Will Houston Keep Squandering Opportunities? Or Will the Astros SAVE Us?

Summary

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Payne & Pendergast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Will Houston Keep Squandering Opportunities? Or Will the Astros SAVE Us?
Date: July 7, 2026
Hosts: Seth Payne, Luke Morrow (in for Sean Pendergast)
Podcast: Payne & Pendergast (Audacy)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Luke Morrow fills in for Sean Pendergast, joining Seth Payne to dissect the ongoing theme of Houston sports teams repeatedly missing golden opportunities for success. The hosts analyze the recent shortcomings of the Texans, Rockets, and Astros—teams confronted with clear pathways to rise but falling short. They also discuss the possible arrival of an NHL team in Houston, speculate on team names, and critique local sports management, especially focusing on the Astros’ farm system and front office. The episode is full of classic, relatable banter but underpinned by frustration at Houston’s sports malaise.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Show Opening, Banter & NHL Team Speculation

[01:29-05:41]

• Luke kicks off the show in Sean’s absence, recounting a humorous Hartford Whalers moment with a building security guard.
  • “I did wear my Hartford Whaler shirt today in honor of Sean as I sit in his seat…” ([01:29])
• Seth jests about Houston’s next pro sports name, referencing the Texans’ branding and possible NHL team names.
  • Discussion about generic team names and Houston’s tendency toward “red and blue” logos.
• NHL Expansion Rumors: Luke presents ChatGPT’s hypothetical names—Apollos, Outlaws, Cyclones, and Wranglers.
  • Seth: “I don't like it when they lean too far into the Texas stereotypes… Houston's so much of a different city than it was even 40 or 50 years ago. I'm cool with leaning into the space program.” ([03:49])
• Seth critiques Outlaws as a name: “I feel like anything you do that’s got any kind of edge to it whatsoever is going to just get annoying backlash for no good reason. And yet that makes me really want it…” ([03:49])

Notable Quote

Seth (on ChatGPT suggestions): "No, none of them really. Do you know what the problem is? I don't like it when they lean too far into the Texas stereotypes." ([03:49])

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2. Missed Opportunities in Houston Sports

[05:41-07:19]

• Luke’s Thesis: Houston teams—Texans, Rockets, Astros—were all set up for success recently but failed to capitalize.
  • Texans had an “easy” playoff path, dodging the likes of Mahomes and Burrow but still fell short.
  • Rockets: NBA parity is at a historic high, with 8 unique champions in 8 years, but the Rockets haven't even made it past the first round.
  • Astros: AL is record-settingly weak in 2026, yet Houston sits below .500 and is underperforming in a weak division. Even with an “MVP season from Yordan [Alvarez],” the team isn't capitalizing.
• Luke's Summation: “We're getting these opportunities right now, just not… taking advantage.” ([07:19])

Notable Quote

Luke: “The Texans should have been in the Super Bowl. And to this point… that was probably their best chance...” ([06:02])
Luke (on the AL): “This is the worst league in Major League Baseball history, the AL, currently this year, and you're getting an MVP season from Yordan, and yet the Astros are still three games under .500…” ([06:51])

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3. Assessing the Astros’ Decline & Farm System Woes

[07:19-08:47]

• Seth rants about the Astros’ farm system’s abysmal rankings, which have gone from 27th to 29th under GM Dana Brown.
  • “At that pace, I mean, we're looking at 15 years from now having the best damn farm system in all the land.” ([08:17])
• Luke jokes about ‘planting a tree’ metaphor: "15 years from now, it's finally going to give us shade in the backyard." ([08:27])
• Both hosts critique Brown’s tenure: Luke likens his role to a character from Office Space: “What do you do here?” ([08:47])
  • Brown was brought to restore the farm system and hasn’t; the major league team is regressing.

Notable Quote

Seth: “It's not a plunge or anything, but it's a steady march down… toward exactly where they are right now… haphazard farm system and mediocre performance on the field.” ([11:08])

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4. Should the Astros Move On from Dana Brown?

[10:33-12:19]

• Seth notes he’s not for midseason baseball firings but can’t defend Dana Brown’s lackluster results.
  • “I've got no appetite for that.” ([11:29])
• Luke analyzes baseball culture: Teams rarely fire GMs before the draft/trade deadline, as it disrupts planning. Yet, this often elicits a comical analogy from Seth:
  • “It's almost like, yeah, we gotta let the. Let this drunk driver see this thing out before he gets.” ([12:19])

Notable Quote

Seth: “I rarely will get up and act like firing somebody in the middle of a baseball season is the go-to answer… but… I can't. I've got no appetite for that.” ([11:29])

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5. Wasting MVP-Level Performance: The Yordan Alvarez Dilemma

[12:35-13:37]

• Luke points out the Astros are “wasting” Yordan Alvarez’s MVP-caliber season:
  • Historically, team MVPs coincided with strong team results (Altuve’s 2017 season; Bagwell’s strike-shortened ‘94).
• Luke reflects on Bagwell’s absurd 1994 stats: “If they played a full year, he might have had 180 RBIs, which would be so absurd.” ([13:27])
• Seth reminisces on how team priorities and metrics have evolved, and pivots to a debate over clutch hitting and challenging calls.

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6. Astros: Baffling In-Game Decisions & Use of Challenges

[13:37-14:54]

• Seth’s “weird complaint”: Astros players (e.g., Jose Altuve in ‘parades’) don’t use instant replay challenge enough—even though they have the best batter challenge percentage in MLB!
  • Cam Smith, on the other hand, challenges too liberally and is “awful at it.”
  • “With their best guys not challenging as much as they probably could.” ([14:54])
• Luke’s frustration about missed opportunities: If you KNOW the call is wrong, use the challenge, even if not a high-leverage inning.
  • “Correct the call and… take your chance, especially when you have an eye like Parades.” ([14:54])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Seth on Houston's sports branding:
  “There's a lot of people out there with like kind of red and blue logos where they call themselves, like, 'Texans Plumbing' or something, where they kind of skirt the intellectual property laws.” ([02:49])
• Seth on Houston and Austin's rivalry for NHL team:
  “The problems that plague Austin are now just your normal run-of-the-mill… oh, we're a big city now. We got those same problems. They ain't weird no more. They're just like the rest of us.” ([05:18])
• Luke on Houston’s squandered sports chances:
  “We're getting these opportunities right now, just not so far, not taking advantage.” ([07:19])
• Seth’s analogy on bad leadership:
  “It's almost like, yeah, we gotta let the—let this drunk driver see this thing out before he gets…” ([12:19])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:29 – Show opens, Luke’s Hartford Whalers anecdote, NHL team rumors
• 03:32 – Discussion of potential Houston NHL team names
• 05:41 – Luke lays out Houston teams wasting opportunities
• 07:19 – AL’s historically weak season and Astros underachieving
• 08:17 – Seth lampoons Astros’ farm system, “15-year plan” joke
• 08:47 – Critique of Dana Brown’s contribution as GM
• 10:33 – Debate: should Houston fire Dana Brown?
• 12:35 – Yordan Alvarez’s MVP candidacy and Astros’ failures to support him
• 13:37 – Astros’ in-game strategy, challenge system, and batting analytics

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Summary

This episode captures the charged frustration of Houston sports fans, balancing sharp humor and pointed sports analysis. Morrow and Payne frame Houston’s various teams as repeatedly failing to cash in on favorable circumstances. The conversation covers franchise branding, sports management, missed postseason opportunities, and even baseball’s esoteric challenge system. The Astros' decline, farm system futility, and front office inertia are central grievances, with Yordan Alvarez’s MVP campaign serving as a symbol for what could have been. Sports fans and Houstonians alike will appreciate both the unvarnished critique and the seasoned, empathetic banter from two veterans of H-Town sports talk.

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Transcript

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[Luke Morrow]

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[Luke Morrow]

Well, Houston Sports continue to squander opportunities. It's pain and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. You can always join the conversation 713-572-4610 on the text line or YouTube and Twitch as well. If you are watching on YouTube and Twitch. I did wear. I don't even think you can see it because of how I'm sitting, but I did wear my Harford Whaler shirt today in honor of Sean as as I sit in his seat form and the security guard here was actually very excited. I walked off the elevator in the lobby and he yelled out. It was almost startling because it was 5am yeah. Harford Whalers said yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

See an old Whalers fan himself.

[Luke Morrow]

I don't think so.

[Seth Payne]

Just excited to see the land.

[Luke Morrow]

I think he was just excited and I said yeah, I'm from. I'm from Hartford originally. And he said, oh, the land of Moby Dick. And honestly I've never heard. I don't know what that means. I've never heard that. I'm gonna have to Google it. I don't know if Moby Dick has a connection to Connecticut or what. I. I gotta be honest, I have no idea.

[Seth Payne]

That's probably. Yeah, it was like a little whaling town. It was Moby dickfordson, Connecticut. Yeah, that's a. I have no idea.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah, so, yeah, that was how the morning started.

[Seth Payne]

Do we have a name? If Houston lands an NHL team, there's going to be a lot of. There's going to be a lot of controversy over which. Whichever name they select and.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah, that's going to be a big deal.

[Seth Payne]

Houston, the Texans is not the most popular name amongst people that grade names of teams. I think it. I think it works perfectly. I would have advised against it, just from a branding perspective. I think there's a lot of. A lot of people out there with like kind of red and red and blue logos where they call themselves, like, Texans Plumbing or something, where they kind of skirt the intellectual property laws.

[Luke Morrow]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

It's tough to. You can't. You can't just slam. You know, you can't claim that a really generic term is definitely linked to the football team, but still, I would just. Yeah, I don't think it's going to. They're not going to. They're not going to go old school and name the. The hockey team the same name as, like the football team or the baseball team to just try to get a little bit of that extra shine off of it.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah. Chat. GBT gives their top choices. Number one, Houston Apollo's.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Luke Morrow]

Number two, Houston Outlaws. Number three, Houston Cyclones.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Luke Morrow]

And number four, Houston Wranglers. Do any of those do it for you?

[Seth Payne]

No, none of them. None of them really. Do you know what the problem is? I don't like it when they lean too far into the Texas stereotypes. I don't know if stereotypes are like, kind of like the Texas caricatures because Houston's so much of a different city than it was even 40 or 50 years ago. I'm cool with leaning into the space program. Yeah. The Outlaws. I feel like. I feel like anything you do that's got any kind of edge to it whatsoever is going to just get annoying backlash for no good reason. And yet that makes me really want it so that if they do do something with Outlaws or. I don't know. Yeah, just mass anything. I'd be cool. I'll sign on. I'll sign on for whatever passes for edgy these days.

[Luke Morrow]

I says Houston Outlaws would be aggressive without sounding gimmicky. So there's the pitch.

[Seth Payne]

Feels a little gimmicky.

[Luke Morrow]

It does. It feels very gimmicky, actually. And they said the colors would be black, red and silver, and that would look fantastic.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Luke Morrow]

So Chat. GPT has the whole plan laid out there to get the uniforms going and everything. And then when they become the Outlaws, we'll take credit for it.

[Seth Payne]

We gotta. We gotta beat Austin out for getting the NHL franchise.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

The problem is, I saw. I looked at a list of pros and cons for Houston vs Austin, and it felt like whoever was making the list was operating off of, like, the demographics from Austin in the year 2002. It was like, oh, traffic, traffic. You know, Houston's got horrible traffic. Have you talked to anybody who lives in Austin lately? Ask them how thrilled they are with the traffic in Austin? They're in their daily commute. Their average daily commute isn't that far off from Houston's average daily commute. They've caught up a lot of the problems that plague Austin are now just your normal run of the mill. Oh, we're a big city now. We got those same problems. It's. It's a. They're. They. They ain't weird no more. They're just like the rest of us.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah, it's true. Absolutely.

[Seth Payne]

And.

[Luke Morrow]

And the YouTube chat says AI is gimmicky. So take that chat. GPT. So, you know, I was thinking about this. I think the teams here in this city have been offered up great opportunities here in the last, really, just 12 months. And they certainly haven't taken advantage. Not even 12 months. Really? This, this, you know, just 2026. The last six, seven months here. Six months. But when, when you look back on it, like the Texans, everyone will point to the path that they had in the playoffs. We talked about it earlier. You don't have to deal with Mahomes and Burrow and Lamar, and instead you just got to get through Drake May and then the Broncos backup quarterback, and it's like, ah, what could have been. The Texans should have been in the super bowl. And to this point, you know, that was probably their best chance to reach a Super Bowl. And then you have the Rockets, where in the NBA we have more parody now than ever before, since the 1970s, at least, where eight straight different champions without a repeat. Eight unique champions in the last eight years. And the Rockets still haven't been able to get out of the first round. And then you have the Astros, who right now the American League has the worst winning percentage of either the American League or National League for any season in MLB history. This is the worst league in Major League Baseball history, the al, currently this year, and you're getting an MVP season from Jordan, and yet the astros are still three games under.500, not in first place in what is also a very bad division. It's like, man, we're getting these opportunities right now, just not so far, not taking advantage.

[Seth Payne]

So it's the worst AL in the history of the al.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah. Based off of total winning percentage of all the teams in the league. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Which. Yeah, you know what? I guess that's a little bit unfair. Just because interleague plays only been a thing for a couple of few decades now, since 97. Yeah. So, I mean, like, before that, it was a sum total of 500 for all for both leagues. So in the last however many years, it's a really. It's. Yeah. Suffice it to say, it's a bad al. What made me feel better about it sometimes, every now and then, I like to just go back and look at where the farm systems are ranked, and you think, okay, well, Dana Brown's been here a few years now, so clearly the guy who's brought in to restock the farm system has done a lot of great work since then. And he really has, because in 2024, they were 27th ranked, and now headed into this year, they're the 29th ranked farm system. You know, and at that pace, at that pace, I mean, we're looking at 15 years from now having the best damn farm system in all the land. Okay. I don't care how the al's doing, at that point, we're going to be ready to take them by storm.

[Luke Morrow]

That's right. It's like planting a tree where it's like, you know, 15 years from now, it's finally going to give us shade in the backyard.

[Seth Payne]

Dana Brown is mature enough to know that he's planting a tree that he will never sit in the shade of. He's just. He's setting off. At some point here, the Astros are going to get up into like the. The third quartile of farm system rankings, right?

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah, exactly. And that's another reason why I haven't been a Dana Brown guy. And we actually talked about this during the radio thon. But it's the old office space line of like, what do you do here? Because they brought him in to improve, the farm system hasn't done that. The big league team's gotten worse. It's like, okay, what are you bringing to the table? Why are you still around here?

[Seth Payne]

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[Luke Morrow]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

No, at some point it gets past the I gave everybody, including click the benefit of the doubt. When it comes to man, it's a whole different scenario trying to maintain something like this. Well, you know, as opposed to building it up. You know, we never got to see Jeff Luno really go through the really difficult part of of maintaining something and who knows how he would have done. I'm guessing you good chance you would have been good at it. But they just since then it's just been a steady. It's not a plunge or anything, but it's a steady march down back towards exactly where they are right now, which is haphazard farm system and a mediocre performance on the field. And yeah, I don't know. Like I know that I'm not going to I rarely will get up and act like firing somebody in the middle of a baseball season is the go to answer because that's just not the way the sport works.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

But to try to create some kind of impassioned plea that you got to keep a spotter, you got to keep Dana Brown at the end of the season. I just. I can't. I can't go down that route. I've got no. I've got no appetite for that.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah. Yeah. Hard to defend Dana Brown. That is weird about baseball. I also brought this up last week is the fact of, like, they don't want to. And some NFL teams do this as well, depending on the time of year. It's just there's so much time between the end of the NFL season and the draft. But baseball, like, they don't want to disrupt all the prep they did for the draft or even the trade deadline that teams don't want to fire their GMs. I know the Angels did it, but most teams don't want to fire their GMs this time of the year and have some random person now handle the draft. They want that GM who did all the work and they did all the scouting to handle the draft, handle the deadline, and then fire them, which to me almost seems too late. Like you let them make more bad decisions.

[Seth Payne]

It is. Yeah. It's almost like, yeah, we gotta let the. Let this drunk driver see this thing out before he gets.

[Commercial Announcer]

Let's.

[Seth Payne]

We don't screw up his concentration while he's trying to get home. Let's just see if he can get home and then we'll pull him over, we'll arrest him in his driveway.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah, exactly. By the way, the other thing that stood out to me, not only the AL is so bad, but as I referenced, Jordan's having this incredible year, and to this point, the Astros are wasting it. The Astros have two MVPs in their history. Altuve, when they won the world series, was nine years ago. And then Jeff Bagwell in 1994, which was the year they had the strike and they couldn't finish the season. But the Astros, who were in the NL at the time, of course, had the third best record in the nl. So typically when you have an MVP type of player, you also have good team success. It would be a shame to waste Jordan's, you know, great season so far. But the main reason why I wanted to bring this all up is because I looked back on that Jeff Bagwell season, and honestly, I don't recall this, but he only played 110 games because, again, strike shortened season. I didn't even know they gave out awards for that year, to be honest with you. But he played 100. He drove in 116 runs in 110 games. If they played a full year, he might have had 180 RBIs, which would be so absurd. What a year, Jeff.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, no. Yeah. Well, that's where, you know, that's where you give him a little bit of a break when he's on the broadcast talking about RBIs and whatnot. The. It's a. It was. The focus was on different things back then that I. The one thing that's weird about this team this year has been how good they've been with two outs. Like, where it feels like, you know, it might just be random chance or random luck or whatever, but they just. They do. They do some things that feel clutch, and then there's other things that they do that. That feel like the exact opposite of clutch. Paradise. This is my. This is my one weird complaint. If I were to complain about something good. It's the parades. Is only challenged nine times with the abs. And he's perfect on it.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Where meanwhile, Cam Smith is challenging anything and everything all the time. And he's awful at it, I feel like, with paradise. And I would say Yordon, too, because Jordan's been very judicious with. With it. With it. With his challenges. Those guys, hey, man, like, we got to help. We got to get every little bit we can here. And you guys have a really good eye. Just go ahead and challenge a few more times. There are. They're the best in the league at batter challenges, and that's with their best guys not challenging as much as they probably could.

[Luke Morrow]

Yeah. I think all teams, obviously, they have their own rules. I think some teams or some players, like you said, Cam Smith, like, way too liberal with it. But I think, obviously it's the situation. But also, if it's egregious, then use the challenge. I watched some of these games where, like, that's clearly not a strike, but they're afraid to use a challenge like, say, in the third or fourth innings. If you know it's a ball, like, correct the call and you. And take your chance with the challenge, especially when you have an eye like Paradies. And yet some guys still are hesitant to use a challenge. If it's not like, men on base or, you know, whatever, seventh inning. Use it whenever you can. Correct the call, no doubt. Coming up. Speaking of those Astros, they lost last night. Mike Burroughs got knocked around. Do the Astros actually have a better option at this point? Who would you trust more right now? We'll talk about it next. Payne and Pendergast.

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[Luke Morrow]

Fly on the Wall.

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Every episode, including ones with guests, will now be on video. Every Thursday you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities. And every Monday, you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall. Everywhere you get your podcasts,

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