“Nothing owner Jim Crane does is a surprise,” noted Ken Rosenthal during an interview with FOX. 2022. The Houston Astros won the World Series, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies. And just six days later, the front office let go of its successful general manager James Click, the last year of his contract, and hired Dana Brown, whose contract was about to expire this season. Now, all this feels eerily similar, as the team was atop the AL West. But their 6-3 homestand performance against three sub-.500 AL West teams, and blowing a 6-0 lead against the Athletics may have triggered things a bit for the owner.

After the Texas Rangers’ win against the Chicago White Sox on Monday night, the Astros are now ranked second in their division, that too, at .496 pct. With that, Joe Espada’s future, too, is hanging by a thread.

“The Houston Astros will be parting ways with manager Joe Espada after the season,” Punchoutpitch updated the report by USA TODAY Major League Baseball columnist Bob Nightengale.

“Manager Joe Espada was informed by a high-ranking Astros official that he will not receive a new contract after the season, and he was given the choice of staying with the team through the duration of the season or departing now. He has elected to stay with the Astros.”

Joe Espada’s situation has been far messier.

He entered 2026 already under pressure after Houston missed the playoffs in 2025, but the Astros gave him another shot. The season quickly went sideways with a 20-31 start, yet Espada dragged Houston back into the AL West race and, by late August, had the club tied for first at 65-66, now second. But that recovery did not exactly buy him security.

Reportedly, the manager was given an option to leave immediately or stay till the end of the season. Espada chose the latter. Crane will later take the call on how to move ahead. Another matter may have triggered this situation.

On Sunday, Joe Espada was not present in the dugout when his team lost against the A’s due to a family emergency.

But Dana Brown did not even make it to September.

The Astros told him Sunday night that they were done, just hours after Houston somehow turned a 6-0 lead over the lowly Athletics into a 7-6 loss.

By Monday morning, both sides called it a mutual parting, but by the looks of it all, this may not be as straightforward.

Not only did the front office have any plan to extend Brown’s contract after this season, but the performance, too, wasn’t first-position like. But then again, the front office barely paid heed to what Brown asked for.

Right after joining Houston, he wanted to extend the contracts of Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. But A-Breg left for the Boston Red Sox in 2024, while Tucker was traded to the Chicago Cubs in 2025. And then came this season’s Trade Deadline.

The former GM wanted to add another outfield bat and a starting pitcher. But there was just one addition – the Toronto Blue Jays’ center fielder Daulton Varsho.

So, the timing ultimately may not be that mutual.

Brown packed up for New Jersey while the Astros were still tied for first in the AL West, which says plenty about how badly Houston viewed the bigger picture.

If you look at where it all went wrong, the blame cuts both ways. Brown built the rotation, Espada had to squeeze results out of it, and by August the Astros were still scrambling for answers. Houston did not get what it paid for from the front office, and it did not get enough on the field either.

• Tatsuya Imai: Houston handed Imai $54 million over three years, and the return was ugly. He made just three starts before hitting the IL, posted a 7.27 ERA, was still sitting at 5.83 through July, and eventually pitched his way out of the rotation and into the bullpen.
• Mike Burrows: Brown talked him up like a major piece of Houston’s rotation, and the Astros even opened the season with him as their No. 2 starter. Instead, Burrows delivered a 5.99 ERA, surrendered 21 home runs in 94⅔ innings, and was sent down in July. That is a brutal miss for someone expected to stabilize the staff.
• Kai-Wei Teng: Teng was supposed to be another answer for Houston’s rotation. Instead, his nine starts produced a 5.49 ERA, and the Astros eventually decided he was more useful back in the bullpen. He was not the worst of Brown’s additions, but he certainly was not the rotation solution Houston needed.
• Ryan Weiss: Houston gave Weiss roughly $2.6 million, believing he could help fill out the rotation. What they got was a 7.62 ERA in nine appearances, two short-lived starts and an eventual designation for assignment.
• Nate Pearson: Pearson arrived with hopes that Houston might finally unlock him as a starter. Instead, elbow soreness disrupted that plan, and he spent most of his time in relief. He had walked 12 batters in just 20 innings and was shipped to Kansas City before the season was even over. Another experiment that never became what Brown envisioned.
• Roddery Muñoz: Muñoz barely made it out of April. The Rule 5 addition walked six batters and allowed three home runs in four innings, then was designated for assignment roughly two weeks into the season. Of all six additions, this one unraveled almost immediately.

Coming back to Espada, he was 240-214 as Houston’s manager, but the record only tells part of the story.

He won the AL West in 2024, then watched the Astros get bounced in the Wild Card Series, and a year later Houston missed October altogether for the first time since 2016.

That slide forced a top-to-bottom organizational review after the 2025 season, and while Espada survived it, he entered 2026 with almost no margin for error.

Injuries to key players such as Jake Meyers and Cristian Javier made the situation worse, but by that point, patience around the organization was already running thin.

Ken Rosenthal pushed back on making him the lone scapegoat, but that did not erase the reality that the Astros had fallen short under his watch. Houston kept him, but it felt less like a vote of confidence and more like one final audition.

After years when October baseball felt automatic, Espada entered 2026 knowing another miss could make him the next name crossed off the list. Espada’s departure signals the Astros’ willingness to rebuild after missing the playoffs twice in three years — a dramatic shift for a franchise that won 100+ games annually.

Now that Espada is believed to be out after the season, Brown is already gone, and Crane has split his duties rather than naming one clear successor.

Astros split Brown’s duties instead of naming an interim GM

The Astros have divided Brown’s duties among their three assistant GMs.

“Brown’s responsibilities will be transitioned to the Astros Assistant General Managers, Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey and Connor Huff, and to Senior Advisor Jeff Bagwell,” the team said in a statement.

Owner Jim Crane will oversee the baseball operations for the time being. 

Houston is not handing Dana Brown’s job to one person, and that looks intentional.

Charles Cook is the most experienced of the three assistant GMs in the role, now in his fourth season after working across player evaluation, amateur scouting analysis, and baseball operations. He has also been here before.

When James Click left after the 2022 World Series, Cook was part of the assistant-GM group that ran baseball operations while Jim Crane searched for a replacement.

Gavin Dickey brings a different résumé.

He has been with Houston since 2011, worked his way from area scout to national crosschecker and special assistant, and was promoted to assistant GM in 2023. His current responsibilities include player development, player personnel, Minor League operations, and advanced scouting, essentially giving him a major hand in Houston’s talent pipeline. With that, there’s experimentation, too.

Connor Huff is the newcomer to the group, entering his first season as assistant GM in 2026 after serving as vice president of business and baseball operations, where his work centered on strategic and analytics projects.

Crane has split Brown’s responsibilities among three executives with different strengths, with Jeff Bagwell also involved and Crane keeping control of baseball operations. Per Nightengale,

“It’s possible that they could turn to Bagwell if he shows strong interest in the job [of GM], with [Charles] Cook expected to get a strong look as someone who’s highly regarded by the organization,” because Bagwell has been a senior advisor and also a Hall of Fame first baseman.

That makes sense even for this season.

Houston has strong teams to face in the coming weeks – New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago White Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, and Atlanta Braves. Keeping that in mind, with Espada reportedly set to follow Brown out after the season, Houston’s shake-up may only be getting started.