CLASS OF MLB

How the Astros continue to run circles around MLB (on and off camera)

How the Astros continue to run circles around MLB (on and off camera)
The Astros spare no expense with their broadcast team. Composite image by Brandon Strange.
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The Astros leave today for Minnesota to start their first road trip of the 2023 season. The entire Astros broadcast crew, television and radio, will be aboard the plane, as they will for every Astros away series this season.

That’s not how it is for every team. The Angels recently announced that their radio team won’t be traveling with the club. The same for the Blue Jays. The Angels’ excuse: they’ll be saving $185,000 by not sending its radio team on road trips.

It should be noted that the Angels pay Anthony Rendon $35 million per year on a seven-year contract. The last two injury-plagued seasons, Rendon has batted .229 and .240. He is hitting .000 so far this season and he’s currently suspended for a physical confrontation with a fan.

But the Angels are saving the cost of Breakfast Baconators for its announcers.

Caught up with Astros TV play-by-play announcer Todd Kalas and asked, is it really important for announcers to travel with the team and call the games live in ballparks? It’s not like Kalas and the Astros crew haven’t called games from a TV studio. They did it for three spring training games this year, and the entire 2020 and 2021 Covid seasons.

SportsMap: Does it make a difference for fans at home whether you’re at the ballpark during road trips or announcing the games off a TV screen back in Houston:

Todd Kalas: It’s imperative to be on the road with the team for a number of reasons. The first and most important is, when you’re watching a game live and calling it, you can see the whole field. You see everything you want to see when you want to see it. You’re not relying on camera coverages. The second part is, you get a chance to be with the team when you travel to road games. You’re all pulling from the same rope, and you’re really one as an organization. We didn’t travel during the pandemic years. We were relying on Zoom calls for interviews with the players. We were finding out the same information as everybody else on the Zoom calls. We weren’t able to get insider information because we weren’t with the team. When you travel with the team you develop relationships with the players, coaches and the manager. They know that we’re all part of the same organization and they trust us.

SportsMap: What can you see live that you can’t see on a TV monitor?

TK: You see where the fielders are positioned and other nuances that aren’t picked up by cameras. You see the game, you feel the game, you experience the game. It’s so much different than when we were calling it from a studio. During the spring training games this year, we saw a monitor that carried the same thing you saw at home.

During the pandemic, we saw the main feed. We also saw different feeds like a wide angle of the entire field, we saw the bullpens, and other angles. The toughest challenges during the pandemic were checked swings. We didn’t know if it was strike or not because the camera didn’t always cut to the umpire fast enough. Also, we couldn’t see who was in the on deck circle, so we didn’t know if a pinch hitter was coming up. Fair and foul balls were difficult to call, too.

SportsMap: How many people are part of the Astros TV broadcast travel team?

TK: This year there are four of us, Blummer, Julia, me and a production person. The producer and director aren’t traveling with us yet, but that’s changing. The producer will start traveling with us soon and the director will join us for some trips. Our full team will be six people, three announcers and three production people.

SportsMap: What exactly are your travel nuts and bolts when the Astros hit the road?

TK: We get a per diem for expenses and we stay in the same hotel as the team. How we get to the stadium is up to us. There are three busses every game that leave the hotel for the stadium. One goes super early, another goes four or five hours before the game, and the other one goes about three hours before the game. We can go on any of those busses, or we can take an Uber or public transportation. I’ll never get tired of traveling at the major league level. We go on charters, the same plane as the players, so we’re not going through airports or TSA. We leave our luggage at the hotel and it shows up at our next hotel. It’s very easy travel. There are some challenges like when we do a west coast game and we get home at 4 a.m. and we have to broadcast a game later that day. But for the most part, the travel is very accommodating for the players and announcers so we can be at our best.

SportsMap: When the schedule comes out, do you circle certain favorite dates and cities?

TK: We do. I enjoy going back to Philly (where he spent most of his childhood) and I lived in Tampa for more than 20 years. But mostly we look for off days in cities that have good golf. When the schedule allows us, we try our best to tee it up.

Editor's note: Catch Todd Kalas talking Astros every week on ESPN Houston 97.5's The Wheelhouse!

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The Texans are the class of the division. Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images.

The Houston Texans received a lot of praise for their moves in free agency across various outlets. And for good reason, most people believe the team got significantly better with the additions of Danielle Hunter, Azeez Al-Shaair, and Denico Autry among others.

But there's another factor to consider this offseason. How much have the other teams in the AFC South improved?

When looking at the PFF grades in free agency, the Colts received a B-minus. Most of the Colts moves this offseason involved spending a lot of money re-signing their own players. Which is great in theory, but it's hard to improve the overall quality of your roster when you're bringing back players that were already there to begin with. A lot will be riding on player development for the Colts to see a big jump this season. A healthy quarterback wouldn't hurt either.

The Jaguars have made some big additions financially this offseason by signing receiver Gabe Davis and defensive tackle Arik Armstead. They also lost the top receiver on the market, Calvin Ridley, to the Titans. Gabe Davis wasn't able to establish himself as a reliable No. 2 receiver with Josh Allen throwing him the ball in Buffalo. So it's hard to believe he'll take the next step in Jacksonville. Their best move of the offseason might have been retaining edge rusher Josh Allen by using the franchise tag on him. So what did PFF think of Jacksonville's offseason? They received a B-minus, just like the Colts.

The Titans have a lot of turnover heading into the 2024 season, and not just on the roster. They have a new head coach in Brian Callahan, who's looking to revamp Tennessee's offense. Early in free agency, they agreed to terms with former Cowboys running back Tony Pollard, signing him to a 3-year deal at $8 million per season. Which is more money than the Ravens are paying for Derrick Henry, who left the Titans in free agency. Calvin Ridley was the most notable addition to the squad, he received a 4-year, $92 million deal. And while this could be viewed as an overpay, at least he gives the Titans' offense some upside. Their receiving corps looks a lot more dangerous with Ridley added to DeAndre Hopkins and Treylon Burks.

They also spent big at the center position, adding Lloyd Cushenberry on a 4-year, $50 million contract.

Because the Titans spent a lot of money on some highly coveted players, PFF gave them a B.

Now that brings us to the Texans. The Texans re-signed some of their own players like Dalton Schultz and Noah Brown. But they also made some big splashes with Hunter, Autry, Al-Shaair, and Joe Mixon. But the Texans spent their money in a more conservative way by not handing out many contracts over two years in length.

The Texans managed to add the best pass rusher in free agency with Hunter, but it's only a two-year deal. The overall talent level is going up on this roster, and GM Nick Caserio isn't having to sign players to long contracts that could come back and haunt him.

That's why we're seeing post-free agency power rankings coming out with Houston in the Top 10. And that's also why PFF gave the Texans an A for their moves in free agency.

Be sure to check out the video above as Craig from Sports Talk Extra takes an in-depth look at PFF's grades for the AFC South, and much more!

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