Astros To Replace Brad Mills at Seasons End

Late last night, Ken Rosenthal tweeted that the Astros will dismiss manager Brad Mills at seasons end. If he makes it the entire year, Mills will not be fired, but rather, he will not be brought back as he is currently in the last year of his contract, which includes a team option for 2013. Mills, as you know, was the lone holdover from the previous regime. Jim Crane and George Postolos cleaned house when they took over, letting pretty much everyone associated with the Drayton McLane Astros go.  The Astros dropped their ninth straight game yesterday, giving them a 32-52 record, which is dead last in MLB.

Of course, anytime you have a report of someone being fired or not being brought back, you’re going to hear the denials of these reports from that team. Jeff Luhnow had the following to say:

"“We haven’t talked about next year at all. I’ve told everyone we’re going to wait. I’m not even thinking about it at this point. Brad has done a good job. We get along well. There is no reason to make a change. At the end of the year is when I’m going to spend time looking at all aspects of the operation. But I’m not spending time on it right now.”"

Brad Mills was dealt a pretty bad hand. He was hired on as Astros manager after the 2009 season and in each of his first two seasons with the team, he saw the club trade away franchise cornerstones Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn. This year appears to be no different as the team has already traded away Carlos Lee and figures to make more moves before the end of the month. He also saw an ownership change and the people that hired him were fired. It was no secret that he wouldn’t last long with the team.

According to Rosenthal, three names that would be under consideration as the next manager of the Astros are current Astros bench coach, Joe Pettini, current Cardinals first base coach, Chris Maloney and Jim Riggleman, who is currently managing the Reds AA team and was most recently the Washington Nationals manager. I have no idea if this is accurate but two names that aren’t on that report that I believe should be at the top of our list are current Cardinals third base coach, Jose Oquendo and my personal favorite, Mike Maddux, the current pitching coach for the Texas Rangers. We’ll see what happens next!