to make it a really you know,
1:23
Speaker 3: tough decision for me in my future, but getting to
1:26
Speaker 3: meet everybody from Joe, Josh, Dana, like, it was great
1:31
Speaker 3: and I really got to see kind of like, you know,
1:33
Speaker 3: the inner workings upstairs and how everybody communicates well along
1:37
Speaker 3: with you know, interviewing with you know, eight various panels.
1:43
Speaker 3: So it was really good from my standpoint just to
1:45
Speaker 3: kind of get to see the organization, understand the organization.
1:48
Speaker 3: It's much better than doing a zoom and you know,
1:50
Speaker 3: obviously that's part of the process doing that, but like
1:53
Speaker 3: when you get to meet somebody face to face and
1:55
Speaker 3: talk to it, it really was like, this is a
1:57
Speaker 3: great place. And it really wasn't on my my Ingo
2:00
Speaker 3: card because I know the astros of Ventorisi done great
2:03
Speaker 3: job developing pitchers and you know, the people within, They've
2:07
Speaker 3: always kind of promoted from within, So it wasn't something
2:10
Speaker 3: that I really thought that that was an option or
2:13
Speaker 3: opportunity really and then when when they called, it was like,
2:16
Speaker 3: this is this could be a great opportunity for me,
2:20
Speaker 3: and you know, obviously this is where I'm at.
2:23
Speaker 2: So I'm very excited.
2:24
Speaker 4: I know, with any sort of coaching or you know,
2:29
Speaker 4: things like that, there's a line of industry secrets that
2:33
Speaker 4: we we don't want to let out. But do you
2:35
Speaker 4: do you have a sense of what made you so
2:40
Speaker 4: valuable to Joe, Like what what is it about you
2:44
Speaker 4: or your coaching style that you think you bring to
2:46
Speaker 4: the Astros that they were looking for?
2:49
Speaker 3: Well, I know, you know one thing that you know, a
2:51
Speaker 3: lot of teams do. They do a lot of homework, right, like,
2:54
Speaker 3: so they talked to various players, front offices, coaches, So
3:00
Speaker 3: I think they got to learn a lot about me
3:02
Speaker 3: before I even walked into the building and got to
3:04
Speaker 3: talk to them. So I think they got you know,
3:06
Speaker 3: they had to hear about how I connect really well
3:08
Speaker 3: with players, like all the different aspects I've been able
3:11
Speaker 3: to really help players while connecting with them. So I
3:15
Speaker 3: think that really was probably something that was very intriguing.
3:18
Speaker 3: That's something that's been you know, I'm very blessed that
3:22
Speaker 3: a lot of people have talked well about me in.
3:23
Speaker 2: This game, and players have vowed for me.
3:26
Speaker 3: So I think that was like a starting point, right, So,
3:29
Speaker 3: like they kind of had an idea about what I
3:30
Speaker 3: was about how I go about my business every day.
3:34
Speaker 3: So I think that that really helped me getting the
3:38
Speaker 3: opportunity to talk to the Astros.
3:40
Speaker 1: You have a lengthy list of players that you have
3:43
Speaker 1: coach and the players that have really really succeeded under
3:46
Speaker 1: your watch, and I want to get to those in
3:48
Speaker 1: a minute. But something you did say is that you
3:51
Speaker 1: talk to a number of teams this offseason. I'm sure
3:54
Speaker 1: you were very highly sought after because of the work
3:56
Speaker 1: you did in Chicago. I'm curious what made the Astros
4:01
Speaker 1: the team that of you're talking all these teams. What
4:04
Speaker 1: made the Astros the place that you thought? You know,
4:07
Speaker 1: all right, these other teams are great and all, but
4:10
Speaker 1: I want to be.
4:11
Speaker 3: Here, well, I mean playing against them in twenty one
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Speaker 3: in the playoffs. I mean I can't be in to
4:17
Speaker 3: join them, right, So it's like it was. It was
4:20
Speaker 3: something that has always been intriguing to me. I've always
4:23
Speaker 3: like watched them, even in the minor leagues, watching kind
4:25
Speaker 3: of the innovation of the astros right, Like I remember
4:29
Speaker 3: being in low way and and there's you know, we're
4:32
Speaker 3: our guys are hitting, we have they have a shift on.
4:34
Speaker 3: We're grounding into double plays when I'm thinking it's a
4:36
Speaker 3: base hit, I'm like, what's going on here? They're just
4:39
Speaker 3: the head of the curve, right, And it just was
4:40
Speaker 3: really something that for me, it was just kind of
4:43
Speaker 3: I wanted to challenge myself a different opportunity, and it was,
4:48
Speaker 3: you know, just everything they've done, they're winning.
4:51
Speaker 2: You know, that's that's important to me. I want to win.
4:54
Speaker 3: I want to be able to see, you know, help
4:57
Speaker 3: guys along the way. But also they're they're very good
5:01
Speaker 3: pitching development program, which I thought, you know, would be
5:03
Speaker 3: exciting for me to kind of get on board and
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Speaker 3: trying to help.
5:07
Speaker 1: I wonder what your conversations were like with Josh Miller,
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Speaker 1: the lead pitch For those that are not listening, those
5:13
Speaker 1: that don't know that are listening, Josh Miller, the lead
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Speaker 1: pitching coach has been is one of those guys Ethan
5:18
Speaker 1: that you mentioned has been in the Ashers organization forever
5:21
Speaker 1: and just worked his way up. He's one of those
5:23
Speaker 1: kind of internal promotion guys. That every time somebody left,
5:26
Speaker 1: Josh just kept getting going up to hierarchy. I wonder
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Speaker 1: what you guys's conversations were like during this process and
5:33
Speaker 1: whether there's some commonalities in the way you guys view
5:37
Speaker 1: pitching and view pitching development.
5:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, me and him
5:43
Speaker 3: have kind of a very similar background in a sense
5:46
Speaker 3: of like he's done a lot throughout the system to
5:48
Speaker 3: kind of get to where he's at. I've done it
5:50
Speaker 3: through various different organizations to get there. But you know,
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Speaker 3: we both have pretty much worn every single hat and
5:58
Speaker 3: so like. But just like, his personality was very warming
6:02
Speaker 3: when I talked to him and I was able to
6:03
Speaker 3: kind of talk about what I've done, you talked about
6:05
Speaker 3: what he did, and it was kind of like, Okay,
6:06
Speaker 3: this really gels really well because you know a lot
6:09
Speaker 3: of things where I've been and sometimes in the minor
6:12
Speaker 3: league seing it from a different view, like if the
6:15
Speaker 3: cohesiveness of the two that are three nowadays is not there,
6:20
Speaker 3: it really suffers on the field and for the players
6:23
Speaker 3: as well.
6:24
Speaker 2: But we really meshed really well.
6:25
Speaker 3: I kind of talked a lot about It was more
6:28
Speaker 3: obviously I was being interviewed, so kind of explaining.
6:30
Speaker 2: My process and stuff that I did. But we seem
6:34
Speaker 2: to really mesh with.
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Speaker 3: Everything we've talked about and really looking forward to continuing
6:40
Speaker 3: our conversations and working together with this process.
6:44
Speaker 4: When I hear the word mesh, I think there are
6:46
Speaker 4: two possibilities. There's like, we're exactly the same, right, and
6:51
Speaker 4: so we mesh because we do things exactly the same,
6:55
Speaker 4: we think along the same line, so we just divvy
6:57
Speaker 4: up task. But there's also mesh in the sense of like, well,
7:01
Speaker 4: you do these things really well, and I do these
7:04
Speaker 4: things really well, and together we kind of create that.
7:07
Speaker 4: Do you have a sense of with y'all sort of
7:10
Speaker 4: I mean, I know it's been a week, but you know,
7:13
Speaker 4: do you have a sense of kind of which category
7:15
Speaker 4: you would say you guys fall into.
7:19
Speaker 3: I think it's a little early right now, because my
7:21
Speaker 3: part of my job is I need to kind of
7:22
Speaker 3: help him out right and kind of figure out what
7:24
Speaker 3: he needs and kind of not you know, they talk
7:27
Speaker 3: the world about Bilmur I'm taking over for right, and
7:31
Speaker 3: so like kind of figure out what did he do
7:32
Speaker 3: to kind of support Josh or how they work together, right,
7:35
Speaker 3: So you know, we'll have deeper conversations right now, it's
7:38
Speaker 3: just trying to like, hey, let's get you situated with
7:41
Speaker 3: the organization, let's get you your computer, let's kind of
7:43
Speaker 3: get you up and up and running. So we haven't
7:46
Speaker 3: had those conversations just yet, but like you know, obviously
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Speaker 3: I want to do whatever I can to take things
7:50
Speaker 3: off his plate from my experiences, try to help him
7:54
Speaker 3: in any way possible. You know, I do have a
7:57
Speaker 3: relationship with Bennett Susa, so he got to talk to me.
8:00
Speaker 3: We talked yesterday and we were talking a little bit
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Speaker 3: about everything about the Astros, and he talked about Josh
8:04
Speaker 3: and how great he is and his personality, and it's
8:07
Speaker 3: like we have it seems like a very similar personality
8:10
Speaker 3: the way he was describing it is how we go
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Speaker 3: about our business. So I think from that standpoint, it
8:16
Speaker 3: should be very, very beneficial to the players.
8:19
Speaker 1: Was there any part of you that, as you're going
8:22
Speaker 1: through this and the ad and Joe calls you, you
8:24
Speaker 1: mentioned like you've played against this team for a very
8:27
Speaker 1: long time. You've been in the other dugout in the
8:29
Speaker 1: minor leagues and the major leagues. You have seen how
8:32
Speaker 1: they have taken pictures that maybe some other teams couldn't
8:35
Speaker 1: unlock and they have unlocked. Was there any part of
8:39
Speaker 1: you that was just curious as to like how they're
8:42
Speaker 1: doing this and maybe you wanted to to to see,
8:45
Speaker 1: like maybe see under the hood and kind of how
8:49
Speaker 1: how this all works. Was there any party that was
8:51
Speaker 1: just curious about how they keep doing this?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think definitely.
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Speaker 3: Right, that's that's kind of like you want to put
8:58
Speaker 3: your put your going to a place where you feel
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Speaker 3: like you could help, but also like there's an opportunity
9:02
Speaker 3: to kind of see what is different here, right because
9:04
Speaker 3: I've done it, you know, running it for the White
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Speaker 3: Sox for five years, Like you know, that's you know,
9:09
Speaker 3: now you're getting to go to a different organization and
9:11
Speaker 3: kind of see what's different. Like when I went from
9:12
Speaker 3: San Francisco to the White Sox, it was a completely
9:15
Speaker 3: different situation just from you know, the infrastructure, how they
9:19
Speaker 3: communicate and stuff like that. So learning a different organization
9:23
Speaker 3: is always new, but it's also exciting too at the
9:25
Speaker 3: same time because it gives you a chance to kind
9:27
Speaker 3: of give it an opportunity to kind of grow and
9:29
Speaker 3: kind of spread your wings and try to maximize your
9:31
Speaker 3: coaching talents to help the players even more so it's
9:34
Speaker 3: something that I'm looking forward to and kind of seeing, yeah,
9:37
Speaker 3: because I mean there's been a lot of successful pitchers,
9:39
Speaker 3: There's been a lot of deep playoff runs, and you know,
9:43
Speaker 3: being a part of that, I'm excited to see what
9:45
Speaker 3: goes on to kind of help support that.
9:48
Speaker 4: Real quickie. So I am a former teacher and coach.
9:53
Speaker 4: So I do want to talk about high school baseball here?
9:57
Speaker 4: And did you teach it all or were you just coach?
10:00
Speaker 2: No? I was just coaching.
10:03
Speaker 4: Had they had a full time pitching coach at a
10:05
Speaker 4: high school that didn't have to teach?
10:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I I honestly fell into coaching by accident.
10:11
Speaker 3: I was The intentions were to continue playing, and I
10:15
Speaker 3: was playing after I got released from the Rockies, playing
10:18
Speaker 3: pin a ball one year.
10:19
Speaker 2: I wanted to go back again.
10:20
Speaker 3: But I was working out at the school because I
10:23
Speaker 3: knew the assistant pitching coach and he was just like, hey,
10:27
Speaker 3: do you mind helping some of these pitchers? And I
10:29
Speaker 3: was like, sure, no problem, Like I enjoy talking to
10:32
Speaker 3: a lot of them. I'll hang out and you know,
10:35
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go play. And so they hired me for
10:39
Speaker 3: like basically a half of a semester, I guess you
10:42
Speaker 3: could say, and then it was like, you know what,
10:44
Speaker 3: I really enjoy this, and I just walked away.
10:46
Speaker 2: So I didn't.
10:47
Speaker 3: I just I came into coaching by accident. So I
10:51
Speaker 3: was like, once I got into coaching, it was like,
10:54
Speaker 3: you know, part time job, and then I was doing
10:56
Speaker 3: like club ball, to private lessons, to kind of supplement
10:59
Speaker 3: it everything else, and then it just kind of grew
11:02
Speaker 3: after that.
11:03
Speaker 4: So when I was coaching, I coached for like five years. Now. Granted, Baytown,
11:08
Speaker 4: Texas is not the hotbed of talent that the greater
11:12
Speaker 4: Los Angeles area is, so I'm aware that we're on
11:15
Speaker 4: a little bit of a different playing field. But in
11:18
Speaker 4: my five years of coaching, I had one kid who
11:21
Speaker 4: went on to play D two college basketball, and that
11:26
Speaker 4: kid was so much better than everyone else in seventh
11:30
Speaker 4: grade it was laughable, Like we could tell day one
11:34
Speaker 4: of practice like this kid is special. You had three
11:40
Speaker 4: big leaguers on your high school baseball team, for those
11:45
Speaker 4: of you that don't know, even coached Max Freed, Lucas Gilito,
11:49
Speaker 4: and Jack Flaherty at the Harvard Westlake High School. Just
11:55
Speaker 4: what did that look like? As like fifteen year olds
11:58
Speaker 4: and sixteen year olds are facing off guys who not
12:00
Speaker 4: only made the big leagues but are like legitimate, staying power,
12:05
Speaker 4: big leaders. What what did that look like on a
12:08
Speaker 4: on a Friday night.
12:11
Speaker 2: It was you know, first of all, when I started coaching.
12:14
Speaker 3: Him, I had no idea, Like I loved really kid
12:17
Speaker 3: like Lucas's, but he was a mess when I messed.
12:19
Speaker 3: When I first met he was doing bullpens. He was
12:21
Speaker 3: falling down as a sophomore. I mean, he's come a
12:24
Speaker 3: long way, but there was high upside. The arm talent
12:27
Speaker 3: was through the roof. So it was like, you know,
12:31
Speaker 3: Jack was a lot more polished. He was a great
12:34
Speaker 3: strike thrower, but the villa was a tick down. But
12:37
Speaker 3: he could throw three pitches really well. We were able
12:40
Speaker 3: to add a slider, which is like, you know, was
12:42
Speaker 3: staple to get to the big leagues. And then Max
12:45
Speaker 3: was you know, a big time left He with that
12:47
Speaker 3: same curve bolly he displays today. So it was like
12:51
Speaker 3: I had no idea I knew what really good players
12:54
Speaker 3: look like then guys going to pro ball based on
12:59
Speaker 3: my time playing, I had no idea they were going
13:02
Speaker 3: to be like, you know, there's me World Series All
13:05
Speaker 3: Star appearances. Like I had no idea that that was
13:07
Speaker 3: going to be kind of like the end result. And
13:10
Speaker 3: they're still, you know, writing their book, but it's kind
13:13
Speaker 3: of you know, it's exciting. But they were, I mean,
13:17
Speaker 3: they were dominant. They were dominant. I mean it was
13:19
Speaker 3: it was, you know, pretty special. Like we actually did
13:22
Speaker 3: not we won a national championship after Lucas and Max
13:26
Speaker 3: left with just Jack because Jack was two years younger.
13:29
Speaker 3: So it was it was I and I didn't know
13:32
Speaker 3: from there that I would be coaching in Pro Bowl
13:37
Speaker 3: and all the you know, various stops I've had throughout
13:40
Speaker 3: the I just was enjoying the moment and thought I
13:42
Speaker 3: would like coaching, and you know, we developed some guys
13:46
Speaker 3: and we still have very very close relationships to this Today.
13:50
Speaker 4: They have national championships for high school baseball.
13:52
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
13:55
Speaker 4: I'm missing out again. Yeah, So, although I did, it's
14:00
Speaker 4: the Yankees legend Brett Marshall pitch for my high school team.
14:04
Speaker 4: That's that's the only big leaguer I ever saw growing up.
14:09
Speaker 1: Ethan another big leaguer. You've been fortunate to be around
14:12
Speaker 1: a good bit and Dylan Cees, you know, I remember
14:15
Speaker 1: opening day. I believe it was twenty twenty three. I
14:18
Speaker 1: believe it was the I believe it was the opener
14:20
Speaker 1: when the Ashers got their twenty twenty two World Series rings. Yeah,
14:23
Speaker 1: Dylan went out there and absolutely shoved against fromber on
14:28
Speaker 1: opening day in twenty twenty three. You worked with him
14:31
Speaker 1: obviously extensively with the White Sox. It became official yesterday
14:36
Speaker 1: that he is going to be a very, very very
14:38
Speaker 1: rich man for a very long time. Seven years, two
14:41
Speaker 1: hundred and ten million dollars at the Blue Jays. How
14:44
Speaker 1: happy are you for Dylan to get that deal and
14:47
Speaker 1: to secure what you know, he's been working toward his
14:50
Speaker 1: whole life and maybe through your eyes kind of how
14:53
Speaker 1: he evolved to get to that point.
14:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I'm a static when they can really
14:59
Speaker 3: secure uh years and financial stability like that for lifetime generator.
15:06
Speaker 3: It's it's amazing, right, But it was, you know, it
15:09
Speaker 3: was a process that was like one of my biggest
15:11
Speaker 3: challenges when I took on the job with the White Sox.
15:15
Speaker 3: It was a very talented picture that you know, let's
15:20
Speaker 3: identify what he does, well, there's a strike zone and
15:23
Speaker 3: just try to get as many you know, strikes out
15:25
Speaker 3: of him and but then really understanding that, you know,
15:27
Speaker 3: there was a slider that was underutilized.
15:29
Speaker 2: I could really help him and it got better as
15:31
Speaker 2: time went on.
15:33
Speaker 3: You know, we made some changes with his delivery, We
15:36
Speaker 3: challenged him day to day, and to his credit, he
15:39
Speaker 3: worked extremely hard to get to where he's at today.
15:43
Speaker 3: You know, we we had a great relationship.
15:45
Speaker 2: We're still where.
15:45
Speaker 3: He called me right after it happened to tell me that,
15:48
Speaker 3: and I couldn't be more happy for him. But it
15:50
Speaker 3: was it's something he worked extremely hard. If you watch
15:54
Speaker 3: the evolution of Dylan to like where he is today,
15:56
Speaker 3: kind of watching even like where he was in the
15:58
Speaker 3: minor leagues, it's it's credit, it's a great story. It's
16:02
Speaker 3: it's it's something that this guy was like like Lucas
16:06
Speaker 3: when I met him, extremely talented, just needs some polishing, right,
16:09
Speaker 3: and you know when you have talent and you're just
16:14
Speaker 3: a coach, is just a little bit of a support system.
16:16
Speaker 3: But it was like something that we really gelled really
16:18
Speaker 3: well together, and the time was right in his career
16:21
Speaker 3: and we were able to kind of send him on
16:23
Speaker 3: his way after we traded him, and now he's up
16:26
Speaker 3: in Canada, and he's done very well from stuff.
16:28
Speaker 2: I'm very proud from him.
16:30
Speaker 4: I know the answer to this is all of the above,
16:33
Speaker 4: So I'm taking that answer away from you preemptively. So
16:36
Speaker 4: you got to you got to pick one of these.
16:38
Speaker 4: But when you're when you're evaluating a picture, when you're
16:40
Speaker 4: trying to help them, you know, improve, there are a
16:45
Speaker 4: lot of different ways to do that, whether it's watching
16:48
Speaker 4: them in person, kind of seeing them there, watching on video,
16:51
Speaker 4: looking at mechanical stuff, and then also the analytics side
16:54
Speaker 4: of things of looking at you know, spin rates and
16:58
Speaker 4: arm extension and those types of things. Of those three,
17:02
Speaker 4: which one do you feel is like closest to home
17:04
Speaker 4: to you where you feel like most comfortable helping a
17:08
Speaker 4: picture out?
17:09
Speaker 3: It is all I would say, it is all the above,
17:12
Speaker 3: and I know that's not the but it's something like
17:15
Speaker 3: you know, there's always like I'll give it an example,
17:17
Speaker 3: like when I got the job with the White Sox, right,
17:20
Speaker 3: like Carlos Rodin was a guy that was he wasn't
17:25
Speaker 3: in the best spot. Let's just say, like just watching
17:28
Speaker 3: where he was, the vello had declined, the mechanics had changed,
17:31
Speaker 3: and you know, so I went back and I had
17:33
Speaker 3: to watch like YouTube of him in college and kind
17:36
Speaker 3: of see where he was to make him a top
17:38
Speaker 3: pick and kind.
17:39
Speaker 2: Of okay, now let's try to restore.
17:41
Speaker 3: That, right, whether it's you know, Dylan tapping into a
17:46
Speaker 3: slider more like along with mechanics. So there's like there's
17:49
Speaker 3: different avenues where you you know, you can up usage,
17:52
Speaker 3: you can fix mechanics, you can change mechanics, like Lucas
17:55
Speaker 3: completely we changed his arm actually completely from where he
17:58
Speaker 3: was because an adjustment was needed. So there's different variations
18:02
Speaker 3: of what a player might need at the given time.
18:06
Speaker 3: So it's just like I feel comfortable with anything. It's
18:08
Speaker 3: just kind of understanding what's what's needed in the incerta mode.
18:12
Speaker 4: So were you involved in the the arm slot for
18:16
Speaker 4: Giulido with the kind of short arming that that we
18:19
Speaker 4: talked about it in our last episode of that has
18:21
Speaker 4: seemed to be a little bit more in vogue recently.
18:24
Speaker 4: Was that something specifically for him or is that more
18:27
Speaker 4: of a league wide thing? You know, what's the thought
18:30
Speaker 4: process behind kind of that shorter arm slot.
18:33
Speaker 3: Well, he had a terrible eighteen I think it was eighteen, right, eighteen,
18:40
Speaker 3: and it was like offseason came we at that time,
18:44
Speaker 3: it was you know, him, Jack and Max were all
18:46
Speaker 3: in LA so we always worked out together. But he
18:48
Speaker 3: was like, that's cool, Ethn give me everything he got.
18:51
Speaker 2: I don't.
18:51
Speaker 3: I something's got to change or I'm not going to
18:53
Speaker 3: be a big leaguer anymore. Like that, That's kind of
18:55
Speaker 3: where he was. And literally I just I handed him
18:58
Speaker 3: applyileball and I was like, I throw this ball and
19:01
Speaker 3: he was like out on my shoulder. I said, that's
19:03
Speaker 3: my point, like you're not getting in good spots. And
19:05
Speaker 3: then like literally ten minutes, there was an arm change,
19:11
Speaker 3: and it happened fast, rapidly. You know, he had a
19:14
Speaker 3: great offseason then was an All Star in nineteen and
19:17
Speaker 3: that was like, you know, his descent to who he
19:20
Speaker 3: is today. So yeah, it was it was basically a
19:24
Speaker 3: one day process and then obviously there was like maintenance
19:27
Speaker 3: throughout the whole off season to get to that point.
19:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, there was that, there was a change.
19:34
Speaker 1: I know there's a ton of people listening right now
19:37
Speaker 1: that are begging us to just go down the Astros
19:39
Speaker 1: roster and ask you your thoughts on all these pictures.
19:42
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that to you, because, as
19:44
Speaker 1: you said, you're trying to get your laptop, you're trying
19:46
Speaker 1: to get onboarded, you're trying to.
19:48
Speaker 4: Take an email phishing HR training right right.
19:52
Speaker 1: Like, let's I want to I want to give you
19:54
Speaker 1: some time to really digest what you have here. But
19:56
Speaker 1: I do want to ask about one guy because I
19:59
Speaker 1: think he I think what he did last year certainly
20:02
Speaker 1: resonated around the league. And he's certainly a guy that
20:04
Speaker 1: maybe from the other dugout you saw evolved as his
20:08
Speaker 1: career is going on. But Hunter Brown, obviously top three
20:11
Speaker 1: al Cy Young final is finished in the top three
20:13
Speaker 1: in Cy Young voting. Just from afar, what have your
20:17
Speaker 1: impressions been of watching Hunter Brown? And how excited are
20:19
Speaker 1: you to now, you know, get your hands on him
20:21
Speaker 1: and be able to work with him day to day
20:23
Speaker 1: and be able to see what he's like in person.
20:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's impressive, right like it.
20:30
Speaker 3: He's able to do so much with the baseball along
20:33
Speaker 3: with like plus plus stuff and kind of just watching
20:37
Speaker 3: you know, the year he had obviously not the same division,
20:41
Speaker 3: so I get to see him as much. But obviously
20:43
Speaker 3: there's a lot of highlights of him over and over again,
20:45
Speaker 3: but extremely talented. Arm you know obviously the year he
20:50
Speaker 3: had the evolution of him, it kind of does remind
20:54
Speaker 3: me a little bit of Dylan, just kind of like
20:56
Speaker 3: how he's really stepped to the scene and kind of
20:58
Speaker 3: really stepped up over the years. So it's I'm really
21:02
Speaker 3: looking forward to, you know, Like I said, I talked
21:04
Speaker 3: to Bennisuza. He gave me like a little bit of
21:05
Speaker 3: rundown of each guy and stuff like that. And you know,
21:08
Speaker 3: I from Afar like just watching him and how he's
21:10
Speaker 3: a bulldog, he's a competitor, which you that's what you.
21:14
Speaker 2: Want from the top dog on the mount.
21:16
Speaker 3: So getting looking forward to meeting him and getting to
21:19
Speaker 3: know him a little bit more.
21:20
Speaker 2: But like he's he's everything he wanted in a number one.
21:23
Speaker 2: It's pretty impressive.
21:25
Speaker 1: He will be that. He will be the Astros number one,
21:29
Speaker 1: presumed opening day starter, ace of the staff heading into
21:32
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, a staff that Ethan Katz will help
21:36
Speaker 1: to guide through the twenty twenty sixties. And Ethan, we
21:38
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking some time. I know I told
21:40
Speaker 1: you i'd keep you for ten or fifteen minutes. We're
21:42
Speaker 1: crossing the twenty two minute marks. I want to be
21:44
Speaker 1: a man on my word and uh and let you
21:46
Speaker 1: get on. I know you've got a busy day, maybe
21:49
Speaker 1: have some HR stuff to do. I don't know, but
21:52
Speaker 1: we appreciate this. This was great. Thank you so much
21:54
Speaker 1: for your insight and look forward to seeing you in
21:57
Speaker 1: West Palm Beach in a couple of months for spring training.
22:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks for having me, guys,
22:02
Speaker 3: Thank you.
22:02
Speaker 1: Thanks Ethan M.