The Astros are making a pair of in-house promotions, as FOX 26’s Mark Berman reports (via Twitter) that Charles Cook and Bill Firkus are each being promoted to assistant general manager. Cook was the senior director of player evaluation and has been a member of the organization since 2016, while Firkus has been with the Astros since 2013, taking a unique path to the assistant GM role. Firkus began with the team as a medical analyst and then worked as the Astros’ director of sports medicine and performance from 2015-19 before moving into his job as the senior director of baseball strategy.
Firkus and fellow assistant GM Andrew Ball are also now temporarily running Houston’s front office until a replacement for James Click can be found, according to Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). Under Click, the Astros had two AGMs in Ball and Scott Powers, though Powers was fired yesterday shortly after news broke that Click wouldn’t be returning as the general manager. It is possible that the promotions of two long-time employees in Cook and Firkus might be a step towards also ousting Ball, who previously worked with Click in Tampa Bay and has only been with the Astros organization for less than a year. Regardless, there will continue to be plenty of controversy surrounding the World Series champions’ front office until a new president of baseball operations or GM is officially hired. [UPDATE: Firkus is the Astros’ current point person for any free agent talks, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi]
More from around baseball…
- The Blue Jays had interest in both Chris Martin and David Robertson prior to the trade deadline, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reports. Both pitchers (then members of the Cubs) were shipped in separate trades to the Dodgers and Phillies, but Martin and Robertson are both free agents now and could possibly again be on Toronto’s radar. The bullpen meltdown in Game 2 of the AL Wild Card Series made the bullpen a particular need for the Jays, and to that end, Nicholson-Smith also tweets that Toronto was “very serious” about pursuing Robert Suarez in free agency. However, the Blue Jays didn’t get a chance to move on the righty, as the Padres retained Suarez on a five-year, $46MM deal before the free agent market officially opened for other teams’ negotiations.
- Even with Joey Bart as the Giants’ starting catcher and a number of other options competing for the backup job, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic hears that San Francisco is still on the lookout for more depth behind the plate. Dom Nunez and Meibrys Viloria were both recently added on waiver claims, putting them in line (for now) to compete with Austin Wynns in Spring Training. Of course, the Giants have made a habit of cycling through players at the back end of their roster, and there isn’t any guarantee this catching mix will last even beyond the November 15 deadline to set 40-man rosters in advance of the Rule 5 draft.
- The Pirates are another team looking for catching help, though “in terms of resources, whether that’s financial resources or giving up talent, it’s probably not the top of our priority list,” GM Ben Cherington told The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel and other reporters. This would also put the Bucs in line for depth options, with a new catcher or two competing with Tyler Heineman, Ali Sanchez, and Jason Delay in camp. In the big picture, the Pirates are keeping the catching depth chart clear for top prospect Henry Davis, who made his Double-A debut last season. Davis is expected to reach Triple-A in 2023 and might be in line to arrive in the majors before the season is out, if all goes well.
Giants are the best at scrapping the bottom of the dumpster lol
Wrong!
Theo’s Cubs had them beat
What about the Pirates?
The Pirates don’t scrap around the dumpster looking for whatever is useful. They just take whatever garbage is laying around on the street.
The number one priority of the Pirates is profit for Nutting and fooling the few fans that attend home games into thinking management wants to win
scrape….not scrap
Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to the Pirates signings over the past few years, Pickle
Ben Cherington stays glued to the daily waiver wire
scraping….not scrapping.
2 entirely different words and meanings
Were they not fighting around the dumpster, then?
Joey Bart. Another classic first round Bust by the Giants
There is no controversy. Cook and Firkus are senior members of the Astros organization. Ball was already an assistant GM and well liked. Crane runs the show and has kept who he wants. The new GM will need to work well with the folks in place.
Starting to wonder if Crane floats a whole season with nothing but 3 agm’s. Then could bring the new regime he’s clearly planning all at once.
The Bridge to Stearns, do you think?
The timing of both sides looks like it’s possible. There’s not enough information to be certain about anyone in particular. But i think Crane has been wanting to work back to a trusted Ops President ever since Luhnow’s suspension. Crane probably has a plan in place, hence the strict 1 yr deals offered to both gm and manager.
Pirates mid season call up catcher is going to be Endy Rodriguez.
Maybe if every single thing goes right and they are in contention. If not maybe see him in September.
In contention?
Yes. If every single thing goes right they will be in contention. Will even win the division unless every single thing goes mostly right for the Cards Brewers.
I’ve seen Endy a few times in low and High A. Switch hitting catcher with great bat speed and he was far ahead of others defensively in A ball. He can play 1B, 2B and OF as well.
It took Blue Jays management until the Wild Card Game 2 bullpen meltdown to realize they had bullpen issues to address???? My great-grammie GG who doesn’t even follow baseball knew Toronto had a circumspect bullpen.
I mean the jays haven’t had a good bullpen in about 30 years
Their significantly over left handed group in 2008 was surprisingly good. And… that’s all I got lol
Tom Henke is smiling somewhere right now.
I’d put more resources into the rotation. 50 starts from two guys with ERAs over 5.00 is a bad, bad thing not to remedy.
Funny offense. 7 above avg regulars, but no real standouts in 2022.
–Hey, how do Jays fans feel about Springer now that he’s two seasons removed from his 6/`150m deal? He picked it up a little in 2023, but the defense continues to decline, the great postseason bat vanished, and he’s only had about 1000 innings in CF since he came to Toronto.
As a Jays fan, my biggest worry about the Springer contract is what it is surrounded by. It’s a team that went from having a lot of flexibility to one with very little pretty quickly. My biggest worry is the talk of having to trade a corner outfielder to make room for Springer in a corner. I’m expecting a continued decline and while Hernandez and Gurriel are in their last years, they are good hitters. Over the last 3 seasons, Teoscar Hernandez is a top 20 offensive player in the majors and he’s still in his prime. I don’t expect Springer to outperform Teoscar next year. It’s possible, but I think it’s more likely Springer continues to decline while Teo holds his level of production. Even Gurriel is a comfortably above average major league hitter (115 wRC+ career and 114 last season). I’d be happy if Springer did that next year.
I think they are in a tough spot and might have to choose leveraging the last years of Teo and Chapman (Gurriel to a lesser extent) and maybe the last year you comfortably project Springer to be an above average contributor or prioritizing sustainability by moving major league roster pieces like one of their corner guys even if it means subtracting win now pieces. The catcher decision is tied up in this now vs. future question too. In an ideal world, there’d be more “waves of talent” from the minors but it’s not looking great on that front at the moment.
Financial resources are rarely a priority for Pirates regardless of position. Whatever good defensive catcher with the least amount of interest from other teams will end up in Pittsburgh. Roberto Perez is likely if he will take half the money he got last year.
Mark Polishuk, if you write about teams and providing information, please research your information accurately and thoroughly. Jason Delay was let ago last week. He is no longer with the Pirates. Along with (whom I believe, but could be wrong) Ali Sanchez, Jason Delay are both looking for jobs.
Just because they aren’t with the Pirates now doesn’t mean they won’t be in 2023. Or did I miss them on the top 50 free agent list?
@PiratesFan, you could have done some research as well. A quick Google check shows Delay was waived from the 40-man roster, but is still in their minor league system with Indy. And in Polishuk’s defence, BR still shows Delay as part of Pittsburgh’s team, as is Sanchez.
PiratesFan1981, if you are going to post a comment, please research your information accurately and thoroughly.
Jason Delay was let ago ago. That George Michaels?
No need to defend the Polishuk. A player doesn’t need to be on the 40 man to compete for a job.
Yes Houstonhas a problem with their FO and GM and staff. Just because the two promoted will do the job great but after a WS championship and reaching the playoffs other times under Click if they dumped him or if really did not want the one year slap in the face deal I would take my services elsewhere. But the one year deals are not great in this case. Dusty maybe. But what if had Espada at helm would a bigger contract have been given. I can see the controversy this creates
As mentioned in the comments above, it does seem strange that there’s no mention of Endy Rodriguez in an article about the Pirates catching situation. He’s a better defensive catcher than Davis by most accounts, although both could moved to other positions to allow their bats to play every day.
Because Endy will remain in the minors until at least after next year’s trade deadline so not to influence his status as a major league player
Except the article mentions Davis who seems to be even further behind.
Astors look to be following a blast to the past for the futurs.. That past included cheating in MLB.. Is that were they are at now???
If I’m Cherington, I’m grooming Endy and Davis to both be Catchers of the future for Pirates. I’d envision a future where both are starting 60-100 games behind the plate to reduce the stress on their bodies. But if I’m banking on just one of them to be a 120 games/season starter, it’s Endy who I see as the guy. Better defensively than Davis. Might even have a better bat, too.
Scott Kliesen;
The Astros and Pirates are being talked about here. The difference……
The Astros want a Catcher that can work with a staff, play D, and run a game. Don’t care if he can hit or not.
The Pirates appear to want a Catcher that can hit first. They’ll work around all that other pesky stuff.
The Astros have been contenders for 8 straight years and have won 2 WS’s. The Pirates have been scuffling.
Between what they’re doing with their Catchers and playing Oneil Cruz at SS – the 2 most important defensive positions on a team – I’m questioning the Pirates rebuild at this point. Of course, if their pitchers can ignore the pitches the Catcher calls and K 27 guys a game I doubt any of what I wrote will matter.
To save typing….^^^^^This^^^^^
If you have two catchers who can EACH save wear and tear by playing other positions, the ability to platoon them and have a high end catcher in the lineup every single day is such an advantage.
The Bucs haven’t had a catcher that could hit since Russell Martin in 2016
Offense isn’t what they’re looking for
Low cost and can handle pitchers
Martin was the bjs in 2016 and 2015. Francisco Cervelli was almost, as good,or better after Martin.
Except for the fact that Russell Martin was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays from Nov 2014 thru the 2018 season.
By the time Davis is ready for a promotion to the Pirates, he’ll be used as trade bait to fill the minors with prospects
Rebuilding is done in perpetual motion by management
After seeing this first wave of “blue chip” Pirates rookies over the course of an excruciating 162 games, I’m just going to say what a lot of long suffering Pirates fans think: I question anything that the Pirates term “the future” or “strong prospect”
Maybe we were spoiled with guys like Barry Bonds or Andrew McCutcheon coming through the farm and arriving ready to play as a fundamentally sound player. Maybe it is the fact that you look around at guys who come up through the Braves, Dodgers and others’ systems. I dunno
I just don’t see this group as being the guys who are going to compete for division titles in a couple years. Can they be good or average players? Sure. Can guys like Cruz become fundamentally sound in the field and disciplined at the plate? Maybe
But the team has been so bad for so long, I think many here regard being .500 as being “competitive”. I’ll take it, of course, but given how the front office does business, how scouts and player development coaches identify and instruct, and how the PR people push propaganda….I’m not expecting more
Maybe Endy and Davis will arrive as part of a more sound, able second wave
Guess I’ll believe it when I see it
Does anyone know why Henry Davis left the AZ Fall League early this season?
His mother called him home for dinner?
They wanted to get him away from Surprise before the Saguaros won the AFL championship. Didn’t want Davis to get any false impressions about what playing pro baseball was going to be like for him.
My favorite memory involving the Pirates was when Carlos Gomez homered off Cole and was taunting Cole as he rounded the bases. When Gumpez got to third base the benches cleared and some guy came off the Pirates bench and knocked Gomez on his a**. A great moment in baseball history.