The Houston Astros announced yesterday the hiring of Randy Flores as their new general manager. Flores replaces Dana Brown, who was fired in late August.
The 51 year old Flores is a former major league pitcher who is also a former Texas Ranger. If you don’t remember him, well, that’s understandable. On August 31, 2021, the Rangers traded Randy Velarde — who they had acquired the previous offseason from the A’s in exchange for Aaron Harang and Ryan Cullen in what was a rather unfortunate move — to
the New York Yankees for a player to be named later. That player to be named later ended up being Randy Flores.
Flores pitched 20 games for the 2002 Texas Rangers — a bad team with a very bad pitching staff. Flores threw only 12 innings, and faced just 52 batters, in those 20 games, in which he posted a 4.50 ERA. He ended up being put on waivers and was claimed by the Colorado Rockies, for whom he put up a 9.53 ERA in eight appearances. He returned to the majors in 2004 with the Cardinals, and spent the next several years as a more or less replacement level reliever.
That 2002 pitching staff also included such luminaries as Hideki Irabu, John Rocker, Chris Michalak, C.J. Nitkowski, Dan Miceli, Rudy Seanez, and the immortal Rob Bell and his Loch Ness curve. On the position player side, there was, among others, Ruben Rivera, Carl Everett, and Kyler Murray’s uncle.
You will be interested to know, I’m sure, that Flores wasn’t the Astros’ top pick. Per Chandler Rome, Jim Crane had been courting Matt Kleine of the Milwaukee Brewers, and offered him the job right after the World Series. Rome indicated that there were rumors that Kleine wanted either a higher salary or a president of baseball operations title. Apparently, when a deal couldn’t be done with Kleine, Crane pivoted to Flores.
Flores had been with the St. Louis Cardinals for a decade-plus prior to joining the Astros. Ironically, he joined the Cardinals to replace Chris Correa, the guy in the Cardinals organization who went to jail for hacking the Astros’ front office database because 0f his belief that Jeff Luhnow, who had been hired by the Astros from the Cardinals, had taken information he shouldn’t have when he left St. Louis.
