The Astros have turned to a familiar face to steer the next chapter, hiring Brad Ausmus as their manager.
The move was reported before the club made it official. John Granato of ESPN 97.5 Houston said Ausmus was set to fly to Houston tomorrow to accept the job, and Brian McTaggart of MLB.com confirmed that report.
Ausmus’ connection to Houston runs deep. He played 10 seasons for the Astros, taking the field for the club in 1997 and 1998 before returning from 2001 through 2008. After his playing career ended, he stayed in the game in a variety of roles, working as a manager, coach and front office staffer.
He has bounced around the league since then, with stops with the Padres, Tigers, Angels, Athletics and Yankees. Even so, his name kept circling back to Houston whenever the Astros had an opening.
Astros owner Jim Crane bought the team in 2011, after Ausmus had already retired, but Crane has a strong relationship with Jeff Bagwell. Bagwell has long been a key advisor to Crane on club matters, and because Bagwell shared a clubhouse with Ausmus for so many years, the ties between the two men never really went away.
Now the Astros have finally made the connection official. Ausmus returns to an organization that has gone through a string of managers under Crane, including Bo Porter, A.J.
Hinch, Dusty Baker and Joe Espada. His name had often surfaced when the job came open, and he had even been linked to the general manager role in Houston at different points, but he kept landing elsewhere.
The new manager brings experience, though the results have been mixed. Detroit hired him before the 2014 season, when the Tigers had won the Central three straight times.
He delivered another division title in 2014, but the team slipped below .500 in 2015. They got back to 86 wins in 2016 without reaching the playoffs, and 2017 went badly, with the Tigers losing 98 games before Ausmus was let go.
After that, he joined the Angels as a special assistant for 2018, then became their manager for 2019 on a three-year deal. That stint ended after one season when the Angels finished 72-90. Since then, Ausmus has worked as a bench coach, first with the Athletics in 2022 and then with the Yankees from 2024 to 2026.
Houston is making this change at a time when the organization looks like it could be headed for real transition. The Astros reached the ALCS seven straight seasons from 2017 to 2023 and won two titles during that stretch, but they have not been back since.
They won 88 games in 2024 and grabbed a Wild Card berth before being quickly knocked out by the Tigers. Last season they slipped to 87 wins and missed the postseason.
This year, in a historically weak American League West, they won the division with just 81 victories, then were swept out of the Wild Card round by the White Sox.
Espada’s contract ran out after the 2026 season and he was not retained. The front office also changed, with general manager Dana Brown departing.
Houston first filled that job by hiring Randy Flores a couple of weeks ago, and then moved on to the dugout search. Albert Pujols, Luis Urueta, Morgan Ensberg and Ausmus were all tied to the opening.
The Astros believe Ausmus is the man to guide what comes next, but the roster around him is in flux. Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Peña, Isaac Paredes, Hunter Brown, Christian Walker, Yainer Diaz, Cristian Javier and Josh Hader are all under contract only through 2027 or 2028.
Carlos Correa’s deal includes a complicated option setup, though 2028 is the last guaranteed year. Jose Altuve is signed through 2029.
That makes the road ahead tricky. Years of winning have pushed Houston toward the back of the draft for a long time, and the club also took a penalty tied to the sign-stealing scandal. The farm system is not viewed as especially strong right now, which only adds to the challenge.
For the Astros, the hope is simple: Ausmus does better in this job than he did in Detroit or Anaheim. For the Yankees, his departure means they now need a new bench coach.
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