00:04All right, John Lopez, you're the journalism man.
00:07How do we attribute this?
00:08Because this is being officially, like, very solidly reported by Brian McTaggart of MLB.com,
00:17but this was originally reported by John Granato, that Brad Ausmus, the longtime catcher and
00:22former Major League manager, who has spent the last three years as the Yankees bench
00:26coach, is flying to Houston and is expected, and rather is doing that in anticipation of
00:32being named the next manager of your Houston Astros.
00:35That was confirmed by MLB.com from a source earlier, just, I mean, can't have been too
00:41long ago today.
00:43And so 713-572-4610, how do you feel about the idea that Brad Ausmus is the next manager
00:49of the Astros?
00:50All right, so I can tell you how most people feel.
00:53You can speak for others?
00:55You know, generally you can't, but I think you and Figgy and me and most people listening
01:01have a certain sense of how the community at the Astros, community at large, might feel
01:07about this.
01:09And I think it's fair-ish.
01:12I think it's fair-ish.
01:14The feelings, and let's be explicit with it.
01:16This is a rep Jeff Bagwell, you know, sort of joint here.
01:19Correct.
01:19You know, and...
01:20And the reason why this is viewed as that is why, right?
01:23They're really, really good friends.
01:24Like, best friends.
01:26To the point, I mean, you know, that's the era of baseball when I was in the clubhouses
01:30on a regular basis.
01:32And I know these guys both.
01:34And I can tell you they're really good friends.
01:36Oh, by the way, we no longer have to do any of this sourcing.
01:38The Astros have announced Brad Ausmus.
01:40Oh, okay.
01:42I was like, well, we just got that now so I can officially say it.
01:45The Astros are saying it as well.
01:46Yeah, so I get that.
01:49And the reason I said it's fair-ish is because it does smack of, you know, who's really calling
01:56the shots here.
01:58Because if you look at Flores, Flo, as he likes to call himself, you know, his background is
02:04St. Louis Cardinals, you know, a bunch of different places.
02:08This absolutely smacks of kind of a nepotism, you know, type thing, although not literally
02:15nepotism with Brad Ausmus.
02:18But at the same time, you do have to realize he probably has is the most qualified of the
02:25candidates that have been mentioned.
02:27As far as experience.
02:29At the major league level.
02:31Multiple times.
02:32Multiple places.
02:34So, it might be a combination, and we'll never know, but it might be a combination of,
02:38hey, man, have you thought about Brad Ausmus?
02:41You know, let's say I'm playing the role of Jeff Bagwell there or Jim Crane or whomever.
02:46And then it becomes like, yeah, you know, like, yeah, I do like that.
02:50I do like that hire.
02:51But it does smack of certainly some in-house, you know, favoritism.
02:55I'm glad you talked about the relationships, but we don't even have to go that far.
02:58Just the timeline.
02:59Robert Flores, flow as he likes to be called as you mentioned, had not been hired before
03:03we had already heard of Brad Ausmus being in the building in some, I guess you could
03:08probably theorize that he was being interviewed to this end, right?
03:12Like, that fully takes away the supposed full autonomy that Robert Flores has in this role
03:18because he did not initiate this as a look.
03:21And so, it very much leans into the, hey, take a look at this guy.
03:25And there's two ways you can look at that.
03:26That could be an earnest, hey, we think this is a good idea.
03:28I'm putting this on your desk.
03:29Or this could be the wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
03:31Take a look at this guy or else.
03:33Yeah.
03:33Right?
03:33I think both of those things are fair.
03:35And when you look at the context under which the Astros have moved recently with the stories
03:40that we've gotten afterwards, after Dana Brown's tenure, really at the end of Dana Brown's tenure,
03:45that the stories that even Dusty Baker has told us from near the end of his tenure, this does
03:50not feel like a difference in the way that they operate.
03:53And that's the scary part is it feels like whether or not Brad Ausmus can be good at this.
03:58Like, it feels like this points to a potential meddling that could, again, undercut the capabilities
04:04of what this organization should be able to do.
04:06And I'm glad you mentioned that because I think it would bother me more if I was Flores,
04:12if I was the general manager, is not so much, okay, this is the guy you want.
04:18I like him too.
04:19I know you've already interviewed for him.
04:21Let's do it.
04:21It's not so much that.
04:23Keep in mind, and this is not a small thing, Brad Ausmus also interviewed for the general manager job.
04:30He interviewed for the manager job and the general manager's job.
04:34So what are these moves going to really look like in terms of who's calling the shots?
04:39Because here's a guy who clearly felt, and the Astros felt enough to interview him,
04:44that he could be the decision maker in terms of the groceries and personnel and such.
04:51So that would bother me more.
04:53Like, this is a guy that interviewed for the general manager's job.
04:56Wait a minute.
04:56I'm the general manager.
04:57Yeah.
04:57You know, so is he going to have the say when it comes to lineup?
05:01You know, the general manager in some organizations, including this one, in the past,
05:07has kind of dictated the lineup.
05:09The general manager occasionally can dictate, which he would do as a manager too, of course,
05:13has dictated personnel moves, who stays, who goes, staff, all these things.
05:19That would be the bigger issue for me if I were Flores.
05:22A great point.
05:22And then we can also get to brass tacks.
05:24I got five numbers for you.
05:26You ready?
05:2790, 74, 86, 64, 72.
05:33Those are his win.
05:33Those are the win totals of the five years that he has been a manager in the majors.
05:38And as you notice, there's a 72, a 64, and a 74.
05:41Yeah, he's got a 440-something win percent.
05:42444, exactly.
05:44Or no, 478 total.
05:45But 444 was the LA, was the Angels tenure.
05:49Which I had completely forgotten that 2019 season that he had managed the Angels.
05:52And again, how good your team is as a manager is not all just on how good you are as
05:59a manager.
06:00But I do think that does raise questions of just how good of a manager are you putting in this
06:04role
06:05in this very pivotal transitional time that you have.
06:08Especially when, and I thought this, I was only served to be emboldened when Jeremy Booth
06:14kind of tweeted about this recently.
06:16I thought that when Morgan Innsberg popped up, I was like, oh, this feels like a guy
06:19that hits the intersections of all the things you're dealing with right now,
06:21who obviously does not have the major league managerial experience.
06:26But he also has like the, I can pull as a former player.
06:29I can pull as a relationship with the Astros.
06:31I can pull my analytics perspective.
06:33And I can pull like dealing with the AAA level, which it feels like you have had to,
06:37and you probably will continue to have to deal with some players that are a little bit less experienced
06:41than a, hey, I'm dealing with a fully major league roster and we're just going out trying
06:46to win baseball games.
06:47Yeah, I think you're right.
06:48I think that could be the case.
06:50But of course, he's not the manager.
06:51So how much time should we even spend talking about that?
06:53Right.
06:53All right.
06:54And now let's talk about the, let's just not totally trash this.
06:58And I've been very careful not to.
06:59I just think that there are questions that the general manager should have that fans deservedly
07:05should have and understandably should have because this smacks of the thing that we kind of feared,
07:10right, that the hierarchy was not going to change.
07:13But let's talk about Brad Ausmus himself, a guy that I actually got to know pretty dang well
07:20back in the day.
07:20Anyway, his acumen for the feel of a ball game is top notch.
07:27Because he was a catcher.
07:27It's worth noting, right?
07:29They have, of any position on the diamond, for anybody that might not be initiated,
07:33I feel like I'm mansplaining at this point, like they have most, the most intensive job
07:39and the most, the job where you have to know the most about what's happening on the diamond
07:42than anyone else that is playing.
07:44His feel for the game, pitching especially for obvious reasons,
07:51is truly, truly top notch.
07:53Easy to talk to.
07:56He's certainly a guy that can be opinionated but understands and will listen to other voices.
08:02He is, I think, I'll put it this way, I think his floor is pretty high.
08:07I just don't know how high his ceiling is.
08:10I think his floor is higher than most of these candidates and is at a good level.
08:15I just don't know how high his ceiling is because the record speaks for itself.
08:18Yeah.
08:19Now, again, Flo, Randy Flores, the general manager, like, again, this hire seems to undercut
08:25what we've heard from him.
08:26But I did want to hear from him because he's at the general manager meetings as we speak.
08:30And he talked to MLB Network.
08:31He was asked about what surprised him about the job and the roster and learning about the
08:35organization.
08:36And I found this to be an interesting perspective.
08:38Look, everyone talks about drinking through a fire hose.
08:40Look, a manager search or hiring searchers are people intensive.
08:43There's one part of roster construction and in team building that is, you know, that is
08:47pensive.
08:48It's studying.
08:48It's getting spreadsheets and projections and values.
08:51But when you're looking to hire, it's people intensive.
08:54And there are feedback loops and then meetings within that.
08:56And so a lot of the time has been spent doing that.
08:59I'm looking forward, as I said in my press conference, to getting that first order of
09:03business over so that then we can move on to the other markers of our calendar in a rapidly
09:07accelerating pace.
09:08It's people intensive.
09:10Like, so it feels like that is a little window into the way that maybe a little bit of how
09:14they, how they looked at this.
09:15And maybe it's the people portion of this that they felt was the most important.
09:18Do you feel like that matches with what you know of Brad Ausmus?
09:21A hundred percent.
09:22I think he's, he's certainly willing to, to listen to all sides.
09:25I think it just ultimately like comes down to who's making the final call here because
09:29that we talk about that with the Texans, you know, the Rockets, but I think especially
09:35with the Astros, we've talked about it for years now.
09:37Now who's really making the call here.
09:39If you're going to be concerned at all about the Brad Ausmus hire, I would say that question
09:44still stands.
09:45We really truly won't know.
09:47Hey, Randy Flores is making the calls here.
09:49He's got his hands on the dials, right?
09:51I don't think we can say that here.
09:53That would be the one big, big sort of, uh, Oh, they're doing that again.
09:58Kind of thing.
09:58There was one text that came in that, that kind of piqued my interest.
10:01They said that it feels like we are in the Jack Easterby era, like the lovey hire.
10:05Does that, does that resonate at all for you?
10:07Or does that feel off?
10:09A little bit, a little bit.
10:12And I know it doesn't sound great, but, uh, qualified high floor, certainly a good soldier,
10:18good communicator.
10:18The one thing that, and we talked about this a little bit off, uh, off air before we came
10:22on, on, on this segment, managers just inherently have to be leaders of men.
10:29Once it comes down to game time and the season, I think Brad Ausmus is a good leader of men.
10:34I think they, you know, he will, he's good at collaborating the, the, the clubhouse and,
10:39and, and leading the clubhouse.
10:41I don't know how many wins that's going to translate to, but I think he's good at that.
10:45Yeah, but I mean, Randy Flores, flow has, has a big job ahead of him because no matter
10:49what, uh, Brad Ausmus is a manager and you got to get this roster together.
10:53I don't know how many managers are going to do a good job if you just don't have an
10:55outfield or so on and so forth.
10:57So, uh, obviously a lot more work to be done until December 1st, uh, when it comes to the
11:02Astros, but they do have a manager in his name is Brad Ausmus.
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