Mutual parting or not, Dana Brown’s tenure with the Houston Astros came to an end last week. The Astros announced the decision after the team won just three games during a nine-game homestand against sub-.500 teams such as the Athletics, Mariners, and Angels. A week after his tenure in Houston came to an end, Brown spoke about the World Series expectations that had been hanging over him.

Jim Crane hired Brown as the Astros’ third general manager in the last 10 years. He came in after the Astros opted not to renew James Click’s contract, despite the team reaching the World Series in 2021 and winning the title in 2022. Brown then walked into a team that was already succeeding but had several key players approaching free agency. Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker, and Framber Valdez would all eventually leave the Astros for more lucrative contracts. The pressure to continue leading the team to success was tremendous, and division titles alone were not going to cut it for a team that had already won a World Series.

“Jim Crane is a very successful owner, and he has very high standards,” Dana Brown said on MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM. “The Houston Astros go into camp every year, and it’s not all about winning the division; it’s about getting to the World Series. If you get to the CS, that’s good, but the World Series is the benchmark at the end of the day, and it’s just not the standard of winning a division. I mean, it’s high expectations, and he’s a very successful owner.”

Brown has served as the Astros’ GM for more than three years now. Under him, the Astros went 330-285 with two division titles. He surely had success, but not enough for Crane to keep him.

Jim Crane hired Brown as the Astros’ general manager on January 26, 2023, on a multi-year deal. His contract was set to expire at the end of this season. However, the Astros parted ways with him before his contract expired, and Brown knew it was coming. Furthermore, signing Tatsuya Imai (5.32 ERA) and acquiring Mike Burrows (5.99 ERA) did little to help his case.

“The thing that keeps me up at night is, I knew at some point, with all of the success that they were having, there was going to be this movement from that huge success, going to the World Series four times,” he added. “And when I took over, there was this transition that this team was pretty much going back to being competitive because you were experiencing things like losing free agents.

“When you have that much success and that much of a run, you got players that are aging, and then you mixed in a few bad contracts. And so things were starting to shift a little bit. But the high demand of winning and getting to the World Series- it’s real here. That’s what it’s all about.”

Brown parted ways with the organization a day after the Astros blew a 6-0 lead against the Athletics. The disappointing homestand briefly cost them their top spot in the AL West. However, Crane has dismissed any claims that the losses were the reason behind Brown’s release. With a 69-68 record, the Astros are once again atop the AL West and will face the Chicago White Sox next.