With Dusty Baker officially retired, the Astros are on the hunt for a new manager. Names have already been bandied about in reports including current coaches Joe Espada and Omar Lopez, former Astro cacher Brad Ausmus, former Astro and current Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, and Brewers skipper Craig Counsell. Rather than go through a laundry list of potential hires, it feels more productive to determine what the team should be looking for in a manager in the first place.
This is still a very good Astros team. Not great, but very good. While they lack a deep farm system, their top tier players in that system appear to be very solid and nearing big club performance in the next couple of seasons. With Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown all potentially free agents in the next few seasons, this is a team in transition despite still being good enough to compete for another championship.
That status won’t just impact the hire, in many ways, it should drive it. Unlike the hiring of Baker, who was meant to shepherd a team mired in scandal to better days (which he did, admirably, we should say), the next head man in the dugout should be a longer term option with visions of what this ballclub will be, not just what it is now. Here are five things we hope owner Jim Crane, GM Dana Brown and (sigh) special adviser Jeff Bagwell will keep in mind.
Player-driven approach.
All sports leagues are led by their players. The best guys on your team are the drivers of everything from wins and losses to team revenue. As such, whoever the Astros hire to helm the team should be someone players respect. This might seem obvious, but it does exclude certain coaches who prefer to lead and dictate rather than collaborate. And with the Astros’ wide mix of both long time veterans and young players, any new hire will need to find a way to bridge that gap.
Analytics savvy.
The Astros have been one of the most forward thinking teams in baseball when it comes to using data science to drive success on the field. It was initially put in place by former GM Jeff Luhnow and the team has thrived since its inception. Even Baker saw the benefits of data analysis after presentations from the team.
But, any progress they have made can be lost if a new manager focuses on a more traditional baseball approach. Brown has embraced the use of analytics, but, unlike Luhnow,, he is not a savant of Sabermetrics or even necessarily a devotee. Any new hire doesn’t have to be the second coming of Billy Beane when it comes to numbers, but a willingness to use them to his team’s advantage and perhaps even a more advanced understanding of them going in should be an absolute must.
Proven high-level success.
There aren’t a ton of championship managers just hanging around looking for a job. But, that doesn’t mean that experience in successful environments shouldn’t be a prerequisite for managing the Astros. Espada, for example, has been with this team through huge successes and played a significant role. Additionally, a manager like Counsell who has had above average success with a cash-strapped small market team would qualify. On a team where many of the players are used to sustained excellence, it only makes sense that the guy hired to manage them comes with a resume that demonstrates similar success.
Youth over experience.
Crane should not be discounting anyone based on age, but all things being equal, choosing a manager that is south of 60 should be the move. Any new manager hire should be thought of as a long-term solution in the dugout, not someone who may want to retire in the next decade. That isn’t a knock on age or talent, just the recognition that the Astros will want someone for whom this is unlikely to be their final managerial gig. You shouldn’t hire someone just because they are young, but let’s just say it is a box that the team would like to check off in pursuit of their new skipper.
An appreciation of the long view.
With age in mind, it is critical that any new manager be someone who isn’t ONLY in win-now mode. Yes, they do want to win NOW, but as mentioned, this is a team in transition and a new leader will need to be cognizant of the crooked path they will have to follow to maintain a high level of success over time. Just as Brown was hired as much to rejuvenate a downgraded farm system while still needing to make big league moves for this moment, a new manager will need to navigate both immediate playoff expectations and what could be some pretty significant roster changes over the next three to five years.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
