The Mariners have a vacancy to fill after moving on from manager Dan Wilson. They could look to fill the position within the division. Seattle has received permission to meet with Astros manager Joe Espada, according to a report from Mark Feinsand, Daniel Kramer and Brian McTaggart of MLB.com.
Houston has yet to officially move on from Espada, but his contract will expire at the end of the month. Many around the game expect Houston to be looking for a new skipper. The Astros fired general manager Dana Brown in August, although Espada remained in his position for the rest of the year. Houston won the AL West on the final day of the season. The club was quickly eliminated by the White Sox in the Wild Card round.
Owner Jim Crane isn’t afraid to make drastic personnel changes; he offered former general manager James Click a one-year extension just after his club won the 2022 World Series, which Click rejected. Chandler Rome of The Athletic writes that although Espada said on September 30 that he expected to meet with Crane “in a day or two,” it remains unclear as of mid-October whether that meeting actually took place.
A second-round draft pick by the Athletics in 1996, Espada had a nine-year minor league career as an infielder before retiring in the mid-2000s and moving to the coaching side. He served as a minor league hitting coach and minor league fielding coordinator with the Marlins before being named a major league third base coach. He has since held a special advisor position within the Yankees front office and spent six years as a bench coach in Houston, working and learning under renowned managers AJ Hinch and Dusty Baker before being elevated to the manager’s seat himself upon Baker’s retirement in 2023.
Under Espada, the Astros are 256-229. Houston collected 88 wins and won the American League West in 2024, Espada’s first year on the job, before being quickly ousted by former Espada skipper AJ Hinch and his new Tigers. The ‘Stros narrowly missed the playoffs in 2025 and only sneaked in by default this season, winning an average AL West with a .500 record — the worst record we’ve ever seen in a playoff run in Major League Baseball.
The recent misses can’t really be attributed to Espada alone. Houston’s vaunted core that fueled the team’s streak of seven consecutive ALCS appearances has aged and/or left for other clubs. Alex Bregman signed elsewhere twice in free agency. José AltuveProduction declined significantly in the mid-30s. Justin Verlander And Framber Valdez were Tigers in 2026, with the former retiring at the end of the season. Kyle Tucker was traded to the Cubs because Crane’s aversion to long-term extensions gave them little hope of re-signing him. He landed with the Dodgers in free agency. The Astros still have a few stars (Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Pena, Brown Hunter, Josh Hader), but the pitching staff has been tinkered with in recent years amid a myriad of injuries and mounting salary constraints, as Crane generally prefers to avoid paying the luxury tax.
That’s not to say Espada is blameless, of course, but the Astros’ recent downfall isn’t going to taint the reputation he built in the two decades since he retired as a player. If not the Mariners, Espada should draw interest from other clubs if Crane does indeed decide it’s time to have a new voice in the dugout. There is only one other team currently looking for a new manager (Phillies), but clubs looking for an experienced bench coach or another voice in player development or the front office could all look to bring in Espada, who would be an obvious managerial candidate in the coming offseasons even if he isn’t hired elsewhere in the coming weeks.
As for the Mariners themselves, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said previous management experience is preferable for him, but not required when looking for a new captain. Wilson was hired without prior management experience, much like his predecessor Scott Servais. They are the only two managers who have worked under Dipoto since the Mariners hired him late in the 2015 season. Manny Acta has been around as third base coach and bench coach since 2016, giving Servais and Wilson a former big league skipper to lean on, but Acta was also released alongside coaches Perry Hill (infield), Kevin Seitzer (hitting) and Eric Young Jr. (first base) following Seattle’s disappointing 2026 campaign.
This housecleaning has apparently set the stage for an experienced skipper to take the reins and appoint several key members of the new staff. Pitching coach Pete Woodworth, bullpen coach Austin Nolaassistant pitching coach Danny Farquhardirector of pitching strategy Trent Blank and senior director of hitting strategy Edgar Martinez are all still in place, but the staff will need several new faces in 2027.
Gn sports
