Quick Thoughts On Astros Hiring Joe Espada

Houston has its next manager and it's an unsurprising name

The Houston Astros will have a new bench boss on Monday, as reports emerged that they hired bench coach Joe Espada as the 25th manager in team history.

Espada, 48, has spent the last seven years as Houston’s bench coach. Previously, he was a major league coach with the Marlins and Astros. He also served as a special assistant to the GM for the New York Yankees.

He was drafted by the Oakland As in 1996 and spent ten years in the minors, reaching Triple-A but never appearing in the majors as a player. He’s also coached the Puerto Rican national team twice in the World Baseball Classic and managed for a season in the Dominican Winter Leagues.

Last week at the GM Meetings, it was clear Astros general manager Dana Brown was very high on Espada. His quotes, via the Houston Chronicle:

“The guy’s been doing a heck of a job as the bench coach,” Brown said Tuesday. “And he’s run our spring training and done a lot of good things here. He’s got a good relationship with the players. And he’s been, of course, a candidate outside the organization.”

This choice makes sense for a few reasons.

Consistency

Houston is not a team in transition. It has a core of veteran players who have had success and know how to maintain the winning culture they’ve created in that clubhouse.

They don’t need someone to come in and change “The Astros Way.” They need someone who can capitalize on what they have.

From that perspective, Espada makes sense. Chandler Rome reported this week that Houston’s prominent players were lobbying for Espada behind the scenes. That lobbying appears to have won over Brown and owner Jim Crane.

It also means Houston has an excellent chance to keep most of its coaching staff intact. Espada has been working with most of these coaches for years, so that familiarity will be there. That also leads to players still having that familiarity, some from their time in the minors with coaches like Omar Lopez.

Lack of big names

The other reason Espada makes sense is there weren’t that many big names out there for Crane to make a splashy hire with. There isn’t a Bruce Bochy to lure out of retirement to try and win another ring. There’s no Dusty Baker to ask about when the team is in the haze of a scandal.

No, there wasn’t a splash to be made after Craig Counsell shockingly got hired by the Cubs (a team that didn’t even have a managerial opening). It is better to go with the known quantity rather than bring someone from the outside.

If there are any concerns about Espada, he hasn’t been a manager before. It sometimes takes a manager a year or two to understand how to run the locker room, finesse egos, and set lineups. Espada has seen it all from the bench for the last seven years, but things change in the big seat. Will he be able to adjust?

I’m confident he will be able to. He knows this team and this locker room already. He should be able to keep Houston’s success rolling. We will see who Espada can keep on staff and what changes he makes. At the minimum, Houston will have to hire a new bench coach.

It’s a good, solid first step for the offseason.