First of all, I will point out that we are not in the lab for this one. Sometimes, I have to take off the lab coat, step outside for a smoke break and offer my opinion. The lab isn’t a good place for that. So, what follows is essentially commentary/opinion on what has just happened. There are just some things I need to get off my chest before this train gets too far out of the station.
The Astros announced Brad Ausmus as their next manager and the introductory press conference is set for Friday morning
at 10 AM. Ausmus comes in with a long enough resume as a manager and bench coach. He served as the New York Yankees bench coach the past three seasons and was in Oakland before that. He has a 386-422 record as a manager which comes out to a .478 winning percentage. Obviously, won loss records can be deceiving as some of those teams were not built to win. He won 90 games in 2014 and won the AL Central, but things went steadily downhill from there. He was one and done in Anaheim in 2019.
I should note that this was the season that Tyler Skaggs died of a drug overdose on July 1st of that season. Others will obviously place some blame on Ausmus for lack of oversight. I mention it because others have mentioned it. I don’t necessarily put that on Ausmus, but it should be a part of the mosaic that it is his managerial career. Obviously, all of these things (the bad record and other checkered details) can be explained. There is always room for growth as well.
If I were doing a lab we would look at managerial tendencies and whether those teams overachieved or underachieved. However, this criticism has very little to do with that. Ausmus may have learned a great deal from his first two stops and could be a better manager for it. I have to acknowledge that possibility because there is always the possibility that I am wrong about him. This hire just feels “meh” in a time when you need something to get the fans and players’ blood going.
The golden age of the Astros dynasty was that period between 2015 and 2019. That was when Jeff Luhnow hired A.J. Hinch to be the manager. Was he a perfect manager? Of course not. He was a perfect complement to Luhnow. He had an analytical mind and so he was able to absorb the data that Luhnow provided and infuse that into his managing. This is not about the data or lack of data necessarily. Ausmus is famously smart and can process tons of information. This is simply about the manager and the general manager being on the same page because the manager was the general manager’s choice.
You hired Randy Flores over a week ago. You had an opportunity to let him hire a manager and then work hand in hand with his guy. Ausmus isn’t Flores’ hire. This has Jeff Bagwell’s fingerprints all over it. I make no bones about the fact that I love Jeff Bagwell the player. He might be my favorite Astro ever because of the intelligent way he played the game. He’s clearly in way over his head here and he either needs to be the president of baseball operations where he can be held accountable or he needs to get out of the damn way. Again, this isn’t personal. His “back of the baseball card” mentality just doesn’t play in the 2020s.
We played this backwards game before when the club hired Dusty Baker before they hired James Click. We saw how that didn’t work. Click would make moves that Baker got to veto. Obviously one could look at the efficacy of those moves and judge ourselves (namely Jose Urquidy for Willson Contreras in 2022) but there is no universe where a manager should be overriding the general manager. That is a bassackwards way to run an organization.
Joe Espada was hired after Dana Brown, but he wasn’t really Brown’s guy. He was a holdover and they gave him the job without doing a serious search. I suppose it made sense. Baker retired more than getting fired, so you wanted someone to keep the train moving. However, it was clear at different points that the two were not on the same page about different things. I could blame one or the other, but neither is here because neither really succeeded. You could easily claim that one of the reasons that neither succeeded is because they were not working together effectively.
Ausmus interviewed for the job the day before Flores was even announced. I suppose it is possible that a second interview took place, but there has been no solid reporting on that. This was clearly a Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell production. It’s about getting the buddies back together, whether that is in the best interest of the organization or not. So much for the whole spiel about Flores having full authority. The first major decision under his watch wasn’t his.
This is not a sky is falling pronouncement. Brad Ausmus isn’t David Culley. He is a smart and capable guy that has experience doing the job. It is a missed opportunity. It was an opportunity to turn the page and let a new general manager put his stamp on the team. There were reportedly three other legitimate candidates and any of them would have been more exciting than the hire they just made. It’s less exciting because of the lackluster track record and the fact that this isn’t Flores’ hire. Obviously, teams shouldn’t be run purely on fan reactions. However, when you consider the Matt Kleine fall out you can imagine how these combined announcements have dampened fan enthusiasm for the club.
We should be very clear. Randy Flores hasn’t made a single trade or signing and Ausmus hasn’t filled out one lineup card. Neither has done anything to warrant serious criticism. This is about process. Teams are successful when they have good processes in place for nearly everything. Neither of these hires came about from a good process. Obviously, good things can come out of chaos and that could be true here. We can hope for the best, but the odds are dwindling with every progressive move.
