The Astros Are Hiring Brad Ausmus, Who Is 36 Games Under .500 as a Manager
Houston reportedly picked the Yankees' bench coach to replace Joe Espada. Ausmus played 10 seasons there and went 386-422 running the Tigers and Angels.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
The Houston Astros are hiring Brad Ausmus as their next manager, according to MLB.com and ESPN, replacing Joe Espada. Ausmus, the Yankees' bench coach, was expected to fly to Houston to be introduced. He caught 10 of his 18 big league seasons for the Astros, so this is a homecoming, the kind that's usually saved for retirement parties and funerals, and he's not dead yet. He's just a manager, which, in Houston, is close.
Here's the résumé. Ausmus managed the Detroit Tigers from 2014 through 2017 and the Los Angeles Angels in 2019, and his career record is 386-422. That's 36 games under .500, which in baseball is called a losing record and in most other jobs is called a pattern. The Angels let him go after one season, which is a hard thing to do to a man, because the Angels hardly ever finish anything early, including the season.
In fairness, and I'll offer it because nobody in Houston will this week, the Tigers team Ausmus inherited was old and getting older, and he won a division with them in his first year. And he's an Ivy Leaguer, a Dartmouth man, which is the only case in history of a Dartmouth degree being the second-most-useful thing about a catcher. Bench coaches who sat beside Aaron Boone in the Bronx learn patience; they also learn how to look calm while 50,000 people boo the man next to you.
Astros fans, by the reports, are mixed, which is a polite word for a radio call-in show where everybody's angry at the same speed. You can understand it. Houston has been one of the best-run teams in baseball for a decade, and when a team like that hires a manager whose record is below .500, it means one of two things: they've found something everybody else missed, or they wanted someone who'd do what the front office says. In baseball, those are both considered strategies.
The Astros haven't made it official yet. They will. And then it'll be Ausmus's job, his second homecoming, his third managing gig and quite possibly his last, unless he wins, in which case he'll be a genius and everybody who doubted him will claim they were joking. Baseball, like a small town, has a short memory for failure and a long one for a grudge, and somehow it's always the same people keeping both.