On Wednesday, the Houston Astros officially announced they would not be renewing the contract of manager Joe Espada, one day after the Seattle Mariners were granted permission to interview him for their vacant managerial role.
The move follows three seasons and two AL West titles for Espada in orange and blue. Espada had a strong lineup, but big shoes to fill in taking over for the retiring Dusty Baker after serving as Houston’s bench coach since 2018. Inheriting a strong roster with some glaring
flaws, he led the club to a 256-229 record in his tenure. Previously, Espada spent time on the coaching staffs of the New York Yankees and Florida/Miami Marlins stretching back to 2010 in the role of third base and/or infield coach. Houston had already fired general manager Dana Brown in August, leaving the future for Espada murky at the end of his contract this year.
The 51 year old Puerto Rican was selected 45th overall in the 1996 draft by the Oakland Athletics, an impressive feat as he’d starred at the University of Mobile in Alabama, competing at the NAIA level of college athletics. Espada spent a decade playing in the minors, including stints with the now-defunct Low-A Southern Oregon Timberjacks in Medford, OR and later in then-Triple-A Vancouver with the Canadians as an A’s prospect. Espada bounced around to the Rockies, Marlins, Royals, Cardinals, Rangers, and Rays before returning to his alma mater to coach and play indy ball. His coaching path took him up through the minors when he was hired as a hitting coach in the Marlins system, eventually joining the Marlins big league staff in 2010. Espada has been a coach on the staff for the Puerto Rican national team in the World Baseball Classic since 2013.
The case for Seattle to pursue and hire Espada is straightforward. The Mariners have made it clear they are seeking a manager with outside perspectives, experience, and the ability to augment the existing programs in place. Espada has worked across several successful organizations, spent the past three years as an active manager with undeniable success, and is already quite familiar with the American League West. Espada would also be Seattle’s first Spanish-speaking manager since Lou Piniella, and the first full-time manager born outside of the contiguous United States (Cuban Marty Martinez, known for signing Edgar Martinez and Omar Vizquel as a scout, managed one game for Seattle in 1986 in the absence of full-time skipper Chuck Cottier). It goes without saying that the capacity to communicate fluently to the majority of the players on the roster is an extremely valuable skill, particularly when trying to communicate and deliver educational and instructive concepts while building buy-in and trust.
Houston choosing to not renew Espada could be seen as a red flag, but the decision appears most concentrated with their owner, Jim Crane, whose decision-making with personnel is more pockmark than not at this point. Espada has spoken about how the impacts of being steeped in two organizations (New York and Houston) highly inclined towards incorporating analytics and advanced data-tracking into their philosophies has helped him learn to be a better communicator and teacher, as well as his experience raising his children, including a daughter, Viviana, with an autism diagnosis. Astros beat reporter for The Athletic, Chandler Rome, described Espada as “[a manager with a reputation as a players’ manager who allowed Houston’s veteran clubhouse to function how it saw fit.” That may strike a workable balance for Seattle, who has valued player agency in Jerry Dipoto’s decade and change of tenure, but is in need of greater balance.
They’ll also need to navigate the elephant in the video room that comes with any former Astros hiree of a certain era.
After serving on the Yankees staff through the 2017 season, Espada joined the Astros in 2018, in the middle of their sign-stealing cheating scandal that helped accelerate their decade of success. It is not clear what involvement Espada had in the cheating scheme, which began prior to his arrival in 2017 per MLB’s investigation and continued through the 2018 season. Much blame was levied on his predecessor as Houston’s bench coach, Alex Cora, as well as veteran player Carlos Beltrán, but given Cora departed, it seems likely Espada was aware at a minimum. Nonetheless, he was named the interim manager in Houston upon the year-long suspension of manager A.J. Hinch.
MLB is not an organization nor a culture that values consequences if they impede what they want, however. Hinch was hired immediately after his suspension by the Detroit Tigers. Cora’s suspension led to him being immediately rehired, extended, and as recently as this month having the Phillies publicly pursue him doggedly to the point he chose to turn them down. Espada, like the rest of the Astros coaching staff, players, and organization save general manager Jeff Luhnow, saw little or no consequence for their decision to cheat to win. While this has long drawn frustration within the sport and outside of it, there is a genuine uncertainty that MLB’s investigation struggled to identify: who actually did what, and how do you determine responsibility?
Can Espada be the right fit for Seattle? We’ll know soon if the Mariners think so.
