Astros manager Joe Espada and GM Dana Brown are entering the final seasons of their respective contracts. It\u2019ll be Espada\u2019s third season in the role and Brown\u2019s fourth year running baseball operations.<\/p>\n
Many clubs prefer not to have their manager and front office heads on lame duck contracts. Astros owner Jim Crane has been more willing to do that than most of his counterparts, and it appears that both Brown and Espada may need to work on expiring deals in 2026. Crane said on Monday morning that there had been no extension conversations with either the GM or skipper, nor did the owner seem interested in doing that this offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ll go through this year like we always do, evaluate it and then make the decision at the end of the year,\u201d Crane said (link via Matt Kawahara of The Houston Chronicle<\/a>). \u201cWe won\u2019t probably do any extensions now. But I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s impossible. We haven\u2019t talked about it yet. We\u2019ve been focused on getting what we need to compete this next year.\u201d<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t necessarily indicate any kind of dissatisfaction on Crane\u2019s part with the team\u2019s direction. Dusty Baker managed the Astros on a series of one-year contracts before retiring after the 2023 season. Houston also allowed former GM James Click to work through the end of his contract in \u201922. That was driven partially by personal discord between Click and Crane that led the Astros to move on from him even though the team won the World Series. There\u2019s no suggestion of such issue between Crane and his current staff.<\/p>\n The Astros narrowly missed the playoffs last season, snapping an eight-year run of postseason appearances in the process. Their 87-75 record was only marginally worse than the 88-win showing that was enough to claim an AL West title one year earlier. Houston was in control of the division at the All-Star Break last year, but they played at a slightly below-.500 pace in the final three months of the season. That was enough to not only drop behind the Mariners but also fall back of the Guardians, who rode a September hot streak into an improbable playoff berth to bump Houston from the field.<\/p>\n Houston\u2019s focus this winter has been on the rotation with\u00a0Framber Valdez<\/a> hitting free agency. They\u2019ve added\u00a0Mike Burrows<\/a> and\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a> as mid-rotation arms behind ace\u00a0Hunter Brown<\/a>. The roster is probably close to what they\u2019ll have on Opening Day, but they\u2019re looking for a backup catching upgrade behind Yainer Diaz<\/a> and could try to land a better left-handed hitting outfielder than Jes\u00fas S\u00e1nchez<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astros manager Joe Espada and GM Dana Brown are entering the final seasons of their respective contracts. It\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,166059,44900,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-391635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dana-brown","11":"tag-joe-espada","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}