The Astros have reportedly found their next manager and it’s a familiar name to AL West fans (and baseball fans in general): Brad Ausmus.
Ausmus comes with plenty of experience, having spent the last three seasons as the Yankees’ bench coach, but before that managed the Tigers for three years (2014-2017). He’s also spent time in the AL West, including two years with the Angels as a special assistant and later manager (2019-19) and a bench coach gig for the A’s in 2022 before leaving for the Yankees.
There will be significantly less coaching turnover in Houston than the Mariners had, as the Astros retained their pitching coach, first base coach, field coordinator, hitting coach and bullpen catcher, giving Ausmus a plug-and-play staff.
The only other major vacancy for the Astros was filled two weeks ago, when Houston announced the hire of GM Randy Flores to replace Dana Brown, who was let go at the end of 2026. Flores, 51, was with the Cardinals for a decade previously, serving as first director of scouting and then assistant general manager for the past eight years. With a strong background in scouting and player development, the Astros will look to rebuild a farm that’s been one of MLB’s thinnest over the past few seasons. Flores also comes out of the same Cardinals group as former longtime Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, who oversaw the team during some of its greatest successes but left baseball to buy a Mexican soccer team after being suspended for his part in the sign-stealing scandal in 2020.
Flores was hired on October 31 and Ausmus was reportedly interviewing with the Astros on November 2nd, sopresumedly Astros owner Jim Crane and senior advisor Jeff Bagwell exerted significant influence in the selection of Ausmus – especially considering Bagwell and Ausmus are close, having been Astros teammates for five years, including the 2005 World Series-winning club.
It’s an off-season of change in the AL West, baseball’s messiest division in 2026. The Mariners, Astros, and Angels all entered the off-season needing to do significant restructuring, and even the Rangers have shaken up their coaching staff. While the Angels strategy is yet to reveal itself, the Mariners and Astros have already made significant hires that illustrate each organization’s diverging philosophies. The Mariners have embraced a youth movement, going with a riskier managerial hire in Jason Kanzler, who has never managed at the big-league level; flanking him are hitting coach CJ Gillman and bench coach Tanner Swanson, who are 37 and 44 years old, respectively.
The Astros, meanwhile, seem to have prided experience above all as they navigate their next steps, although Crane has said he doesn’t plan on a “complete teardown.” However, some fans are unhappy with the Ausmus hiring, bemoaning the influence of Bagwell – notoriously anti-analytics – on the front office and Crane specifically. Ausmus has a reputation for being smart – he’s a Dartmouth grad – and dealt with data during his playing career as a catcher while writing scouting reports; his role with the Yankees was largely to provide that kind of information to the manager.
(There is, I guess, this.)
Segue alert! That actually brings us back to the other AL West team riding the coaching carousel, the Angels, who are still looking for a GM and manager and probably some other positions too. John Mozeliak, who served as interim manager after the dismissal of Perry Minasian in June, has stayed on to help conduct the search, specifically because the new ownership group, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, “isn’t as familiar with baseball operations.” So Astros fans who are unhappy with the direction of the team currently can at least be soothed by there being…a direction, which is more than can be said for Angels fans currently.
