The Astros have been operating without a general manager for several months but owner Jim Crane is actively interviewing candidates for the position, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. It’s unclear if a resolution is close at hand or how many people are being considered, but Rosenthal lists three people who have been interviewed: Michael Hill, Dana Brown and Bobby Evans.
The Astros’ offseason got off to a surprising start when the club parted ways with general manager James Click and assistant general manager Scott Powers in November. There were some reported differences between Click and Crane, but it was expected by many that the Astros winning the World Series would be enough to get all parties on the same page going forward.
That didn’t come to pass and the club has been operating without a general manager for the past few months. It seems as though Crane has taken on a prominent role in the baseball operations while conducting a search for Click’s replacement. Crane commented on the matter back in November, saying that he planned to take his time and didn’t expect to make a hire prior to the new year. That has indeed come to pass as it is now mid-January with the position still vacant.
The club has been going about its business regardless, signing free agents like José Abreu and Michael Brantley in addition to agreeing to terms with various arbitration-eligible players. It’s not known if the club has any specific date in mind for a front office decision, but it seems the wheels are at least in motion with these interviews having been conducted.
Hill spent many years in the front office of the Marlins, joining the club in 2002. He would go on to hold various titles in his time with that franchise, including assistant general manager, general manager and president of baseball operations. When his contract ran out after the 2020 season, the club didn’t extend him despite the fact that they qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2003. Since that time, Hill has been connected to various clubs looking to add to their front office, including the Angels, Mets and Phillies. However, he has yet to sign on with another team since leaving the Marlins, spending the past two years working for Major League Baseball as senior vice president of on-field operations.
Brown was drafted by the Phillies in 1989 and spent a few years playing in their minor league system. He has since had various jobs throughout the league, serving as scouting director of the Nationals and a special assistant with the Blue Jays. He was a candidate to join the Mariners’ front office in late 2015 but didn’t land the job. For the past four years, he has been with the Braves, where he currently serves as the vice president of scouting. Much of his career has overlapped with Atlanta’s president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos, as they worked together with the Expos before that team became the Nats, were with the Jays at the same time and are now working alongside each other in Atlanta.
Evans was hired by the Giants in 1994 and worked his way up through various titles over the years. He was eventually named the club’s general manager going into 2015, just after the club had won its third title in five years. However, he was “reassigned” from that role in late 2018 after less than four years on the job. He interviewed for the general manager job with the Astros in 2020 before Click was hired. He also interviewed for the Angels later that year, though that job ultimately went to Perry Minasian.
The three candidates each bring different levels of experience and success to the table. The Marlins didn’t find much success while Hill was with the club, but he worked for owner Jeffrey Loria who was known for meddling in baseball decisions and keeping the payroll modest. Brown’s teams have all found much success while he’s worked for them and he’s credited with drafting or signing many great talents, but he doesn’t have any previous work as a club’s top baseball decision maker. Evans was with the Giants during their most successful period in recent years, though his time in the top chair was brief and the club was less successful at that time. It’s unknown if the Astros have any preference among these three, though there are likely other candidates under consideration as well, with more details to come.
That Braves’ guy John Coppolella is available. He’d fit right in perfectly.
Probably shying away from integrity.
He just accepted my invite on LinkedIn! Lol
It turns out the guy wants to spend more time with family instead of returning to MLB. I’m disappointed, but I see his reasons.
Stan, your one-liners throughout these threads have cracked me up sometimes, man. I appreciate your style of humor.
The past 10 years of my work life has been like Dilbert. You can’t make it up.
Darn, too late for Whitey Bolger. He would’ve had some good advice on how to keep your past misgivings out of the limelight.
Man, and here is was going to say Chaim bloom is available for a bucket of warm spit. Or cold spit. Or just the bucket. Heck, even just some spit.
You know what, never mind, I’ll personally pay $5 to the team who will take bloom this month so it doesn’t cost Henry anything to unload him.
Easiest gig on the planet. Free trip to the ALCS at least.
Von;
Not really.
The pitching system is in place. But when Bregman and Altuve head south the Astros will need impact young players to replace them. 1B will be needed by them as well.
Need someone that’s worked in scouting and development to mesh with the Astros in-house people.
Unless they’re headed to Mexico, it’s hard to “head south” from Houston.
They could get relegated to Corpus Christi in the Texas League.
“Head south” does not always mean something bad. Just sayin’….
Yeah, but imagine being the guy (or girl) who is in charge of they fail to get there? A Lot of pressure for sure. Probably the best type of GM is one who is patient and hands-off. Let Dusty and the team do their thing and trust the advice of Crane who has done superlatively as owner/GM.
Houston: Welcome to this season of Regression to the Mean 2023
The Astros have been extraordinarily well run, but (there’s always a but) the seeds of their downfall could slowly being put in place. It’s to be determined. Jim Crane, who I know from a prior work life, is now heavily involved, micromanaging the club, using more old-school advisors like Reggie Jackson and Jeff Bagwell, to form his decision making. That’s a 180 from what got them to where they are. The club continues to move forward with the process momentum created by Luhnow and Click, but unless Jim brings in a strong GM with the analytical roots that got the Astros to this level, they may start to backslide. They have a couple years before that happens, because teams aren’t built or destroyed overnight, but we may view the events and actions of their post 2022 championship as their eventual downfall. In some ways, they’re a more interesting organization to watch now more than ever.
Personally if it were my team, I want a POBO / GM that fully grasps the place for and use for analytics. But I liken it to accounting and finance – can’t run a company without doing that part very well and using it every day to help guide the decision-making.
But the team at the top has to have a much broader background. Yeah, I want “baseball background”. With rare exceptions, those that strictly come from the saber side are not cut out to be the top of the food chain. Analytics is a department…not a leadership role. For the past ten or fifteen years it has become over-emphasized as a cure-all.
I 100% agree. Well, 95%. I like to leave a little wiggle room!
To be clear, I’m not necessarily criticizing what the Astros and Crane is doing right now. Just noting that there’s a directional change. It’s not popular to say, but I believe Jim when he said he wasn’t aware of the sign-stealing issue, or perhaps he was aware and figured this was acceptable on some level. He hired Luhnow and he seemed to have great faith in him. It was also area where he wasn’t as expert. He felt burned by the scandal because his reputation was tarnished, so he’s now jumped in feet first, putting his own stamp on things. He may hire a nicely balanced GM, who brings together both old and new school, and then step back again. It’s unknown. That’s why they’re more interesting to me.
lordd99 i disagree about crane’s ignorance on the sign stealing scandal, he knew about and let it happen and if he didn’t he shouldn’t be the man in charge of anything much less a mlb team. they had a high tech system of cameras and monitors installed all over, which i’m sure isn’t cheap and i’m sure someone had to notice a bill of that size. now i would find it more believable if he would of said sorry we got caught up in the moment and we’re a little desperate to bring hou it’s first tittle, we apologize and will make sure it doesn’t happen again.
@brodie-bruce, you could be right. I’ve waffled on that belief. I do believe his current operation of the Astros was driven by that event, whether he was aware or not.
The cameras were ones already in place, it was the use of them that was illegal. I doubt Crane knew, but the truth is none of us really know
@astros2017 you make a good point and your right none of us will never know if crane knew or not, unless he confesses on his deathbed or the others involved do the same. still pretty lame excuse that you don’t know what’s going on in your own house, and all it did was taint a chip that there were probably going to win anyways without cheating.
@brodie-bruce FWIW the 2017 cameras in question were MLB approved, so Crane and the league definitely knew they were there.
The 2018 Red Sox claim ignorance about a replay official using their league approved CF camera to decode signs in real time. Nothing weird or unusual, just gamesmanship in an era of electronically aided clubhouses.
Orange title, red title- that’s baseball.
POBO?
Never mind…
I’m not sure how much saber vs. traditional plays into all of this, but I think Crane would be wise to back off. He has neither analytics experience or traditional experience, and the track record of owners getting too involved with baseball operations is pretty bad in the MLB. Look at what happened the Rockies, Angels, and Orioles (though Baltimore has improved dramatically since Elias took over and Angelos started staying in his lane).
I agree Lord. But I imagine that now he’s tasted blood (euphanism) Crane won’t want to cede full power to anyone. Which is why he won’t hire a POBO IMO.
Very well stated. Their momentum won’t last indefinitely unless Crane gets a sharp Executive in to refuel things.
Clicked on the link for Michael Hill!!!
Not bad that hes a catcher for Florida Tech & being considered as a GM.
Looks like a HOF career…
Michael Hill would be a strong choice. He got a raw deal in Miami. Depending on whether he is willing to work for Crane.
The Astros run is over if they hire Bobby Evans
I’d be shocked if Crane hired Hill given Crane’s well documented hiring and promotion record in is air freight business.
Well, Dusty is the manager (on merit) like the process for any top exec should be. This isn’t the public sector/government.
Crane faced 11 discrimination lawsuits and had an all white executive board.
He settled several of the suits for things like keeping pilots of color off the more lucrative routes and denying them promotions.
I’m good with people getting hired on merit. Crane hasn’t shown the same.
Perhaps the Dusty hire shows he’s turned a new leaf. But Dusty is not an executive.
Luhnow was the architect of most of the key players brought in, development, etc prior to his dismissal from the sign stealing scandal. He happens to be Mexican, not that it matters when one should aim to hire sharpest talent available. That big black eye scandal aside, Astros are arguably the best run team today. Not his defense attorney (or fan of the club), but his hiring track record seems better than whatever had happened in another business……and instincts quite strong.
I’m available
But Oscar Gamble has been dead for five years. Try the Marlins.
They should put flyers around the prisons in Houston. I’m sure they’ll find applicants
If they want the prisoners to see them, they should probably put those flyers inside the prisons, not around them. The guys inside don’t get out much.
That’s awesome Fink, thanks for the laugh
They might find Trevor Bauer or some other ex-Dodger lurking around in prison, so they prefer to give it to someone without LA connections
They need to trade for Stearns. Give up like Perez and Whitley for him. In the long run it would all be worth it.
Why trade? Keep the position open through 2023 and David Stearns can be back with the Astros where he was assistant GM and his wife can be with family as she is from Houston and they can raise their kids near her family.
@stubby66 i’m pretty sure stearns can go where he pleases since he stepped down and became an advisor, but i could be wrong and his contract rights are are still owned by the brew. tbh not sure how all of that works out due to theses things fall into contracts and how there written up
I’m not so sure a person would want to have a owner be looking over his shoulder on every decision he will make.
They should be able to get most anyone they want. They could even throw a POBO title at someone, for example. Speaking of that, I wonder what Theo is up to. I know he won’t take this job, and in fact Crane likes to meddle, so he wouldn’t even want a leader like Theo. But I recall him saying he would eventually get back into the game. I bet he’s getting the itch…
@coop theo is not going to hou they have won 2 ws recently, he’s waiting for col, sd, tb, sea, mil, cle or tex to call so he can say “look i took a team that has never won (or least in a very long time) and won” at least that seems to be his mo
Crane went with a full-blown analytic driven GM with James Click, and he didn’t agree with him on a few things. Probably going with someone that’s less so analytically minded and has some old school thought process to go along with Crane and Dusty.
crane likes the analytics but he didn’t like the way click was too technical with his trades or other moves he would look for the analytics where as crane wanted the sexy moves like verlander greinke and the gerrit cole trades he would tell lunhow to make something happen and lunhow would whereas click would shy away from those types of moves
These are good names. Would not be surprised to see Sig Mejdal added to the list
stroh;
I’ve heard Sig interviewed a few times. He’s a pure techie and other then a friend of mine (who does calculations for oil companies on the percentage chances of hitting oil, and how much, when doing offshore drilling) that has a graduate degree in ‘Operations Research’ among other things. Sid is personable and has put together systems for the two teams he’s worked for that were ground breaking and helped the Astros and now the Orioles (and the Orioles have given him a nice staff to work with).
I want to be careful here…..
We’re in a right side/left side of the brain thing here. Doing what Mr. Mejdal does takes tremendous mental discipline. One has to factor all things out but the science and the mathematics. Running a Baseball Operations Department goes into a lot of business issues, legal issues, negotiations, personality issues, etc. It’s not easy for someone that’s been so wedded to the technical side to adjust to compromising that and factor in other things. As Mr. Mejal said after explaining the last Orioles draft – “Now we turn the players over to the best coaching staff in MLB”. He and his staff went onto other assignments. But a Baseball Ops head thanks the Analytic Department for their work and now has to switch gears and work with the negotiators. Once draftees are signed he has to work with departments coming up with a plan on where to start them in the minor leagues, and what parts of their game they’ll have to work on based on the scouting reports they have on them…..then have to monitor their progress.
Some guys are cut out for that. Most technical people aren’t. Farhan Zaidi got promoted into something that he was unprepared for.
Samuel, if your description of Sig is right he sounds closer to what Click was, although Sig sounds even more technical. But I heard Crane likes him. Maybe if Crane opts for a VP of Baseball Ops and a GM then Sig can fill a “technical GM” role. Crane knows what he’s doing so will trust he does the right thing.
stroh;
lol
Sig’s title with the Orioles is:
“Vice President and Assistant General Manager, Analytics”
I don’t see where going back to the Astros would be any different. Plus he’s working with people in Baltimore that he has working relationships with – including his own staff and Elias. If he goes back to Houston he’ll be with people he doesn’t know working in an environment that’s changed from the one he left 4 years ago. Then he has to build and develop a staff – something he’s already done with the O’s….to say nothing of the inevitable corporate politics he’ll run into.
To me the O’s have one of the most exciting 5-7 year futures coming up in MLB. A lot of hard work to do, but the structures are in place as are a lot of the players. This is what he worked for the last 4 years (along with others). Short of doubling his salary or something I think he’d like to stick it out and see the job through. I believe the O’s are one of the best run franchises in MLB today, and they’ll be recognized as such in the next few years.
Would also not be surprised to see Bill Firkus and Charles Cook, two of their assistant GMs who have pinch hit with Click gone on the interview list. Both have been with the Stros since the Luhnow days. Firkus was actually pre-Luhnow.
Hill could be interesting with a team that is actually willing to spend money be competitive.
Atlanta needs to sign Dana Brown to a multi-year extension.
They are good at that sort of thing.
I wonder if there’s any way they might be able to pry a guy away from a West Coast team…