Astros Offseason: The manager move is made

Rule 1 – No one on here is allowed to complain about new Astros Manager Joe Espada ……..until the Astros play their first 2024 regular season game.

Rule 2 – After this post, we will do our best to avoid the D word (Dusty).

Let’s face it, as a fandom, we have spent a very unusual victory lap after the 2022 championship. It was a season that we spent questioning one of the most successful managers, Dusty Baker, who has ever led the Astros.

But the Dusty era is over, and the Joe Espada era is beginning. In general, folks are excited to have the Astros bench coach to be promoted to be THE MAN.

Why?

  1. He is a man who spans both the Jeff Luhnow/A.J. Hinch time and the James Click/Dusty Baker time. He was the bench coach and second in charge since Alex Cora left after the 2017 season, so he has been around for 6 ALCS, 3 WS, and one championship.
  2. He was not actually here for “IT”. There was some talk of cheating early in the 2018 season, but it died quickly.
  3. If the rumors are true, he was the top pick of GM Dana Brown for the job. Since, most of the fans want Brown to have a free swing at things – it is right that he gets his first choice.
  4. He has a relationship with this team, most of whom are returning for 2024 and from everything reported it is a very good relationship.
  5. He is a native Puerto Rican, and it has to be a big boost to have a bilingual manager with so many critical players speaking Spanish on this team.
  6. He is 48 years old, so he should be around for as long as he deserves to be.
  7. When Dusty Baker was tossed in Game 5 of the ALCS, Espada was in charge when the Astros rallied for the win and made the decision to use pinch hitters Yainer Diaz and Jon Singleton, who both got on base leading up to Jose Altuve’s clutch 3 run home run. We want to think this means he will handle the team in a different way from Baker.

In the end, Joe Espada has a good pedigree, but not as a manager. Does it matter? Some of the best Astro teams were managed by Larry Dierker, who never even coached at the major league level. Espada knows what needs to go on in a dugout, in a clubhouse and on the field.

We will know he is our manager when we start picking on him for lineup choices and bullpen replacement decisions. That’s what we do.

But until then – he has a perfect record, and we hope the Joe Espada era is a resounding success.

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32 responses to “Astros Offseason: The manager move is made”

  1. Good morning! Today should be considered a good day. Dana Brown will announce his choice for our new manager. And I have to assume Jim Crane has blessed this transaction making Joe Espada our new field general. All along I simply wanted Brown to have the authority to name the guy he will be working with so closely. I think it’s a healthy start.

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  2. Was reading the following….
    https://clutchpoints.com/astros-perfect-dylan-cease-trade-to-offer-white-sox

    I wanted to leave a comment but could not figure out how to.
    – First, he says that Verlander, Javier, Valdez and Urquidy all finished with ERAs above 4.00. Uh – that was true for Javier and Urquidy, untrue for Verlander and Valdez who were in the 3.3-3.4 ERA range.
    – Second, Dylan Cease just finished a season where he was over 4.00 (4.58 ERA). Yes, he was excellent in 2022, but that seems to be the outlier for him.
    – Third, you would be getting Cease for only two seasons.
    – Fourth, you would be giving up France, who did come in at below 4.00 (3.83) and who has 6 years of control. And Chas McCormick, who needs to be one of your starting OFs in 2024 and who has 3 more years of control. And a bunch of prospects.

    What is this guy smoking?

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    • Yea, never got the fascination with Cease by the national media. I have no doubt about two things – when I watch him pitch that he is better than JP France, and 2 – when I look at his stats he is a perennial underachiever that is not any better than JP France. If that makes sense to you, great, hopefully it’s the opening conversation anyone has about a trade for a guy that really, in end, is just an innings eater that happens to throw 98. There is no way I make that trade.

      But I wouldn’t be out the door on him. I know it seems like at this point he is some wily vet but Cease is still younger than France.

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    • Too many guys seemingly invent ideas that are just too kookie to even read, although I did read that one first thing this morning. Sure, give up Chas and make a big hole in the outfield. And maybe throw in Jake for good measure. The writer allegedly covers the NBA for Clutch Points. I had not heard of Clutch Points before. It will be easy to skim over going forward.

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    • If we made a trade of that type that would rank right up there among the dumbest ever made. Yes it would be nice to have Cease here but as for this scenario it should be “cease and desist”.
      The future is already looking brighter with Espada at the helm and him and DB appearing to be on the same page. We’ll give Crane some accolades to for allowing this to take place.

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  3. * There is a good chance Espada knows the reason for the poor record in 2023 at MMP and has a good idea how to get it fixed.
    * It will be interesting to see who becomes the new bench coach for Espada. He has a ton of connections in the baseball world.
    * I am feeling a bit relieved about the Astros today because, when the GM and the Manager are on the same page, there is an air of smoother sailing on the horizon.
    * I am really interested to see what the GM and field manager come up with on the idea of giving star players the day off on the day before an off day. I am of the opinion that you play your players to try to win the last game of a series and give them a day off on the day your schedule gives them a day off.
    * The Texas Rangers had only two players from their MLB roster play in the WBC.

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  5. What I hope Espada brings to the team –

    An understanding of frequency. Your best hitters have way more at bats. In that context, you figure out how to get your fielders the most innings at the positions they excel at as you possibly can without sacrificing frequency in at bats for the hitters. You find the mix. Most important in that – matchups. Styles of pitching against styles of hitting. Is Abreu better than Singleton? Yes. Is Abreu perfect? No. There are particular matchups, i.e. Abreu hits below .100 against pitches over 98. Singleton doesn’t, now he doesn’t hit anything particularly well, but is A) more likely to draw a walk, and B) he doesn’t hit .090 against 98 MPH. Today, you are facing Gerrit Cole. Is today a good day to give Abreu a “day off”, a “breather”, however you might want to report it? To me, yes. Abreu is THE first baseman, and that matters in clubhouse of professional ego’s, er, I mean, professional ballplayers, but lowering his frequency – and helping his stat line – by not playing him in a proverbial doomsday situation for him helps. The same thing as I remember one series that the “other guy” had 2 games against lefty starters and 1 game against a righty starter, and he sat Chas against the lefties and wrote him in the lineup for game 3 against the righty, despite every metric on the planet telling you that Chas hits like an all star against lefties. These are things I want fixed.

    One thing the “other guy” did well though was a little old school bullpen mentality. Guys know their roles, they know what situations and innings they are likely to be used, what their jobs will be and what expectations come with that. He has talent down there, but talented bullpens have failed by not staying within parameters of job/usage/consistency. I wish Mr. Espada well in that regard.

    The biggest thing he can do though is stay out of everyone’s way, be consistent in the card, be willing to increase frequency for guys that earn it, be willing to decrease frequency for guys that earn that, and let it rip. Many of our biggest heartburns was that he insisted on keeping the same volumes on Maldy and Diaz despite the clear regression of one and progression of the other, and that he kept Chas in a “rotational” role for much of the season when many felt he had earned a “starting” something nod. I go deeper and ask why so much Pena when he slumped so much, why did Dubon go straight to not playing for a week at a time after Altuve’s return while Pena continued to struggle, etc.

    And hope for at least some of these 2022 to 2023 regressions in the pitching staff bounces back.

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  6. A good day indeed and a hopeful one. This actually encourages me more about Dana Brown than Joe Espada. It looks like he is going to be given the authority to mold the team, which is nominally what he was hired for. I was underwhelmed by his draft this year, especially since that is supposed to be his forte. Does anyone know what if anything he has done with international signings? We need an infusion of minor league talent and I fear Tucker and/or Bregman might be dangled in the trade market.

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    • Hopefully we can get a team friendly deal for Altuve but not so sure about Bregman. Of course we wonder what they will be wanting. Do we have a potential replacement for Bregman? Can you say Will Wagner? Not as good as Breggy fielding but looks to have a pretty good bat. As for Tucker, if it looks that we’re not going to sign him to an extension I would to trade him in late ’25 provided we’re not in a playoff race (which I hope we’re in the money), but that’s a couple of seasons away. The 2025 season will definitely be interesting.

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  9. Espada was right there with Hinch and Baker. This tells me that he has probably learned not to cheat or allow it to happen. It also tells me that he has learned not to bench better players than the ones out on the field. In those respects, we are probably better off.
    The Astros find themselves in a very familiar situation with drafting, signing and with the waiver wire. They have been next to last or last for the previous six years or so in position and in allowed money. That will continue until they don’t finish high in the standings.
    That means they have to be smart like the Dodgers and Braves and Rays. Win, but also be smarter than others in the hard things: Scouting, trading, evaluating and developing prospects without losing at the MLB level.
    Dana Brown needs to come up big in the next two years in these areas and that is probably why the previous Director of Player of Development is gone.
    2024 is huge in developing the prospects we have and acquiring more and better minor league players. It will be an important year for our farm teams.

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    • It’s easy for us to say the scouting has stunk the last few years, but it’s equally probable the player development staff has stunk. I agree this is an important year – we’re either going to have some players ready to fill holes after 2024 or we’re going into the rebuild stage. I would think Crane has a clear preference which route to go.

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  11. Kenedy Corona today won one of three Gold Gloves for OFers in the minor leagues. His speed and defense are his best tools. He was one of my picks to be protected.

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  12. You know, when Chas was 23 in Corpus, he was a singles hitter with a good eye and a .696 OPS. He was not even on my radar and those stats would not have convinced me to protect him. So hopefully our GM sees something in Kenedy Corona all those strike outs are hiding.

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  13. Speaking of making room, the following Astros minor leaguers qualified for free agency and accepted it in the last week. Starting from AAA and working down to low A:
    Rylan Bannon Matt Ruppenthal
    Joe Record Andrew Knapp
    Jake Cousins JJ Matijevic
    Enoli Paredes Garrett Wolforth
    Luis Aviles Jr Angel Macuare
    Diosmerkey Taveras Juan Pablo Lopez
    Ronny Garcia Heribert Garcia.

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    • Thanks for that info OP. Bannon was just a AAAA type backup. JJ had a few moments for us. I thought Paredes might become something – never could harness control. Most of the others I barely or never heard of….

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      • Bligh Madris was released and signed a minor league deal with another organization recently.
        I also noticed Dixon Machado is still listed on the Space Cowboy’s roster.

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    • Including the post season, the Astros went 17-17 in Framber’s 2023 starts. The club was 10-7 in his starts prior to the All Star break. The clock did not seem to affect him during the first half of the season.

      Clock, composure, shaking off his catcher, weariness, defensive blunders, whatever, he sure struggled during the second half and into the post season.

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    • Lets see if we can really screw up the game even more. Personally, I don’t like the pitch clock but I agree that some pitchers and batters take too much much time. Why not leave it to the umpires discretion unless your Angel Hernandez, Ron Culpa, or you get the jest. Now we see pitchers and batters playing head games like waiting for the last minute before they engage. Pretty soon we’ll have AI players and the real players will be sitting at home watching themselves on TV.

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    • I wonder how late that “late season trend” developed? Coming down the stretch there were quite a few teams battling for a seed. More mound visits, more pitching changes, more pinch hitters, more squeezing as much out of the new rules as possible. But heck, 24 minutes a game over a full season is pretty remarkable. I don’t think it screwed with the integrity of the game, unless it is determined that there is a correlation between clock and injuries.

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  15. Just a few thoughts:
    * Perhaps several clubs have shown some interest in Kenedy Corona over the past year or so. That could account for his addition to the 40-man.
    * I don’t think that a lot of people realize how valuable Alex Bregman has been to the Astros in his 7.5 seasons with the team. His two great years were followed by the pandemic year and really lowered his arc of output. But he has produced over 35 WAR so far in his career despite some injuries and the pandemic. His production has far surpassed his salary and his place in the Houston Community sparkles with huge contributions from him and his family.
    If he doesn’t reup with the Astros it will be a loss, but it is mostly in his hands where he plays out the last part of his career. No matter how it plays out, this fan will always remember what he has meant to this franchise.

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    • A couple of good points, 1oldpro.

      Bregman would be very tough to replace, and as you say, not just on the field.
      We don’t really have anyone on the horizon. But between Bregman the businessman and his agent, I don’t think an extension for at last five years and 30-35 per year gets done for him in Houston. And I also don’t think he’ll age as well as Altuve has or Tucker will. As with Carlos and George before him, he’ll move on and so will the Astros.

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    • He has been very good at a position where our franchise’s all time greats were previously fairly mediocre ballplayers. I was thinking about him last night while reading a nonsensical piece suggesting the Astros should trade Tucker to the Yankees this offseason. I think Crane and Brown have a tough decision to make in terms of where to draw the line on reloading the team and where to focus on rebuilding. While the idea of letting Bregman and Tucker walk for nothing is unsavory, I would suggest we ended up getting nothing when we traded Lance Berkman so having their services for the remainders of their contracts might still be a good ROI.

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      • Devin, recall, if you will, Berkman offered, a couple of times, to return to the Astros, as a free agent, in order for them to trade him later in the season. He stated he would do so, specifically, to allow the team to restock their minors. Sadly, the front office refused to do so…

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