Apparently, Houston couldn’t even wait for the season to end before starting the cleanup. Dana Brown is already gone, and Joe Espada’s future is suddenly hanging by a thread. After an ugly weekend collapse that saw the Astros cough up a six-run lead, patience at the top finally ran out.

“The Houston Astros will be parting ways with manager Joe Espada after the season,” According to 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 kept him for the final year of his contract and gave him another shot. The season quickly went sideways with a 20-31 start, yet Espada managed to drag Houston back into the AL West race and, by late August, had the club tied for first at 65-66. That recovery did not exactly buy him security.

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 were calling it a mutual parting, but there was nothing particularly mutual about the timing. Jim Crane had clearly lost patience.

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 ended up getting 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, he spent most of his time in relief, 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.

Espada 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.

Joe Espada and his boys still managed to turn things around and are now tied for first place in the AL West with a 65-66 record. Espada was already living on borrowed time after Houston missed the postseason last year.

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.

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

Houston has started reshuffling the front office as well. 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.

And 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.

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.

So instead of naming an interim GM, Crane has split Brown’s responsibilities among three executives with different strengths, with Jeff Bagwell also involved and Crane keeping control of baseball operations. And with Espada reportedly set to follow Brown out after the season, Houston’s shake-up may only be getting started.