The Astros are looking for a new general manager are going to interview longtime Nationals GM Mike Rizzo on Monday, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Nightengale’s report also notes that Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine, a known candidate, has already interviewed for the position.
Rizzo is easily the most experienced of the candidates who have been publicly connected to the Houston job, which has been vacant since Dana Brown was let go earlier this year. Rizzo was a longtime scout who got the top job in Washington in 2009. The Nats were rebuilding at that time and built up a strong core of young talent led by Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg and many others. Washington emerged as a contender in 2012 and stayed that way for the rest of the decade, winning the World Series in 2019.
In hindsight, it’s now clear that the championship season in 2019 was the end of the club’s competitive window. They fell below .500 in 2020 and have been under that line since. Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Max Scherzer and many other players were traded away in an attempt to pivot to a new core. The initial results on that reset were poor, so Rizzo was fired last year. The Nats then hired Paul Toboni, who had been assistant GM with the Red Sox and was 35 years old at the time, to run the front office in Washington.
The current vacancy in Houston has been tied to Kleine, White Sox assistant general manager Josh Barfield, Cardinals assistant general manager Randy Flores, Royals senior vice president Scott Sharp and Braves assistant general manager Ben Sestanovich. The Astros granted interviews to two of their own assistant GMs, Charles Cook and Gavin Dickey.
Those candidates all have appeal but would be first-time front office leaders if hired. Rizzo not only has years of experience in the job but also has success. He built a Nationals club that posted a winning record for eight straight seasons. In the final of those eight, they won it all. In the World Series, they knocked off the Astros, the team he is now hoping to run.
There’s another side to that coin. Though Rizzo has the experience, he is now 65 years old and is significantly older than the other candidates. The industry perception was that the Nats had fallen behind the times in the latter portions of Rizzo’s tenure when it came to things like data and analytics. Rizzo also interviewed with the Athletics last month but they eventually hired 31-year-old Taylor Smith to run their front office. Like Toboni, Smith had previously been assistant GM with the Red Sox.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
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