Astros Name Dana Brown General Manager

The Astros have hired Braves vice president of scouting Dana Brown as their new general manager, the team announced Thursday. He replaces James Crick, who held the position until the 2020-22 season.

“We are thrilled to have Dana join our organization,” Astros owner Jim Crane said in a press release today. “He brings championship experience to our team and is perfect to continue delivering a winning franchise on and off the field. We welcome Dana and his family to the Astros family.”

Brown has served as the Braves’ vice president of scouting for the past four seasons, overseeing drafts that have won Braves talent such as spencer strider, Michael Harris, Vaughan Grissom, Shay Langeliers When Bryce ElderBefore being hired by Atlanta in 2019, he served nine years as a special assistant in the Blue Jays’ front office, spending a good portion of that tenure with current Braves president of baseball operations (and former Toronto general manager) Alex Anthopoulos. Brown spent the previous nine seasons as director of scouting for the Expos/Nationals and eight years in the ’90s as area supervisor and cross-checker for the Pirates’ scouting division.

Even six months ago, the idea that the Astros would need to hire a new general manager would have come as a surprise. There were reports of growing tensions between Crane and Crick towards the end of the 2022 season, but a win tends to settle everything, and the Astros have not only had a stellar postseason run, but they’ve also played the last six seasons. won his second World Series title. Just three years after joining the company.

But while 73-year-old skipper Dusty Baker was happy with the one-year extension despite having just won the championship, Crick understandably wanted to keep the original three-year run. As the deal neared its end, it asked for a multi-year offer. Crane presented what was widely seen as a one-year extension offer for the token — for comparison, Crick’s World Series counterpart Dave Dombrowski extended to 2027 by Phillies — Crick outright refused. Fired Scott Powers.

The Astros have operated without a general manager throughout the offseason. Crane personally played a major role in the running of baseball, negotiating his three-year, $34.5 million deal for Rafael Montero’s return to the club and Jose Abreu’s three-year, $58.5 million deal. bottom. Assistant GMs Bill Firkas, Andrew Ball and Charles Cook all retain near-top roles in the hierarchy, and former Astros star and current front office advisor Jeff Bagwell also joins the team’s ranks. It is said that he influenced the decision of baseball management.

Brown will now serve as head of baseball operations for the Astros, ostensibly making the team’s roster decisions entirely autonomous. Reports show Crane was more involved than most owners even before Crick left — he scrapped a deadline trade to send Jose Urquidi to the Cubs for Wilson Contreras. — and time will tell if he has a more hands-off approach with his newly created general manager.

Brown’s appointment as general manager marks at least some of the philosophical shifts from the recent regime. Jeff Luhnow, the former president of baseball operations, who was fired in the wake of the 2017 trash can scandal, is a modern baseball front. He was one of the first to bring an analytics revolution to the office. The clicks, on the other hand, came from Raise organizations, which are also data-driven. He served as vice president of baseball operations and, according to the Rays (at the time of his hiring in Houston), was “focused on baseball research and development.” and responsible for such things as the “baseball system”.

It’s not that neither Luhnow nor Click had scouting acumen. It’s not that Brown is unfamiliar (to varying degrees) with many of the data-oriented principles that guide the modern front office. Nevertheless, Brown’s background is rooted in a more traditional type of player evaluation. The Astros under Luhnow have moved away from in-person scouting and put more emphasis on video-his scouting. It was already starting to change under the click.

Just as it remains to be seen if Crane’s more hands-on approach will change with Brown as GM chairman, it remains to be seen if the Astros will shift to a more scout-heavy focus, or at least a more balanced view across the data. It’s impossible to say whether or not we’ll move to a blended blend. Base and Scout Base Ratings. I have no doubt that Brown and Crane will talk about this in the near future. The Astros held a press conference at 2 p.m. to formally introduce their new general manager.

FOX 26’s Mark Berman first reported that Brown would be Houston’s new GM (twitter link).

Photo courtesy of the Houston Astros.