The Astros’ manager search has taken a very different shape than the Mariners’ - and that contrast says plenty about how each club is going about the job.
While Jason Kanzler was winning over Seattle fans on Wednesday by calling the Astros the "team that shall not be named," Houston’s own hunt was producing bigger headlines. Albert Pujols and Morgan Ensberg surfaced as candidates, and the Pujols name in particular landed with real weight.
That’s not just because of the player Pujols was. The 700-homer, three-time MVP résumé makes him a Hall of Fame lock.
It’s also because his name has already circulated as a legitimate managerial possibility; the Los Angeles Angels reportedly considered hiring him last winter. Beyond his playing career, he has managed in the Dominican League and for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.
The Astros’ interest in Pujols, first reported by Mike Rodriguez of Rompiendo Sports, and in Ensberg, first reported by Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, gives their search a very different feel from Seattle’s. It looks like Jim Crane and new GM Randy Flores are chasing names with real cachet, which is the opposite of the route Jerry Dipoto took in hiring Kanzler.
That doesn’t automatically make Houston’s process smarter. It just makes it louder.
Seattle’s choice was always going to be an upside play. Kanzler arrived with no major league managerial experience and little public profile, to the point that even Jeff Passan had to make calls to get a read on him.
After his introductory press conference, the picture got a little clearer: he looks straight out of central casting and speaks well. In that sense, he feels like the opposite of Dan Wilson.
Whether that matters in the end is another question entirely.
And even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to say the Mariners passed on some obvious superior option. Joe Espada didn’t exactly set the room on fire.
Rocco Baldelli and Carlos Mendoza were in the mix, but neither name screamed certainty. Brandon Hyde and Walker McKinven were also part of the conversation, and they fit the same mold of candidates who were more solid than flashy.
Pujols, though, is a reminder that star power alone doesn’t solve a manager search. Great players do not always become great managers.
If anything, the history leans the other way. John McGraw, Joe Torre and Dusty Baker made it work, but none of them was a Hall of Fame-level player. Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Frank Robinson, Rogers Hornsby and Mel Ott all were, and none of them had especially successful runs in the dugout.
The bigger pattern is that many of the best managers in MLB history were never really major league stars at all. The theory isn’t hard to grasp: maybe there’s something useful in having lived through failure, and in learning how to avoid it.
That’s part of what makes Ensberg an interesting Houston candidate. His playing career at the major league level was brief, but his coaching résumé runs more than a decade and stretches across college and pro baseball. Brad Ausmus fits a similar lane, too - a player who was only serviceable in the majors, then built coaching and managerial experience dating back to 2011.
For now, the Astros’ search has at least given fans names worth talking about. Seattle’s process never really had that kind of buzz. Once Stephen Vogt was out of the picture, the public candidates mostly invited debate over fit rather than excitement.
Still, buzz doesn’t mean better. Houston may be doing this well, or it may be doing it worse. That won’t be clear until the AL West board is set and the pieces start moving.
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