The Life and Times of Dana Brown

So many times, in the history of the Astros, the firing/resignation of a manager or general manager feels like the time for an obituary.

With the Astros, so many of their managers and general managers listed the Astros as their last stop (at that position) on their resumes. 

On the manager side, that included their very first manager, Harry Craft, and others such as Hall of Famer Leo Durocher, Bob Lillis, and then the string of Larry Dierker, Jimy Williams, Phil Garner, Cecil Cooper, Brad Mills and Bo Porter, who all had various amounts of success, but never managed at the MLB level again.

The general managers’ history with the Astros has been checkered ever since the team’s original GM, Gabe Paul, left before the team began playing in 1962. Lately it has been a series of GMs who have not found another GM job after leaving Houston, including Tim Purpura, Ed Wade, Jeff Luhnow and James Click. (Note: I did not include Gerry Hunsicker, who moved on to Tampa Bay as a Senior VP of baseball operations).

Which brings us to the latest ex-GM – Dana Brown, who just left by mutual agreement with the club (read Jim Crane). While not a real death, one has to wonder whether this is the death of Brown’s ability to hold a GM- or higher-level position in MLB.

The team said Brown’s responsibilities will be transitioned to assistant general managers Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey and Connor Huff and senior advisor Jeff Bagwell, with owner Jim Crane overseeing baseball operations through the transition period.

There is a bit of irony in that interim responsibility “group”. Famously, after the Astros won the 2022 World Championship, Jim Crane offered GM James Click an insult of an offer for an extension. Click decided not to sign back on for a single season, and the Astros were starting the off-season in November 2022 without a General Manager. In between that point and the point (January 26, 2023) when they hired Dana Brown, the Astros were run by a combo of Jim Crane, assistant GMs, and a troika of retired Hall of Famers – Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and Reggie Jackson.

This group of decision-makers made decisions that handicapped Mr. Brown a bit in his debut as a GM.

  • They re-signed injured OF Michael Brantley for $12 million, who did not return until the end of August and played only 15 games in 2023.
  • They signed RF Rafael Montero to a 3 years $34.5 million contract after his strong 2022 season. No one thought about the fact he was only making $2.7 million in 2022 and that in his previous 7 seasons, he had only had one short season where he was anywhere near as good as 2022.
  • They signed 1B Jose Abreu to a 3 year/ $58.5 million contract. No one noticed or cared that in his last 55 games of 2022, Abreu hit one home run and started looking like his 36-year-old self.

Dana Brown really had no opportunity to place his stamp on the 2023 team. The off-season was practically done when he took over. Under Brown’s reign….

2023 – The team he inherited lost in a heartbreaking seven-game ALCS against the Rangers, which likely cost them a third World Championship.

2024 – The team lost 2 in a row to the Tigers in a quick two-and-done Wild Card matchup.

2025 – The team was edged out of the last playoff spot and stayed home for the first time since 2016.

2026 – Even though the team is currently tied for first place in the AL West, their playoff hopes overall seem to be slipping away.

In looking at Brown’s reign over the front office the last few years, there have been definite pluses and minuses to his performance.

Pluses

  • The haul he brought back for the biggest trade of his tenure – the Kyle Tucker Trade – seems to be a big plus. While Tucker only spent one season with the Cubs, the Astros have received multiple years of IF Isaac Paredes, who has been very good for them, and OF Cam Smith, who has been inconsistent but promising. They also received P Hayden Wesneski, who unfortunately almost immediately required Tommy John surgery. On the plus side, Wesneski has shown some dog in him since returning from the IL.
  • The ability to pick up decent pitching help off the refuse pile. (Note – all of these folks have brought positives to the team, while some of them after initial success have fallen).

This included Steven Okert, Jason Alexander, Enyel De Los Santos, Bennett Sousa and Peter Lambert (OK – I know they released him and re-signed him this spring).

  • Finding a closer – the Josh Hader signing. Even with missing some time at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, Hader has been very good and certainly has been earning his $19 million a year when you compare him to the Jose Abreus and Christian Walkers of the world with similar annual contracts.

Minuses

  • His inability to bring in real professional hitting outfield help has been a true sore spot with the fans.
  • The embarrassing returns on his efforts in this last off-season to obtain starting pitching help as the Tatsuya Imai, Mike Burrows, Ryan Weiss, Nate Pearson and Kai-Weng Teng pickups have all fallen by the wayside.
  • After swallowing 1B Jose Abreu’s contract, he turned around and picked up an almost contractual clone in 1B Christian Walker for almost the exact contract cost, length and mid-30’s age.
  • His pickup of Carlos Correa at the 2025 trade deadline, when he is well known for missing more time than he plays. And voila – he again is getting paid a lot of money to sit in Mattress Macs recliner as he rehabs from surgery.
  • His almost desperate trade of Spencer Arrighetti for Daulton Varsho at the 2026 deadline, which seemed like doing something to do something.
  • Despite a reputation as a draft and prospect savant, there was no big wave of big time prospects climbing quickly up the organization. To be honest, this is something that likely was going to take a while.

And here is my warning. We can blame Dana Brown for everything on the minuses, but we have no idea which were truly his moves, versus moves thrust upon him. We do know that one of his last moves, a trade of Bryan Abreu to the Twins was squashed by Jim Crane. That was truly the death knell of his career as the Astros GM. Even if it was not a great trade, a general manager needs some type of power and needs to be able to work without a committee looking over his shoulder.

This is not a good day for the club. Any time a prime part of a team’s organization has failed it means that the team has to start over in some way or shape. The other shoe to drop, Manager Joe Espada will be sitting in the dugout as the season winds down. And reportedly he has already been told that he can clean out that office permanently on the last day of the season. Wouldn’t it be funny if that day was after a deep playoff run.

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29 responses to “The Life and Times of Dana Brown”

  1. To truly evaluate Dana Brown, you have to look at the butterfly effect of James Click’s vetoed trade sending Jose Urquidy for Willson Contreras, and the failed Francisco Liriano trade. Had the vetoed trade cleared:

    • Click never trades Wilyer Abreu for Christian Vazquez.
    • Our outfield could currently feature Abreu and Teoscar Hernandez.
    • An emerging Yainer Diaz would have moved Contreras to 1B sooner, meaning the Christian Walker signing never happens.

    Instead, Brown was completely handcuffed by a decade of depleted organizational depth, leaving him with an empty pipeline at the upper minor-league levels.

    This doesn’t mean Brown is blameless, but he started from a deficit. Moves like trading for Carlos Correa or chasing Nolan Arenado felt like mandates from ownership enamored by “the back of the baseball card” with famous names rather than organic front-office strategy.

    Ultimately, Brown’s passivity ruined his tenure. When Jacob Melton’s stock was high in Double-A, his worsening discipline metrics signaled future MLB failure. A sharp GM cashes that chip in early. Brown waited until Melton’s value tanked, forcing him to accept Mike Burrows in a package deal. Compounding that, the other piece of that trade, Anderson Brito, just hit the 60-day IL and is done for the year—a great arm who can’t stay on the mound, totaling just 135 innings over three pro seasons. His draft picks early have not worked out, but there is still some hope on Neyens and Frey, and finding Alvarez and Fermin out in the market have put their minor leagues, still devoid of any real pitching prospects, at least in a better spot. Brown wasn’t Houston’s worst GM, but moving on was the correct decision.

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  2. Dana is gone, as we all expected. For me, the only surprise is that I figured he’d be around for the last 31 games. He really should have been sent home this past winter, but I’m sure Jim Crane did not want to pay two GM salaries in 2026. And I don’t expect a better club finishing the season. But we have gotten Chunky Nelson back though. Is Velazquez’ return our first Dana correction?

    Cook, Dickey, Huff. I wonder if they’ve actually been reporting to Dana Brown over the past few months. Without a doubt, Special Adviser Bagwell has played a more senior role with the club. I would be unfair to even hold the 2026 draft against Dana down the road. I’m sure he’d lost the hammer by then.

    I have to question why Dana was allowed to collect high risk pitchers all winter. I’m almost sure Imai was not his idea though. Crane orchestrated his typical marketing hoopla for (his) new arrivals and then receded into the background. Perhaps Crane’s best bust yet.

    Dana did not do a great job as GM. But he might have had the toughest GM job in MLB. And now we get Bagwell and friends with our owner leading the charge. I don’t expect any rush on a new GM hire either. I also don’t think this predicable outcome bodes especially well for Astro fans.

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  3. Assuming a roster has to get signed for next season, any Astro GM or consortium of Astro “experts” will have a real puzzle to work out in order to field a competitive team.

    We have 160 million plus guaranteed to 7 guys.

    Then we have 40 million projected to 5 Arb guys.

    This does not include the option on Paredes, about 13.5 million. He will be hard to move or afford.

    This does not include keeping Abreu. In fact, of the 200 million or so already spent, that money includes four starting pitchers, two of them being Javier and Imai. It includes just one reliever, our closer.

    Jim Crane has about four choices that I can think of.

    1. Hope a lockout kills the whole season.
    2. Make the same feeble attempt at putting a quality team on the field in 2027.
    3. Shake the whole team up while spending money he historically has not.
    4. Sell off and start over.

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    • Can he really sell off? He can’t trade Walker without paying a significant portion. He can’t trade Imai at all. He can’t trade Javier without paying it. He can’t trade Altuve. He can’t trade Correa.

      He could move Diaz for a minimal return, not to improve the team. I think his return on Paredes wouldn’t be what we think it would be because of that 13M, but he could get out from under it. The point is, nothing gets him below 150M or so payroll, and he can’t have 15k at the park on a Saturday night for a losing club.

      I would like the team to approach the idea of moving Yordan, Pena and Brown, because that frees up 40Mish and would return near major league ready top prospects. Presumably, they could slot in. Imagine Hunter going to Detroit for Max Clark. I don’t know the Tigers do that, but maybe. If you do that, you probably shed enough salary. But I don’t see that approach coming. I see 3 stars playing with a mediocre roster around it, subjectively bad roster actually.

      My idea is to move your 3 biggest stars to be able to put at least somewhat productive players in all 9 spots in the batting order and 5 competent pitchers in the rotation. Not have a lineup that is solely dependent on 3 dudes and a rotation with just 3 guys and 2 wing and prayer guys.

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      • Like I said, it’ll be a real puzzle. And yeah, a sell off would be Yordan, Pena, Brown. My guess is that Pena will go. I doubt Yordan and because the Astros have so little pitching, I doubt Brown.

        I sure can’t disagree. As I was doing the math and realizing 12 guys (including several flawed and or declining ones) are accounting for 200 million, I only realized then how poorly the decision makers have planned over the past few years.

        And I agree that #2 is the closest response we’ll see from the consortium. Can we even surround those three guys with a mediocre roster around them?

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  4. On one hand it feels like Brown was hired to hold a title and not given a chance to do his job. On the other hand we have a myriad of questionable moves you have to account to someone. He was lauded with filling the Braves organization through the draft, but that didn’t happen in Houston. I still don’t know which free agents he could sign, but don’t like most of the ones he did.

    Regarding Click there is a sentiment that Crane is a moron for forcing out the GM who won a World Series. I don’t agree with those people. I don’t think Click was given the ability to do what he wanted to do in Houston. There is a story out there that Click wanted Jake Meyers in CF, but Crane and most of the building wanted anyone else (or Pedro Leon if you can believe that). Crane got his way but it was understood if Jake wasn’t the real deal it was going to likely cost Click his job after the season. Is this just a rumor that was invented on the internet or legit? It sounds plausible given how much dysfunction we feel like there had been in that building.

    So what is the next GM walking into? I think Crane needs to blow it up. You trade Pena and Brown. If Alvarez wants to be in Houston you keep him because he’s going to put people in seats. It’s Houston so there won’t be that many people in the seats when the losses pile up, but it’s still needed. I haven’t mentioned the Mariners yet, but their farm system has a lot of high ranked prospects. I don’t think we want to see the team crater down to 100+ loss territory like we did when Bo Porter was thrown to the wolves, but getting out from bad contracts while drafting in the first third of each round for a year or two might give them the room they need to be competitive once again.

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    • Devin, that Jake rumor might well be accurate, but I never heard it. When Jake came up for the first time in 2021, he played most everyday and then in the post season until he got hurt.

      And when he finally got back in 2022 after the injury, he played most days, even as he never got the bat going. And then was sent down in September but came back up for the post season, at that point though Chas had been given most of the playing time, temporarily as it turned out.

      Then in 2023, with Click gone, Jake still got most of the starts in center. So all I know is that my preference would have been to see Click stay with the club after the series win. I think he would have created a new level of stability following in Luhnow’s path. But I also got the impression that Dusty Baker did not like working with Click and Baker certainly had Crane’s ear.

      I don’t know about Crane being a moron, but I do think he’s been responsible for much of the turbulence of the past several years and he’s damaged his own franchise.

      And my thoughts on Jake are that he was never going to be much of a hitter, but was so good in center defensively especially early in his career that the Astros, with a really solid offense could leave him out there to track down baseballs.

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  5. Ill be watching the game tonight so I’ll probably make a comment or two depending on what’s happening. Time to make hay while the sun is shining.

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  6. The Astros played their best nine innings in recent memory. They hit the baseball. Made no errors. Ran the bases aggressively at the right times. They got some good pitching from a couple of guys.

    Maybe Joe should have been sent home with Dana. He did not have his team playing that way. Does it really take a shake up to wake up guys? Rarely works. But based on his comments yesterday, I do think Crane has unrealistic expectations of what his mediocre roster can and will do over the next thirty games.

    And it did not sound as if Crane is all that attuned to what his situation is. The team is just not good enough to go on any kind of a run. It could still be enough to win the West though. I think the over under should right around be 81 and 81. Still Cranes goal remains getting into the post season. But I don’t think the majority of fans care much about winning a division and then losing the first round in October. Watching a flawed team play .500 ball all year makes one turn off the TV. And it does not put fans in the seats. They are averaging 30,000 plus paid in 2026, down 3K from 2025, 5K from 2024 and 7K from 2023. Mediocrity does not sell.

    I’m guessing the Ethan Pecko experiment is over for now. Mike Burrows up next? What else can Bagwell do? Cavan Biggio? Jake? If they want to dig deep, they can bring in Brice Mayer. Or Santa, but he’s not owning AAA ball as he was earlier in the season.

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  7. Dan, I would rate Pearson and Teng as pluses instead of minuses. Not sure why they traded Pearson, but I would rather have kept him instead of De Los Santos. Teng was was doing well in the bullpen and should have stayed there.

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    • Pearson has pitched quite well for KC and he was the only guy we had that consistently hit 100 plus in the gun, but he had a hard time throwing strikes.

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  8. Good game last night. They looked like a baseball team, but the pitching still has to get better.

    The Yankees made so many defensive mistakes. Spencer Jones should not be in the field. He gift wrapped Yordan’s triple by over running the play. Watching him hit I am not sure he should be in the major leagues. Guy has the athleticism of a giraffe.

    George Lombard – thats a ball player. At 21 he is now the starting SS of the New York Yankees and batting 5th. He looks every bit the part. I’m telling you if the Yankees were going to listen we would not be any worse of a team if in July we had offered Pena for Lombard straight up.

    But really, no matter how I feel about this team, or the season, they are the good guys. And it was good to see the good guys prevail over the villains last night. Hopefully they win this series and leave the Bronx with bucket full of Yankee fans tears. WE WANT HOUSTON!

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  9. Thoughts

    • Steven – I know the Rangers are our big rivals, but the Yankees are the bad guys – their fans are vile and make them the ones I want to clean the floor with.
    • Yesterday was the first of 13 straight days of games. Looking back – the last time an Astros’ starter went 6 or more innings was Wesneski going 7 back on August 10th. Looking back the starters have gone..
      • 4.1 innings
      • 4
      • 5.2 (Hunter Brown)
      • 5
      • 3.2
      • 3,2
      • 4
      • 5 (Brown)
      • 4
      • 5
      • 0.2 (using Bryan King)
      • 5 (Brown)
      • 7

    I don’t think this is sustainable especially with no days off. The bullpen is starting to look a bit ragged. This could implode.

    • Lots of hitting heroes last night
      • Yainer with two homers including a late inning opposite field homer to tie it, plus a 9th inning single to give them breathing room. He also walked earlier in the game (a rare thing for him) and scored on Pena’s homer.
      • Pena with a couple hits for two games in a row after not having multiple hit game since the 2nd of August. His homer was critical in getting them back in the game
      • The big man – Yordan with a triple to break the tie in the 8th and on a three hit night he also scored two runs
      • Altuve with a couple hits and he came alive in the field with some nice plays – I don’t think the nasty Yankee fans get the results they expect when they attack him.
      • Cam with a triple and a run scored in the 9th. When is the last time the team had two triples in a game?
    • Two pitching heroes last night – one expected – one not. Sousa with 1.2 perfect innings and Hader with 1.1 perfect innings and the save.
    • Pecko goes 4.1 innings and gives up 5 runs on 5 hits and 4 walks
    • The Astros have Lambert against TBD tonight – we need him to pitch solid again.

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    • I’ll never be in the Rangers are the villains crowd. For me, it will always be the Yankees. The Astros and Rangers just spent too much time sharing space and never playing.

      And thats tough, because Yankees fans care much more about the Red Sox than us. But I know it gets in their craw that we are perfect against them in playoff series.

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      • This is one I don’t get. No one talks about the Rangers. No one thinks about the Rangers. The Braves are bigger rivals to us than the Rangers are. The Yankees fans can talk all they want as well, but until they beat us in the postseason I don’t think that can be considered a rivalry either. We’ve also thrown two no-hitters against the Yankees to their zero. Maybe that’s why their fans are so mad.

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      • Thank you so much for that tidbit Sarge. I recall that now that you said that.

        I will never forget Evan Gattis hitting 11 triples in one season when he had 12 in his whole career.

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  10. Joe Espada to finish season as Astros manager, owner Jim Crane says. ‘Focused on winning tonight’

    This article along with some other folks quoted on the radio says that Espada has not been told he will be leaving at the end of the season as per the article we heard about yesterday from Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

    Now that does not mean Joe won’t be out at the end of the season, but certainly Crane straight out said Joe’s doing about all he can with what he has to work with.

    Interesting.

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    • Rome said on Monday, after the report came out, that it was inaccurate. According to Chandler no future has been discussed with Joe.

      If I’m guessing, it would be best to allow Crane to find the GM that he wants, then let that GM decide if Joe is the right guy to instill his vision. Maybe the GM wants to create the 1988 St. Louis Cardinals, and Joe hates stolen bases. Maybe he wants a athletic roster full of guys that can play multiple positions, well Joe would love that, but some managers don’t. I think that would be fair.

      I haven’t always loved the in game moves Joe makes. I think he left Pecko in one inning to long last night, and I said that at the start of the inning. He got one more out while giving up 2 more runs. Sousa still had to come in and get the same number of outs. But overall, he handles the people well. That’s at least half the battle.

      I would prefer a new manager. But I won’t quit on the Astros if the new GM thinks Joe is his guy. He knows the roster, he knows the community, he knows these players.

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      • One step at a time for me. I hope we get a new GM, not anyone with the organization presently. But we’ll be waiting a while before finding out.

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    • He’d be the kind of guy I’d want Sarge. Sounds like a TB lifer though, 20 years with the club, three kids, family very active in the community.

      I also think Bagwell’s presence will shrink the interest level among top candidates.

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  12. Our flawed Astros came back out last night and pretty much did what they’ve been doing all year. We’re a .500 team. I’ve got to give some credit to Lambert for hanging on for 17 outs. He was on the precipice early and often.

    Until Monday morning I was shaking my head daily over Dana Brown’s delusion of getting Javier, Blanco, Sousa and others back on the mound in time for the stretch run. Those were his deadline deals! He tried to sell us that story last season too. We’ll get Burrows back next. But we also have the elephant in the room taking a chair up in the pen. Apparently Imai is not much of an option, although he’d have been my preference over Bennet Sousa last night even as it was the most critical point of the game. Put him in the fire.

    I’d like to see our new baseball operations chief, or whatever title our Owner Jim Crane has given himself do something about Imai. We’re wasting a critical roster spot on a healthy guy getting paid 18 million. And having Imai around for the next two years will be bad vibes in the harmony department. If he has not already, Crane should be having significant conversations with Boras about our terrible off season acquisition. We’re likely stuck with the guy, unless he’s so uncomfortable in Houston that he’ll opt out of his deal and go home. But for now, we need him to clear out so he can enjoy September relaxing in Sugar Land. Unfortunately someone let Imai refuse any trip to AAA when the contract terms were hashed out. My guess is Crane.

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    • It’s tough to keep watching Espada use Sousa as a leverage lefty when he has such extreme L/R reverse splits.

      I don’t know you see much of Imai this year. There is probably a quiet mandate to keep him below the inning threshold that turns that 18M into more. But the one thing I’ve learned about Crane, he hates paying people and getting nothing from them until those people absolutely force his hand. I expect an offseason of retrospect, talk of “adjustment”, so on so forth, and Imai to open in the 2027 rotation. Maybe there is a world where he becomes a major league starter. Maybe there is even a world where he learns to command all that movement better and becomes a star. All these alternate realities exist. But the Astros need a plan if our reality continues to be Earth 616 and he is just Imai, because it seems the most likely.

      The 2026 Astros should have us talking about 2027 right now, but the rest of the American League is a pile of banthar fodder as well. So here we are, still watching game to game and talking about how good they were in game 1 of this series and how they looked not so good in game 2. The Yankees continue to be a defensive mess, but unlike game 1, we didn’t make them pay for it.

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      • Steven – I had to google Earth 616 but when I saw the words Marvel and multiverse my eyes started to glaze over – though I presume this has to do with alternate universes.

        • The Astros played about 1/2 to 2/3 of a decent game and the rest was bad. Which seems like an analogy for the whole season.
        • The Astros don’t trust Bryan King anymore. They don’t seem to trust Imai. They seem to trust Sousa for no reason. They seem to trust De Los Santos for no reason. The bullpen is a thin mess.
        • Lambert did hold on pretty well even without his best stuff
        • Tell me why, Joe….. why Diaz has 3 hits including 2 homers and a walk on Tuesday and never sniffs the field as a C or a DH or even a PH on Wednesday?
        • Tell me why, Joe….why Teng is used for one batter successfully and does not start the next inning?
        • Tell me why, world….why I even care at this point? This team is going nowhere even if somehow the rest of the division hands it a title. (Of course if they win today to take the series I will be happy again. Is this what being bipolar is like?)

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      • I’m a big nerd Dan. Marvel reference to alternate realities but you missed the Star Wars reference lol.

        Teng was out because Grisham and Rice were up at the top and he wanted a lefty. It’s just the lefty he picked, well, sucks against lefties. Go figure.

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  13. Dan,

    Your comments are exactly what I was thinking in regards to your second comment, as well as # 4 and 5. As for #6 , I think that is pretty much how we all think.

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  14. Dan, that’s the problem, you do care. And you’re stuck. After hearing those rare comments from Crane on Monday, I was not impressed. I honestly don’t think he knows what his club needs to be a good baseball team. So I find myself accepting that Joe can only do so much. Now I would have had Diaz take that at bat from Vasquez. But Joe is almost certainly playing out the string now, unless Crane decides to save time and money by keeping the homies intact. I could see that.

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