The Astros’ managerial search is moving quickly, and two familiar names are already in the mix.
Houston will interview Rangers bench coach Luis Urueta, according to Jon Morosi of The MLB Network. Yankees bench coach Brad Ausmus has also received an official interview, Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com said last week that Ausmus was already in Houston to meet with the club before the Astros hired Randy Flores as general manager on Friday.
Flores now has the most urgent job in the organization: finding the next manager. Owner Jim Crane said during Monday’s introductory press conference that Flores would have “full authority” to run the baseball operations department, via Chandler Rome of The Athletic.
Crane also made clear that the process was already underway before Flores formally took over. He said he had interviewed multiple managerial candidates, while he was handling baseball operations with help from senior advisor Jeff Bagwell and assistant GMs Charles Cook, Connor Huff and Gavin Dickey.
Ausmus brings a wide-ranging résumé to the table. He spent parts of 10 seasons with the Astros as a player and remains a longtime teammate of Bagwell’s, though that was before Crane bought the franchise in 2011. He has met with Houston before, too - the club spoke with him about its managerial opening in 2020 before hiring Dusty Baker, and he was reportedly a finalist for the GM job that eventually went to Dana Brown three years later.
His background stretches beyond the dugout. Ausmus has five seasons of MLB managerial experience, including four years with the Tigers from 2014-17 and one season with the Angels in 2019.
More recently, he has spent the last three seasons as Aaron Boone’s bench coach in New York. He has also worked as a bench coach in Oakland and held front office roles with the Angels and Padres.
Urueta’s path looks different, but he’s been around the game for a long time. The 46-year-old, who turns 46 in January, was a bench coach with the Diamondbacks and Marlins before rejoining Skip Schumaker in Texas during the 2024-25 offseason. He worked as Bruce Bochy’s bench coach in 2025 while Schumaker was in the front office, then kept the role after the Rangers hired Schumaker to manage last offseason.
The Colombian-born Urueta had a short minor league playing career in the early 2000s. He has managed in rookie ball for Arizona and also managed his home country in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.
He is currently managing in the Dominican Winter League as well. His only MLB managerial experience came in a two-game interim stint with Miami at the end of the 2024 season, when Schumaker was away for a family health matter.
Those two are the only candidates publicly known to have interviewed so far, but they’re almost certainly not the only names Houston has discussed. There’s been natural speculation around Flores’ Cardinals ties to Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols, both of whom have said they want to manage someday.
Morosi said on MLB Network that Pujols has received consideration from the Astros, though it’s not clear whether he has actually interviewed. McTaggart reported Monday that Houston would like to have its hire in place by the end of this week.
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