- 17 hours ago
The Astros and general manager Dana Brown have mutually agreed to part ways. Here's In The Loop's immediate reaction to the news.
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00:00Dana Brown, the general manager of the Houston Astros, has been –
00:04actually, the Astros and Dana Brown have been mutually agreed to part ways.
00:09Oh, really?
00:10Yes, yes.
00:10Did you hear that, Figgy?
00:11Mutually agreed.
00:13Dana Brown and Jim Crane was just like –
00:15You know what?
00:16I think I should leave.
00:17I don't know if this is –
00:17You know what?
00:18I was thinking about firing you.
00:19You know what?
00:20No, let's agree to both.
00:21Do that again.
00:22Do that again.
00:22You know what?
00:23I was thinking about quitting.
00:24What a coincidence.
00:24I was thinking about firing you.
00:26Really?
00:26Let's just mutually agree.
00:27Yep.
00:28No bad blood.
00:30No bad blood.
00:30Here we go.
00:31A 65-66 Astros team now without a general manager.
00:36And so, first and foremost, what hit your mind when you saw that Dana Brown was out as
00:40the general manager that you used to Astros?
00:42So many thoughts flooding through your mind.
00:44First of all, it's a bad day to be a Brown, and we'll get to the other part of this.
00:47Wow.
00:48Whether you're a Browns fan.
00:50Honestly, kind of a bad weekend for a lot of Browns because Hunter Brown could slide
00:53in there as well.
00:54It's a bad weekend for Browns.
00:56Hunter, Dana, and Browns fans.
01:00And Cleveland.
01:01We'll get to all of that for sure.
01:02But on the Dana Brown front, you know what?
01:05The first thought that came into mind was not so much about this year as the whole process,
01:11the whole scenario.
01:12It was never going to work.
01:14You know, you talk about someone who was set up to fail.
01:16And really, probably through no fault of his own, you know, considering who he followed
01:23in terms of Jeff Luno and James Click, what he followed in terms of the apex of sports
01:30in this city, to be honest, to this point with the Houston Astros, and how he was brought
01:36in, you know, not necessarily as a guy that was part of the tree, you know, or really given
01:44all the resources that he needed to thrive.
01:47Because let's keep in mind, 2020 and 2021 draft picks, you didn't have first and second rounders.
01:53So Dana Brown was set up to fail.
01:56That's the first thought that came to my mind.
01:59That said, he didn't do much with it either.
02:01I mean, this was on him as much as anything now, was part of the being set up to fail,
02:07you know, because of Jim Crane, because of, you know, Jeff Bagwell being more, I guess,
02:13plugged in to what the owner and the team was going to be doing than he was.
02:16I think both those things were big factors.
02:18Yeah, it's worth noting that with Dana Brown, you know, obviously no longer being the general
02:24manager, you can use whatever language that you want to, his quote, his responsibilities
02:29will be transitioned to the Astros' assistant general managers, Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey,
02:34and Connor Huff, and, you'll enjoy this, to senior advisor Jeff Bagwell, according to
02:40Jim Crane will oversee baseball operations through the transition period.
02:43Don't sleep on that last part.
02:44As the team continues to focus on the AL West division race, close quote.
02:49This is one of, I imagine Astros' worst nightmares within transitions because they've been here
02:55before when it comes to transitions, seeing Jeff Bagwell being involved, and this is where
03:00I came back to you talking about Dana Brown kind of being set up to fail.
03:04Look, we have to acknowledge on his own merits, what he's supposed to be good at did not show
03:09up enough, right?
03:10You did not see a replenishing, at least not soon enough, of the farm system for the Astros.
03:17You didn't see, you know, prospects make their way up.
03:20It's interesting now because it feels like there's a good amount of prospects at the low levels
03:23that seem like they could be replenished, but not in enough time for this to serve the
03:29major league club.
03:30But, Dana Brown, as you were mentioning, when he came in, he did not have operations experience.
03:35He had scouting experience.
03:36And it seems like Jeff Bagwell has been involved in operations in this time.
03:41And so, when you go back to fully unfettered Jeff Bagwell, along with these AGMs, it makes
03:47me wonder exactly how this is going to go.
03:49But, honestly, this was the time that it needed to happen, John.
03:51Was it really?
03:52I think this is the time that it needed to happen because, I mean, obviously you could
03:55make the argument that you should not go into a trade deadline with the sitting duck general
03:59manager on the final year of his contract.
04:01But now that you have gone through that, what are the general manager decisions that need
04:05to be made from now until the end of the season?
04:07There aren't major decisions.
04:08There's nothing.
04:09And so, I think that this is the time where you turn your attention to the possibility of
04:13who that next general manager is because one of the things that you can't do is get
04:17to the end of the season, fire a general manager, and then try and find something, find a new
04:21general manager in that time where general managers are getting active.
04:23When you get to that winter, they are doing real work.
04:26And so, I think this is a move that kind of needed to happen, especially because it felt
04:30like Jim Crane already knew that Dana Brown was not going to.
04:33I said it last week, remember?
04:35I said going into the trade deadline, it finally occurred to me that, you know, he was already
04:40fired going into the trade deadline.
04:41Jim Crane already knew.
04:43So, maybe they should have done it then.
04:45You say it's a good time to do it now.
04:46I get your point.
04:47I don't know if it's the way I'd want him to do it, but I think it's the timing that
04:50works.
04:50My point is, you could have fired him after the regular season and still had a general
04:55manager in place by the end of October, early November, no matter what was going on in the
04:59postseason.
04:59Or at least have it lined up.
05:01So, it was really weird.
05:02It felt very PR-y to me as well because they go 3-6 against the Mariners and A's and,
05:13of
05:14course, Angels as well.
05:173-6 in this homestand.
05:18Maybe that was ultimately the tipping point.
05:20You think that Jim Crane, if you tell me that Jim Crane made this decision based off
05:24of this homestand.
05:25No, what I'm saying is the PR part.
05:26I'm calling him bad names.
05:27No, no, I'm saying the PR part.
05:28Hey, they go 3-6.
05:30He had already, I was convinced and I'm more convinced now.
05:32He knew he was firing this guy well before the trade deadline.
05:35I said it last week.
05:36And so, he could have waited until the end of the season.
05:38I think right now he's like, well, we got to do something.
05:40We got to shake something.
05:41It's not going to affect a damn thing in terms of the decisions they make and, more
05:45importantly, on the field.
05:46How does this affect anything on the field?
05:48If anything, I would argue that it hurts you on the field because now, clearly, Joe Espada
05:53is fired.
05:54He is gone.
05:55You think so?
05:56Yes.
05:56You know, you have the general manager, you know, tied at the hip with this manager.
06:00Yeah, he was the one who elevated Joe Espada to the manager role.
06:03He's gone.
06:04So, I would argue that it actually hurts you on the field if there's any amount of, you know,
06:09sort of allegiance to Joe Espada.
06:13I don't know how many people have allegiance to Joe Espada right now, though.
06:15I mean, we don't hear bad things from the players about Espada, not even off the record
06:19stuff like we did with previous managers.
06:20Correct.
06:21Yeah.
06:21Yeah, no.
06:22The things with Joe Espada, and I was talking about this this weekend when I was on with
06:25Paul Gallant.
06:27I just keep thinking back to the number of players who have had issues that have not
06:34quickly had that turnaround.
06:35And it's I understand that being a manager, it's hard to just be like, I'm going to fix
06:39these issues, but especially issues that have to do with adjustment.
06:42Remember when Christian Walker comes in and he just has an abysmally slow start until you
06:47get to probably this time of year last year for him to find some level of some level of
06:52comfort for a veteran that strikes me as odd.
06:54And for a manager and Joe Espada, where we know managers in general, but especially him
06:59have less, I guess, decisions that are at their call because front offices do a lot of
07:04kind of dictating the way that organizationally they want to handle things.
07:08I imagine that the people side of the business matters even more.
07:11And Joe Espada is supposed to be that kind of guy that taps in well.
07:14It felt like Christian Walker took too long to adjust.
07:17Tatsia Imai definitely has taken a while to adjust.
07:20It feels like there's been a number of these where I would have expected Joe Espada, who
07:24seems to be careful and think about these things a good amount, like how do I help?
07:28How do I reach my players?
07:29It feels like it takes him longer than I would expect.
07:31Not that I have a metric on this, to get those guys to find their comfort and deliver and
07:37produce for you.
07:38And that feels like that is the equivalent to Dana Brown's scouting and not seeing that
07:44scouting come along fast enough.
07:46It feels like that has been the equivalent for me with Joe Espada on the field level of,
07:51hey, the guys, the human element in getting to those guys, it's supposed to show up faster
07:55for me or show up a little bit more than I think it has.
07:57But maybe that's unfair.
07:58And then also, bullpen management is the thing that showed up this weekend as well.
08:01Well, maybe it's fair, but maybe it's unfair in this regard.
08:05I have a hard time believing that Joe Espada was the point of the arrow in terms of bringing
08:11in Tatsuya Imai.
08:12Same thing with Christian Walker.
08:15I think that was Dana Brown and maybe even above Dana Brown.
08:18I mean, I think it's fair to ask, are they sort of deflecting from their own mistakes?
08:24We know Jim Crane has a big say in things.
08:26We know Jeff Bagwell has a big say in things.
08:29They're not going to fire themselves.
08:31And so how much of this is sort of deflecting like, okay, let's start over here?
08:35Well, I mean, I can't really tell you until we have an opportunity to hear from them.
08:40And maybe with this change, with Jeff Bagwell now taking over operations, I know that there's
08:44three AGMs that were mentioned in this press release, and they will have some level of autonomy.
08:50Well, I don't even know how much autonomy, but they will have some responsibility here.
08:53Here, I'm intrigued to see who gets to speak or who does take up the responsibility of
08:57speaking in front of the media.
08:58Yeah.
08:59Because that is the interesting portion of this timing is Dana Brown would still have
09:02talked during the remainder of the season.
09:04Who takes that up?
09:05Is it Jeff Bagwell that then speaks?
09:07Is it one of these assistant general managers that speak?
09:09It should be Jim Crane.
09:09I would be very excited to hear from Jim Crane so that we can get some insight into how much
09:14responsibility does he place at his own feet when it comes to this?
09:17And is he willing to change any of his MO?
09:19Because now you are provided an opportunity, admittedly not in the circumstances that anybody
09:23would want, but you're provided an opportunity to, again, determine what the next three, four
09:28years of your organization will look like and who is at the top of it.
09:32And whoever you put there, you have to be able to give them the leeway to handle this in
09:36the way that they so choose, and I don't know that Dana Brown was fully given that autonomy,
09:42and maybe that is ultimately why we are in the place where we are, where Dana Brown and
09:46the Astros have, quote-unquote, mutually agreed to part ways.
09:48I don't think he was.
09:49I think we know that just from reading the tea leaves here.
09:52And as far as the assistant GMs, Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey, and Connor Huff, just forget
09:57about them.
09:58Whoa!
09:58Just forget.
09:59All due respect.
09:59Just forget about them.
10:00I'm going to be honest.
10:00I had not committed their names to memory.
10:03That's a me problem more than a member problem.
10:05Think about it.
10:05Your general manager just got fired, and these are three assistant general managers, two
10:10Dana Brown, that are going to be handling the day-to-day operation.
10:15They're printing resumes right now.
10:17I mean, they are gone, all three of them, I would have to guess.
10:20So it's Bagwell.
10:21I would want to hear from Jim Crane.
10:23I don't know how relevant that would be in terms of real meat on the bone, so to speak.
10:29But this is Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell and whatever other advisors that he has.
10:36But you easily could see this coming.
10:39I think it's very PR-y coming off this series.
10:42And of course, the Astros, they refuse.
10:45Here's the other thing.
10:46Yeah.
10:46They refuse to admit, and maybe they will now, they need to rebuild.
10:51They need to get rid of some players that maybe we don't want them to get rid of.
10:56Not Yordan.
10:58And they need to start rebuilding.
11:00Will they ever?
11:01That's what I want to hear from Jim Crane.
11:02Will they ever admit, maybe we need to take a step back?
11:05It's a really good question.
11:07Yeah.
11:07Because he has previously said and reiterated, quote, while I'm here, the window will always be open.
11:14This is the first time where I think you need to have that very clearly, you know, questioned.
11:21Yeah.
11:21And interrogated.
11:22And I don't mean like interrogated from a media asking him.
11:26I'm saying him.
11:27He needs to ask himself, does that actually serve us the best, that particular approach?
11:32And there's going to be a lot of questions of approach.
11:34Honestly, one of the questions of approach is, how do they go and handle hiring a new general manager?
11:38Because one of the things that we've seen in baseball right now is that there is kind of an unpredictability
11:44factor in the way that teams have hired general managers.
11:46You remember Paul DePodesta being hired?
11:49Yeah.
11:49Paul DePodesta was like charged with helping the Browns get back on track at times.
11:54Like that is not, that's not exactly where I had thought that a team would go for a general manager.
12:01Buster Posey ended up getting a front office job as well.
12:06Not necessarily one that people would have seen coming.
12:09Baseball has decided that some of the hiring is not saying that this is right or wrong, but they're happening
12:13in different ways.
12:14How does Jim Crane and this brain trust at the top of the Astros at this moment go about refilling
12:20that position?
12:20Obviously, there's time to talk about that and think through that.
12:22But that also will tell us something.
12:25Are they going to be cheap or are they going to money whip?
12:27Especially if you are a, while I'm here, the windows will be open type of guy.
12:31We've had this issue with Jim Crane where that is the saying, but the actual walking it out has not
12:36looked quite the same.
12:37Are you going to use what is available to you to make sure you get somebody that can do that?
12:42Or are you going to go and try and find an edge somewhere and maybe be a little cheap about
12:47this?
12:47And how does that then fit with your purported claim that we are going to win basically at all costs?
12:53Yeah, the Astros, and I can't emphasize this enough because this is a Jim Crane decision.
12:58The Astros are at a crossroads.
13:00I'm not trying to be dramatic, but they are absolutely at a crossroads here.
13:04They need to make a philosophical decision.
13:07Are we going to use this as the impetus to take a step back in hopes of taking a step
13:13forward?
13:13Or are we going to keep trying to push this boulder up the hill and try to tell fans and
13:21themselves and the team, we're still in this?
13:25All evidence says, yeah, you might make the playoffs still, sadly, with a losing record, perhaps.
13:32But you are not a team that can contend at the level that you think you can.
13:36They need to make a philosophical decision of who they are first.
13:39And that's a Jim Crane decision.
13:41Yeah.
13:41Can I tell you what I'm scared of?
13:43What's that?
13:44What I'm actually deathly afraid of at this point.
13:46If they do make the playoffs at this point, shout out to the AOS, mind you, where all five teams
13:51are under 500 now, thanks to the weekend series for the Astros.
13:55If they do make the playoffs, do you think that Jim Crane does a thing where he goes, hey, shout
14:00out to these assistant general managers managing to get us?
14:03And then he hired.
14:04I could see it happening.
14:06I don't want it to happen.
14:07I can't really put a percentage chance on it.
14:09But I could see a small percentage chance of them doing that.
14:11And that would tick me off to no end, John.
14:13No, it's that's going to happen.
14:15In my opinion, they're going to they're going to take everything out with Dana Brown and bring in either another
14:21general manager that that is going to be here.
14:24This is the thing that scares me.
14:25Are they going to bring in another lapdog?
14:26All due respect to Dana Brown.
14:28He was a lapdog.
14:30In part because or are they going to bring in someone says that they say, let's go.
14:35It's yours.
14:36I think the likelihood is more the former than the latter.
14:39It's more likely that they bring in somebody who is going to be at the behest of Jim Crane in
14:44part because that is that that's their boss.
14:46Right.
14:47If you are hired to do a job, very rarely are you going to have the cachet and the clout
14:51to one up your boss, especially when he's the one signing the checks.
14:54You know, so, yes, I hear what you're saying and I'm not trying to, like, negate that because I agree.
14:59But it has to be an internal decision with Jim Crane where he gets somebody that he believes so strongly
15:04in and their capabilities that they he's like, I should not step in there.
15:08We've seen our headed owners all over sports do that to some degree, but he has to decide that he
15:13wants to do that.
15:14And we know he thinks he thinks of himself as a baseball man.
15:16Yeah.
15:17And, you know, he wants to be involved.
15:19Hell, we saw it at the trade deadline where he decided to kind of undercut Dana Brown's capabilities to make
15:23the moves.
15:24Yeah.
15:24That he seemingly wanted to make.
15:26And now we end up with a circumstance where Dana Brown and the Astros have, quote, mutually agreed to part
15:32ways.
15:32Question here, though, because a lot of people are doing this and, you know, Astros fans are going to write.
15:37You always want to go back to the.
15:38The answer is no.
15:39You don't think that they could get Jeff Luno to come back?
15:42I knew exactly where you were going.
15:44I would be interested.
15:45It would be fun.
15:47But boy, does he would he just thumb his nose at Major League Baseball that bad?
15:53No one has touched him.
15:55No one has touched him.
15:57Also, that would be Jim Crane having to acknowledge.
16:01Hey, man.
16:01Yeah.
16:02I might eat.
16:03I let my ego get in the way because you were doing things in different ways.
16:06And you were asking me to spend more money in the front office with staff that's not actually on the
16:10field.
16:11And I didn't want to do that.
16:12So I fired you or decided to part ways.
16:16Yeah.
16:16And then my my the way that I decided to answer it didn't work.
16:20So I'm coming back to you.
16:21That would take a lot.
16:22That would take a big man.
16:23Yes, it would.
16:24And I'm not saying that Jim Crane ain't a big man.
16:26I just don't know that he'd be willing to do that.
16:28I agree.
16:29Because one thing I know about rich folks, they're not really good at saying I messed up or being embarrassed.
16:34Correct.
16:34Yeah.
16:34It's that's kind of what the money allows you to not ever have to say that you were wrong or
16:38that you're embarrassed.
16:39And so that is the tough part about the possibility.
16:41But it does feel like the way that Jeff Luno was handling things is the way that good teams handle
16:45baseball right now.
16:46And it seems like if you could write if if that other human element wasn't part of it, that'd be
16:50an awesome hire.
16:52Except it is so many Luno texts.
16:55So many Luno texts.
16:57I feel you.
17:00It just feels like it's not going to happen.
17:01But I've been wrong before.
17:02Anyways, again, the breaking news of the day to this point, Dana Brown and the Astros have agreed to mutually
17:07part way or mutually agreed rather to part ways.
17:10So the general manager for the team is a open.
17:13It's vacant role right now.
17:15There's three assistant general managers and Jeff Bagwell that will kind of split responsibilities of Dana Brown to this point.
17:20All right.
17:21You're in the loop.
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