A deeper look into Astros' hiring of Ausmus as manager

HOUSTON – When Brad Ausmus left Daikin Park on Oct. 29 following an interview for the club’s then-vacant general manager position, he didn’t have a good feeling about it. He told his wife, Liz, he didn’t think that he was going to get the job, and he was right. The Astros hired Randy Flores a day later, but Ausmus remained optimistic about applying for the role of manager, which had been discussed.

“At that point, I'm waiting, hoping that I get a call from him, because I don't know if I'm on his radar or not,” Ausmus said.

Flores called Ausmus a few days later and offered to travel to San Diego, where Ausmus lives, to meet with him. Things clicked over a four-hour lunch Saturday, and soon, Ausmus was offered the job to return to the Astros -- where he spent 10 of his 18 Major League seasons as a catcher. He was introduced to the media on Friday at Daikin Park, with former Houston teammates Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio sitting in the front row.

Several other former Houston teammates reached out to Ausmus, including Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt.

“Looking back on my career, if I picture myself, it's wearing an Astros uniform,” Ausmus said. “That being said, I'm not here to talk about the glory days. I'm here to talk about the Astros today, and the Astros going into 2027, which is now my main focus, and certainly the goal is to win the World Series.”

Before he decided to travel to San Diego to meet with Ausmus, Flores did his due diligence as Ausmus' vast experience includes five years as a manager with the Tigers and Angels and front-office stints with the Padres and Angels. Among those he spoke to was Yankees manager Aaron Boone, a teammate of Flores’ at USC.

“Although [Ausmus] and I never played together, there are people in our orbits who did play with him or work with him, both as a player, manager, and a bench coach,” Flores said. “So you lean on those people for candidates, and obviously, you know, what he meant historically here as a player.”

Ausmus, 57, had interviewed for the manager job and GM job previously in Houston and played with the Astros from 1997-98 and 2001-05, which included back-to-back NLCS battles against Flores’ Cardinals in ’04 and ’05. At the press conference Friday, Flores, a pitcher, asked Ausmus if he owned him as a player.

“I was 0-for-1 with a walk,” Ausmus said with a grin, “and that’s the truth.”

It’s clear Ausmus, a Dartmouth graduate, and Flores, who has a master’s degree from USC, have already formed a strong rapport that the Astros hope will vault them back among the American League’s elite clubs. Ausmus inherits a team with 2026 AL Most Valuable Player Yordan Alvarez, but Houston's roster must be improved in several areas this winter.

“Certainly having a roster that is headlined by Alvarez is a big plus,” Ausmus said.

Ausmus’ first task will be filling out his coaching staff, including a bench coach. Former big league manager Gene Lamont was Ausmus’ bench coach when he managed in Detroit, but Ausmus is much more experienced now and said the role of a manager is more collaborative than it was in 2019.

“The synergy between the front office, the general manager, the manager's office, the coaching staff, it's absolutely collaborative, mainly because there's so much information out there,” Ausmus said. “It's gotta be streamlined, it's gotta be properly utilized and it's got to be properly relayed.”

Ausmus took the job as special assistant with the Angels in 2018 to learn more about analytics, and he was among those who served as a liaison between the dugout and front office in his role as bench coach of the Yankees the last three seasons. He said understanding the analytical side of the game is the side of him that’s grown the most in the last decade.

“When I first started managing data, quantitative analysis was, I don't want to say in its infancy, but it was young,” he said. “And truthfully, part of the reason I became a special assistant in Anaheim was to start diving into that side of it. And since that time, my experiences with multiple organizations, whether it's Detroit, or Anaheim, or the San Diego Padres, or Oakland A’s or New York Yankees, have kind of grown my knowledge of the data side of the game, and I know a lot of times it's old school versus new school when it comes to data, but data is very valuable.”

While he embraces information in baseball, Ausmus admitted he missed the competition on the field and the camaraderie in the dugout. That’s what led him back to the manager chair for a third time.

“You have one common goal every night, and that's to win,” he said. “Those are the things that when you step away from the game, you kind of miss.”

Ausmus was asked what his message was to the fans who are skeptical about the hiring.

"We're going to go out there and we're going to win, we're going to do our work in Spring Training and hopefully get the most out of the players,” he said. “My goal is for any doubter, we bring them back in and make them full-time Astros fans again.”