Is Dana Brown Gaining Influence?

Jim Crane was not present when the Astros hired Joe Espada. It's an encouraging, though not definitive, sign that the team's best baseball decision makers will be in charge of baseball decisions.

Last Sunday, in writing a story on the challenges that Joe Espada would face moving one seat over in the dugout, Chandler Rome provided a fascinating and potentially important detail “[T]he team announced Brown — and Brown alone — is scheduled to “host” Monday’s…news conference” introducing Espada as manager.

This was surprising. At the team’s previous news conference—announcing the retirement of Dusty Baker, owner Jim Crane said “we’ll work on it quickly. And Dana and I will do the work, and hopefully, we can find someone….But we’ll have a fluid search and work as fast as we can to get somebody in place.”

Emphasis on Dana and I.

This seemed to confirm what had been written already by Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, who wrote that “Dana Brown,…will have a say in who’s in the manager’s chair, but owner Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell, the team’s senior advisor to ownership and baseball operations, will oversee finding the next Astros skipper.”

Rome also saw a similar dynamic to the manager search that when he wrote “Bagwell and Crane will have immense say in the managerial search alongside Brown.”

In short, it looked to the team’s closest observers that Jim Crane would choose his new manager with input from his general manager, but also from others who had his ear like Bagwell.

Also, it seemed that the managerial search would look like the 2022 season, in which Crane delayed hiring a replacement for the general manager he himself ran off until late January so that he could run the Astros off-season. And then during the season, it was clear that Crane was still the dominant figure in baseball operations. I had written that the trade for Justin Verlander “goes on Crane’s ledger, not Browns.” It was clear, Rome has written, that “anyone who watched the team’s trade deadline understands Crane engineered the deal for Justin Verlander.”

And during the season itself, Brown had on multiple occasions used the media to make playing time suggestions to Baker—a sure sign that someone was not persuasive in private discussions. Brown had on several occasions noted that the final decision on who to put in the lineup rested with Baker.

Brown’s Choice

Thus, the fact that Brown was hosting the news conference introducing Espada without Crane being present was significant. It gave the impression that Brown had gained significant power in the Astros front office—the decision to hire Espada appeared to be his and his alone.

In the news conference, Brown thanked Jim Crane for “allowing me to lead the charge” in selecting Baker’s replacement. Rome noted that this signaled “a departure from Crane’s heavy-handed influence in baseball operations decisions over the past 13 months” and that Brown might have “the sort of autonomy not seen since before James Click’s departure.”

At the Houston Chronicle, Matt Kawahara noted the that choice of Espada “indicates Brown valued continuity” and how the hire met with Brown’s stated goal that his manager “would fit with the existing ‘environment’ rather than alter it.”

In the news conference, Dana Brown said that over the 2023 season he “would talk to [Espada] and shoot questions at him. I was interviewing him before he knew I was interviewing him.” Brown sounded like someone who knew this his choice to make for a while now.

Rome believed that Brown saw somewhat of himself in Espada—both have interviewed multiple times for their dream job but didn’t get it—and their “shared experience makes it easy to understand their immediate connection.”

Jim Crane has not made a public statement—either in an interview or a prepared statement—about Espada’s hire.

The news conference announcing Joe Espada’s hiring as Astros manager featured GM Dana Brown, but not owner Jim Crane. It’s a sign that Brown’s influence on baseball decisions is growing.

In short, all of the evidence we have is that Espada is Brown’s choice for the job. It comes with another sign that Brown is gaining influence within the Astros front office. On October 9, Rome reported that the “Astros have parted ways with assistant general manager Bill Firkus and farm director Sara Goodrum.” They later announced that long time Astros scout and front office member Gavin Dickey had been promoted to both of those roles.

Firkus had been promoted to assistant general manager by Crane after he let Click go in November 2022 and fired assistant general manager Scott Powers. That Brown was able to “part ways” with one of Crane’s choices for AGM and bring in his own person is another sign that Brown has more influence in the front office than previously indicated.

Still a Spokes-on-the-Wheel Model

It still seems that even as Brown has gained some power this offseason, he still has less power than Jeff Luhnow had throughout his term as general manager, or that James Click had at the beginning of his time as GM. Bagwell has moved from an informal adviser to one with a title in the front office.

Brown himself said that the team has “very little financial flexibility” this offseason. And the decision on how much to spend on players is set by ownership for the Astros (as it is for every MLB team). The Astros seem likely to minimize the amount of luxury tax they pay and thus, to increase the profits that flow into Crane’s pockets. That is Crane’s choice.

But no owner is powerless, and no GM lacks constraints. These will always exist. But in his first nine months on the job, Dana Brown has seemed to work with less power and more constraints than any of his colleagues.

When Crane hired Brown, I wrote that “it is still unclear how autonomous Brown will be as GM” and that Brown would be “a spoke on the wheel in the Astros decision making” and would have to work together with "Crane, who wants more influence” and Bagwell.

In general I think that is still the case. Brown seems to have more influence that we thought a month ago. Crane is allowing a perception that Espada is Brown’s choice and Brown’s choice alone.¹ It is possible that Brown’s power will hinge on Espada’s success in the job. But in many ways, that would always be the case. Espada’s success is tied to the team’s win-loss record, as is Brown’s, regardless of who the manager is.

And Crane may prefer to choose players and not managers, leaving this job to Brown but taking the reins when it comes to free agent acquisitions this offseason. Crane may have also just wanted to avoid the media—he is particularly poor at public relations and has a frosty at best relationship with the media.

So it is worth taking Brown’s seeming increase in power with a grain of salt. It may be limited or illusory. But I for one hope it is real. In my article “Jim Crane’s Bad Year,” I wrote that Crane making himself the “indispensable man” in Astros baseball operations was “baffling” because “Crane knows less about baseball decisions than any other head of baseball operations.” Nearly every other major league teams rely on “a seasoned baseball executive who knows more about baseball than Crane.” I noted that Crane had one of those “seasoned baseball men” in Brown.

Running a baseball team is difficult work even for the most acclaimed baseball executives. The best hope for the Astros future is that their best baseball man—Dana Brown—is empowered to make the decisions he and the other full-time baseball people in the Astros front office think best.

The hire of Joe Espada is an encouraging sign in that direction.

1. Obviously, as owner, Crane could have vetoed Espada’s hire. That he didn’t is meaningful, but that power still exists.