Now that the Houston Astros have found the GM in Randy Flores, now they need to settle on a new manager.

While team owner Jim Crane has said that interviews began before the GM was even hired, Flores has now gotten immersed in the search. Several names familiar to Astros fans have been associated with the position, including former Astros catcher Brad Ausmus, former Cardinals 1B Albert Pujols, former Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, and former Astros 3B Morgan Ensberg.

Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart was on MLB Network today with the latest on the Astros search, including a timeline on the hire, which he described as they want to “move fast” and on Crane’s desire to make a “big splash” hire:

The calendar says November 6 but it’s Christmas around here at Lookout Landing HQ.

The New York Post reports the Mariners have reportedly finally pried Tanner Swanson away from the Yankees organization to serve as Jason Kanzler’s bench coach. The 44-year-old Swanson, who has deep roots in the Northwest, has been a long-time dream coaching candidate for many of us in the LL community, but he’s been deeply enmeshed in a high-profile role in the Yankees organization since 2019 as their primary catching coordinator; he’s also served as their quality control coach and field coordinator. Finally, with the bench coach job open under new head coach Jason Kanzler, the Mariners were able to bring Swanson home.

Swanson, who was born in Cle Elum and attended high school at Cle Elum-Roslyn (and still makes his home in Roslyn), played his college baseball in the Northwest, moving from local community colleges (Green River and Everett) before transferring to Central Washington. After graduation, he coached high school baseball in Sultan and at his various alma maters (almae mater?) as well as at the University of Washington, where he zeroed in on his true love of coaching catchers, founding his own catching development business, D1 Catching. He parlayed that into his first job in pro baseball, joining the Twins as a minor league catching coordinator in 2017. Swanson’s first big-league job came in 2019, when the Yankees hired him as their quality control coordinator and big-league catching coordinator, where he remained until the Mariners came calling with the bench coach opportunity.

This hire is very exciting for lots of reasons. Under Swanson’s leadership of the Yankees catching corps, they’ve improved from middling to one of the consistently best teams in catcher framing runs. Swanson oversaw Jose Trevino during his first Gold Glove-winning season in 2022, when he led the league in the metric. Swanson has also been credited for his work with Yankees catcher Austin Wells, who many scouts expected to move off the catching position post-college. Wells has ranked in the top five for catcher framing runs for each of the past three seasons.

More globally, Swanson was an early adopter of the one-knee-down catching philosophy, at the time regarded as controversial but now standard practice. Swanson advanced the technique way back in 2017 during his first year with the Twins, while working with minor-league catcher Ben Rodriguez, whose bigger frame caused him issues when he was trying to block balls. He’s a respected voice in the industry who has spoken at conferences, appeared on podcasts, and generally acted as a thought-leader in his field for the past two decades.

Swanson’s father was Jim Swanson, a left-handed catcher with the minor-league Portland Mavericks – made famous in the documentary The Battered Bastards of Baseball – and is worth reading up on if you don’t know his story (left-handed catchers, I will forever dream of you). For those of you fans of a certain age, he also ran Swannie’s sports bar in Pioneer Square in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Catching development is Swanson’s calling card – and makes him a good fit for a team where one of the clubhouse leaders is the catcher – but ironically, he never played catcher in his career, instead playing as an infielder during his college career. But Swanson’s interests are beyond catching; he’s a student of all aspects of the game, often retweeting ideas he finds interesting about hitting or coaching in general (he’s a solid Twitter follow – @TannerSwanson. I’ve been following him for years and learned a ton). He is also passionate about sports in general – especially women’s sports, as the dad of four girls – and still deeply connected to developmental sports in the Northwest.

As far as experience, Swanson has direct experience being a bench coach – he served as Great Britain’s bench coach in the WBC this past year. (He also served as manager for one game in 2026 when both Aaron Boone and Brad Ausmus were ejected in a game against the Rays.)

As the Houston Astros look for a new manager, the idea of future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols getting the job has both fans and media abuzz.

Former Astros OF and World Series Champion Josh Reddick joined the Crush City Podcast and expressed he would like to see Albert Pujols get the job and laid out his case for why:

Pujols was known as a team leader with an incredibly high Baseball IQ. He was essentially another coach on the field, and had the respect of players, coaches and front office staff alike. Pujols was also known for his intensity, and could perhaps bring some fire to a team that has at times looked like it could use more if it.

It was exactly one week ago that I explained why the Mets might consider keeping Robert Stock around for the 2027 season:

“It takes guts to make it back to the majors after years away. It takes guts to perform under pressure with each outing potentially being the last of your career. And it takes good enough stuff and good enough command to show the glimpses of success that Stock did in August and September.

Injuries will always strike. Severe underperformance is always possible. (The current Mets brass should know those two principles better than anyone). If by May 2027, the Mets are already in emergency need of a spot starter or even a full-on rotation replacement, Stock is certainly a more attractive option than someone with zero command, zero experience, or zero ability to meet the moment.”

Well, on the seventh day, the baseball gods answered my prayers. On Friday afternoon, the Mets announced they had signed Stock to a one-year major league contract. 

Once a member of the 2021 Mets, Stock spent three years away from the majors while playing in international leagues. The 36-year-old underwent thoracic outlet surgery last March, but leveraged a summer spot start opportunity into a two-month stint with the Mets, posting a 5.93 in 30.1 innings across eight appearances. His 3.92 FIP suggests poor batted-ball results, and a couple of egregious outings overshadow the fact that he allowed one or zero runs while pitching four or more innings in four of seven starts, including one against the American League champion Rays.

The right-hander offers another veteran presence at the back of a projected pitching staff brimming with young talent. Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, and Zac Thornton all put their potential on display last season, with Jonah Tong waiting in the wings for another shot at the starting rotation. Sean Manaea will look to provide stability in the final year of his three-year contract. The Mets may also look to add outside reinforcements, even if that doesn’t mean signing two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal.

Stock also has experience out of the bullpen, including in his breakout 2018 season with the Padres under current Mets manager Andy Green. Should the Mets’ rotation slots become occupied, Stock can slide into a multi-inning relief role, providing flexibility for Green in his first full year at the helm in Queens.

For the second time this week, the Yankees have lost a significant member of their coaching staff. Tanner Swanson, the organization’s director of catching since 2020, has been hired by the Seattle Mariners to join new manager Jason Kanzler as their bench coach according to the New York Post’sJoel Sherman. This comes on the heels of Triple-A manager Shelley Duncan defecting over to the Red Sox on Wednesday to join their staff, and now despite not making any firings of their own on the coaching staff the Yankees will have some holes to fill.

Swanson was revolutionary in the organization for developing the team’s ability to frame pitches. Austin Wells has become the model for his work, becoming one of the best pitch framers in the game, and his development lined up directly with Swanson’s arrival in New York. The Yankees have been providing catchers to several teams over the years though, as they traded from their surplus of catchers sending Carlos Narváez over to Boston for Elmer Rodriguez, flipping Jose Trevino to Cincinnati for Fernando Cruz, and including Kyle Higashioka in the package to San Diego that netted Juan Soto.

The loss of Swanson is a big one for the Yankees to swallow, but they’ve hopefully learned enough from his time here to continue the catching pipeline that has netted them so much value. For Swanson, the chance to coach in the major leagues is an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up on, and he’ll now get to work with a premier catcher in Cal Raleigh coming off what was a disappointing follow-up to his MVP runner-up 2025.

Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our bi-weekly call by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Darth_Lazarus asks: If the CBA negotiations go really sideways is there a possibility we see replacement player games next year?

Never say never, but I doubt the owners would want to go this route even if it’s looking like the season is completely lost. Recruiting scab players at this point in the league’s history would be a black eye on ownership and would completely kill any goodwill they could have with the public as these negotiations drag on, as the product on the field will be a clearly inferior copy that wouldn’t draw much interest while also making them look desperate to recoup on the broadcast deals they’ve negotiated. Speaking of those broadcasting rights, while the league is a much more regional product than the NFL or NBA and several teams were having trouble finding an actual partner for their TV audience, it’s my hope that the prospect of future negotiations with broadcasters is one of the pressure points pushing ownership to get to the table sooner rather than later resulting in an actual season being played out in 2027 — perhaps a bit too hopeful, considering the lines in the sand that have been drawn this time around, but a girl can dream.

LocalBlueWhaleRuinsEverything asks:With the Yankees needing some offense, could they consider Arozarena or Suzuki? Theoretically, they could stick one in LF and have Cody move to CF. It’s not something I’d want them to do long term, but for one season I’d be interested. Stanton and Garcia should be gone after next season, so in the future you’d a spare DH spot to rotate them.

Theoretically they could, but that takes a lot of the value that Bellinger provides away by moving his excellent left field defense over to center field, where he has been underwhelming at best since 2021. Arozarena and Suzuki are both quality offensive options that would improve the lineup tremendously, but the defensive setback that adding either would cause problems down the line. That being said, the free agent market for true center fielders is abysmal, so if they’re looking for an upgrade they’re going to have to get creative with trades to find it.

Johnny1944 asks:It seems JD was overhyped for years by Cash. Does he have any real value?

Jasson Domínguez’s career is looking like a relatively unremarkable one, which is what tends to happen to the majority of MLB players — but most players don’t get compared to Mickey Mantle when they were 17 years old. That unfair expectation has felt like a weight on Domínguez’s shoulders the entire time that he’s been in the organization, with every glimpse of a solid run down in the minors being heralded as the turning point where he was going to spark a path straight to the majors. However, Domínguez has now had two full seasons in proximity to the majors, and while he’s still very young entering his age-24 season in 2027 it just doesn’t seem like there’s much to work with in his game.

Our own Andrés tackled the idea of whether the Yankees should move on from Domínguez the other day, and while his conclusion was that there’s no pressure to do so immediately time is running out for the former wonder prospect. He’s got one minor league option remaining meaning he’s likely to start the year in the minors, and while there’s some underlying promise in his peripherals the majority of his Savant page is disappointing. Domínguez’s defense has been atrocious to watch, and he’s alternated from being unable to hit lefties to being unable to hit righties. If there was just some consistency to his game he’d at least be able to stick around as a bench option in the majors, but as is he’s got to get consistent playing time to try and make something of himself and he isn’t going to find that in pinstripes at the moment.

OLDY MOLDY asks:How reliable are Cole, Fried, and Rodón next year considering recent arm problems in the last 3 seasons and age? Any innings projections? Does Schlittler come back to earth in 2027?

I don’t have many concerns about Max Fried at the moment — he’ll probably be good for one short-term IL stint but otherwise give the team 25-30 starts and has been lights out when he has been active. Likewise, while Gerrit Cole has missed significant time over the past couple of seasons the core issue has now been dealt with and he should be fully healthy entering 2027. It’s wild to think that we’re already seven years into the nine-year deal that Cole signed with the team, but there’s just two seasons left of his contract and if you told me back then that he’d have compiled three top five Cy Young finishes with one win up to this point, I’d be pretty content entering the final days of that deal. Carlos Rodón has salvaged his Yankees career quite well following his disastrous first year in pinstripes, but of the three his health still concerns me more going forward — not enough to panic, but enough to keep my eye on how he’s getting through each start even when he’s on. As for Cam Schlittler, the sky is the ceiling for the team’s newfound ace and while it would certainly be unrealistic to expect a 1.95 ERA as the standard going forward I think he’ll remain the team’s best pitcher next year as he comes into his own.

The San Francisco Giants announced a small deal on Friday, as a trickle down from Monday’s roster-cutting actions. Lefty reliever Reiver Sanmartin has been traded to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Minor League reliever Robert Cranz.

It’s not news that Sanmartin is gone, as the Giants announced that he had been designated for assignment on Monday, amongst the flurry of moves that got the roster back down to 40 players at the deadline. But most DFA’d players leave with nothing in return, so it’s nice that Sanmartin was an exception, and the Giants were able to get something back to allow the Nationals to jump to the front of the line.

As is always the case with these sorts of deals, it’s not a huge haul they got back, but Cranz is interesting. The 23-year old right-hander was drafted in the seventh round of the 2024 draft (pick No. 200 on the dot) out of Oklahoma State, and received a mildly underslot bonus of $190,000. He performed fairly well in Low-A and High-A in his first full season in 2025, and started to make a name for himself in 2026.

Cranz opened the year in High-A, where he had a 2.25 ERA and a 2.68 FIP, with a whopping 27 strikeouts in just 16 innings. He kept it up in AA, where he posted a 3.42 ERA and a 2.95 FIP, with 40 strikeouts in 26.1 innings.

A native of Keller, Texas, Cranz made it to AAA to end the year, and that’s where his success ended. It was a rude introduction to the top ring of the Minors, and he ended his cup of coffee there with a 13.11 ERA, a 7.17 FIP, and just nine strikeouts in 11.2 innings.

Cranz mostly throws hard stuff, as in AAA he used his four-seam fastball (which averaged 95.2 mph) nearly half of the time, while throwing his cutter and slider more than 20% of the time each. There’s definitely something intriguing there, and he’ll be a big part of AAA Sacramento’s bullpen depth this year, and have a chance to play his way into the Majors.

While spring training gets all the hype when it comes to baseball in Arizona, locals know that the Arizona Fall League is where the true baseball joy is to be found. The weather is typically much more conducive to spectating, and while Cactus League prices are barely indistinguishable from a regular season game, basically the price of a movie ticket – $14 – gets you any open seat in the park. Of course, you will be watching prospects rather than (five innings of!) major-league players. But that just gives you bragging rights, as many future stars pass through the AFL. 27 players in this year’s MLB All-Star Game were AFL graduates, so you will get to say “I saw him when…”

Last night, I met up with ish95 and Mrs. ish95, and went to Peoria. There, the Rafters (including players from the D-backs farm system) were taking on the Javelinas. It’s been a while since I’ve attended a game at the Peoria Sports Complex. I think the last time I was at the stadium was getting a COVID vaccine! But I do like that it’s right in the middle of the 83rd Avenue Entertainment District, offering lots of options for food before or after the game. We went to Firebirds’ Grill, and their Phillie Cheesesteak Egg Rolls come highly recommended. From there, it’s only two mins to the park, with free and easy parking. The announced attendance of 397 certainly helps in that department!

I will say, the park is beginning to show its age. Built in 1994, of the six AFL stadiums, only Scottsdale (1992) is older – and it underwent a $50 million renovation in 2020. Peoria has had little more than a lick of paint in the past decade. It’s still serviceable, to be sure. But I noticed stuff like a folding table, parked upside down on top of the visitors’ dugout. It had clearly been there for a while, going by it being full of water, presumably from the rain over the weekend. Hoping I don’t come down with West Nile Virus. There were plenty of other insects around – Mrs. ish95 was freaked out by the arrival of CricketZilla. But that’s probably an inevitable result of baseball under the floodlights.

The game ended 5-3 to the Javelinas and was… interesting. It wasn’t very well-played, to be honest. Was chatting to Jack Sommers about it, and he said, “The quality of the AFL has gone down in recent years. There are fewer and fewer good pitchers, and it has skewed towards younger, less developed position players. Fifteen years ago it was much better quality.” Certainly, last night was… interesting. The teams combined for only six hits, but the pitchers issued no less than twenty-two free passes – nineteen walks and three hit batters. Add to that, three wild pitches, a balk (more on which shortly), a disengagement violation and three pitch timer violations. Yeah. Not exactly crisply pitched.

But if anyone had a bad night, it was Salt River Rafters catcher Miguel Rodriguez, despite delivering the entire visitors’ offense with a three-run homer in the second inning. For the Javelinas ran wild, stealing twelve bases on him, in thirteen attempts. Worse still was his error in the eighth (one of a total of four in the game). I can’t be certain – no replays – but it looked like he dropped his mask on a foul ball before it had been called dead. That gave all base-runners an extra base, and brought home the go-ahead, and what turned out to be the winning, run for the Javelinas. I kinda feel that kind of thing would be barely excusable at the high-school level.

Three Diamondbacks prospects got into the game. Demetrio Crisantes started at 2B, batted second, and settled down after an ugly K in the first, drawing a pair of walks. Nathan Hall played LF, and got an extra life in the second inning, when a foul pop-up was dropped by the Javelina’s 1B. Hall then was hit, and scored on the Rodriguez homer. Hall then had the only other Rafters’ hit, with a solid double to left-center in the fourth. Joe Ariola came into the game as relief in the seventh, trying to protect what was a 3-2 Rafters’ lead at that point. But he walked the first two batters faced, and after a steal of third, still with no-body out, was in serious trouble.

To Ariola’s credit, he almost escaped. He got a comebacker to the first-base side of the mound for the first out, then a shallow fly-ball to right for the second. But the runner on third was dancing down the line, and coaxed Ariola into a throw over, called as a balk and scoring the tying run. Hard to tell – again, no replays. Ted Tom, the Rafters’ manager (he works in the Nats’ system) seemed unconvinced, and came out for a lengthy discussion with the umpires. I also noted at the end of the inning, Ariola had a significant conversation of his own with the home-plate official. I’m guessing he was getting clarification of what happened, and it was good to see him looking to learn from the experience.

To be honest, I think we were all a bit glad when it was over. Between the walks and the strikeouts (23 of those!), there weren’t very many balls in play, and the game felt considerably longer than its 2:58. The company was definitely better than the baseball, all told! Though a pro-tip: it may be Arizona, but the temperature will still drop after the sun goes down. Evening games can get more than slightly chilly by the time of the final pitch. But it is still something you can’t do anywhere else except Arizona. And with the lockout looming, who knows when the next chance we will have to watch professional baseball?

AFL updates

Just to fill in the overall progress of our guys. The loss dropped the Rafters to 13-13, leaving them 2.5 back of the league-leading Javelinas and Surprise Saguaros, with just three games to play before the playoffs at the end of next week (the AFL All-Star Game takes place this weekend). Four teams get in, and it’s between the Rafters, Scottsdale Scorpions and Mesa Solar Sox for the third and fourth places. Crisantes is batting .258, but has as many walks as strikeouts and a .734 OPS. Hall is doing even better there, with a K:BB of 7:13 – that gives him an OBP of .424, despite batting only .161. But 3B Yassel Solar continues to struggle, having gone 5-for-46, an average of just .109.

On the mound, despite Ariola’s wobble last night, he’s still doing well. Those were the first two walks of his AFL campaign, and a K:BB of 10:2 across 7.1 innings is pretty respectable, along with a 3.38 ERA. Patrick Forbes is also looking impressive, his K:BB being 11:3 over 8.1 IP, to go alongside is 2.16 ERA. Unfortunately, Luke Craig has not been able to complete a trifecta of quality. His seven outings in the AFL have covered a total of just four innings, giving up seven hits, five walks and nine runs (albeit three unearned), with three strikeouts, and an ERA of 13.50. John West (ERA 14.29) has also struggled, and Connor Foley has somehow managed to make five scoreless outing, and is 2-for-2 in save opportunities despite walking seven batters in four innings.

The fact that you’re reading my words now likely means you’re a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but are you a writer, too? I ask this very important question because there is now an opportunity for you to combine your fandom with a keyboard and join our team of baseball writers here at Viva El Birdos.

One of our team had had family responsibilities require him to take a step back soon which means there will be an opening in our lineup soon that you might be the perfect fit for. Here are some basics that we’re looking for:

1. You must love the St. Louis Cardinals. This is not optional. You don’t have to agree with everything the ownership, management and team do, though. It can be fun when you don’t agree with something (or somethings) that the Cardinals are doing, but you must have a passion for the team.
2. You need to understand the importance of deadlines and follow through to provide unique content every single week including the off-season. We’re a relatively small team, but we rely on each other to keep interesting content available for the community every day.
3. You need to have at least a basic knowledge of WordPress. No previous professional writing experience is necessary, but you need to be up-to-speed on how digital content is put together. I’m happy to train, but Mr. Miyagi I am not.
4. This is a part-time paid position, but you won’t be rubbing elbows with the Kardashians. No one here does this for the money. If we got rich doing this, we’d all be driving around Corvettes like the one David Eckstein was given as 2006 World Series MVP.
5. You must love coming up with unique viewpoints of the St. Louis Cardinals. The team here loves analyzing roster construction, minor league prospects, potential trade targets and second-guessing managerial, ownership and President of Baseball Operations decisions.

Does all of this sound good to you? If so, I’d love to hear from you. I’m hoping to have our new team member ready to get started in December (just in time for the inevitable lockout!). Feel free to email me direct and introduce yourself. I promise to respond to all inquiries. Viva El Birdos has the most educated baseball community in the sport. I have no doubt that there’s someone who’s a part of it who’ll be the perfect fit to help VEB move forward. Is it you?

After extending Jacob Young this morning, Paul Toboni made another move. He acquired lefty reliever Reiver Sanmartin in exchange for minor league righty reliever Robert Cranz. Sanmartin is now the third player Toboni has acquired from the Giants in the past couple weeks. It is a move I am not particularly inspired by, but we should see Sanmartin in the big leagues next year.

The Nats rotated through a ton of relievers last year, but there was one archetype that Toboni really seemed to like. Throughout last season, the Nats often had at least one soft tossing lefty who threw from a lower slot on the roster. Richard Lovelady, Tom Cosgrove and PJ Poulin are all examples of that. Sanmartin also fits into that grouping.

Sanmartin throws from a 22 degree arm angle, which is much lower than average. His fastball only averages 91.8 MPH, which is not impressive these days, even for a lefty. That means he has to rely on funk, movement and command to get outs. To be honest, these low slot lefties are not my favorite archetype. They have a low margin for error and are not very high upside.

Robert Cranz, the pitcher who the Nats dealt in this move, is someone I was keeping tabs on as well. The 23 year old was drafted in the 7th round of the 2024 draft, and has a unique arsenal. He averaged 95 MPH while having elite carry on his fastball despite throwing from a lower slot. Stuff models absolutely loved Cranz. 

However, that raw stuff did not translate at all, at least in Triple-A. Cranz had a 2.25 ERA in High-A and a 3.42 ERA in Double-A. He also posted elite strikeout numbers at those levels. It was a different story once he got to Rochester though. Cranz had an ERA of 13.11 in 13 appearances before getting sent back to Double-A. That probably caused the Nats to give up on him.

I still do not know about the idea of giving him up for a 30 year old lefty who just got DFA’d. Sanmartin is also out of options, so the Nats have to roster him or risk him getting claimed on waivers. Last season, Sanmartin posted a 4.22 ERA in 21.1 innings. There are things he does well, but overall I am not a huge fan of this move.

Getting to the positives, Sanmartin is excellent at keeping the ball on the ground. He posted an elite 62.9% ground ball rate in 21.1 innings last year. Sanmartin also displayed good control, only walking 2.95 batters per 9 innings. Walks were something that haunted other low slot lefties on the Nats, but it was not a problem for Sanmartin. The 30 year old’s heavy sinker and good control gives him a path to success.

I also wonder if the Nats think they could squeeze out another tick of velocity. If Sanmartin’s sinker could sit at 93, I think that would be a big deal. To go with the sinker, Sanmartin has a slider he throws to lefties and a changeup he throws to righties.

He is a pretty standard sinker-baller, but there are some things to like here. Despite being a ground ball heavy guy, his 10% barrel rate was quite high. Honestly, the Nats might think that is due for some positive regression.

It is not my favorite move, but I at least somewhat see the vision. Hopefully this does not stop us from getting a bigger name lefty reliever. Sanmartin is out of options, so that worries me. We will have to see what the Nats vision is for the lefty though. I would be a little uneasy about Sanmartin, Tolman and Will Dion being the options from the left side. A bit of an uninspiring move, but let’s see how this plays out.