Ausmus, 55 in April, played in the big leagues from 1993 to 2010. After his playing days were over, he quickly jumped into coaching and was a manager not long after, getting the skipper job with the Tigers in 2014. He held that job for four seasons, running through the 2017 campaign. The club made the postseason in his first year at the helm but missed in the next three and he wasn’t brought back after his contract expired.

He then joined the Angels as a special assistant to general manager Billy Eppler but moved back into the skipper’s chair going into 2019. He signed a three-year deal but was fired after just one season in which the Halos went 72-90. He returned to a big league dugout in 2022, working as bench coach for the A’s, providing first-time manager Mark Kotsay with an experienced lieutenant. He didn’t return to that job for 2023, reportedly seeking a front office position. He was considered by the Astros for their general manager vacancy, but Dana Brown ultimately got that job and Ausmus is now set to jump back into a bench coach role for 2024.

This will be the first time the Yanks have a new bench coach in a while, as Mendoza had held steady in that gig for the past four seasons before moving to Queens. The Yanks also made a change at hitting coach, with Sean Casey opting not to return and getting replaced by James Rowson.

With Ross an unlikely candidate, Rosenthal and Kuty suggest that former Tigers and Angels manager Brad Ausmus, who was reportedly a candidate for the managerial gig in Houston before the club opted to promote Espada, could be a contender for the bench coach gig in the Bronx. Another potential candidate could be Yankees third base coach and former Mets manager Luis Rojas, though that hire would simply shift the hole on the big league coaching staff from the dugout to the third base line. The person hired to replace Mendoza will be the fourth to serve under manager Aaron Boone in the role, following not only Mendoza but also Phillies manager Rob Thomson and Dodgers bullpen coach Josh Bard.

More notes from around the AL East…

• Giants bullpen coach Andrew Bailey is expected to be a hot commodity on the coaching market this offseason, with Rosenthal and Kuty suggesting that he’s not only a candidate for the bench coach role with the Yankees but also the pitching coach role with both the Red Sox and Orioles. The duo suggest that Bailey could have a preference to return to the east coast after being denied permission by San Francisco to interview for a bench coach vacancy with the Mets back in 2022. The Giants hold no such power over Bailey at this point, as the 39-year-old is currently a free agent. Bailey pitched for both the Yankees and Red Sox during his big league career, which spanned eight seasons. Prior to his tenure as pitching coach in San Francisco, Bailey worked as a bullpen coach with the Angels under Ausmus during the 2019 season.
• The Rays have no plans to replace Peter Bendix as GM after Bendix departed the organization to take a job as president of baseball operations for the Marlins last week, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Topkin relays that there will be no external search for a new GM, with assistant GMs Will Cousins, Chanda Lawdermilk and Carlos Rodriguez all expected to take larger roles in the baseball operations department in the wake of Bendix’s exit. Senior adviser Jon Daniels, who previously lead baseball operations for the Rangers from 2005 to 2022, is also expected to take on a larger role in the Rays’ front office, acting as a mentor to the club’s group of assistant GMs. Bendix is the fifth high-ranking member of the Rays front office to depart to lead another baseball operations department, joining Andrew Friedman, Chaim Bloom, James Click, and Matt Arnold, though Bloom and Click are no longer in those roles.

Crane doesn’t appear to be in a rush to tab a new baseball ops leader. Speaking with reporters this evening at the Houston Sports Awards, the owner indicated he’s not feeling pressure to make a move (link via Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle). “We’re still searching,” Crane said. “We’re scanning the crowd right now. No, look, we’re still working on it. We’ll take our time and get it right.”

Unsurprisingly, Crane didn’t offer many specifics about the ongoing search. He noted that he’s considering candidates from both within and outside the organization. Perhaps most notably, Crane said he has not reached out to the Brewers about the possibility of interviewing former Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns for a front office position.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported earlier this week that Houston was eyeing Stearns, who’d worked for the Astros before landing the top gig with the Brewers in 2015. Stearns held that post for seven years until resigning at the start of this offseason. General manager Matt Arnold, his longtime top lieutenant, took control of the baseball ops department. Stearns, who is under contract with the Brewers through the end of the 2023 campaign, has remained on hand as an advisor to Arnold and owner Mark Attanasio. For any club to hire or even interview Stearns before the end of the upcoming season, they’d need Attanasio to sign off.

While Crane said he hasn’t contacted the Brewers thus far, he didn’t specify whether he planned to do so at any point in the process. Of course, it’s not clear whether the 37-year-old Stearns would have any interest even if the Astros did reach out. When he announced he was stepping down in October, the Harvard graduate firmly stated he “not going anywhere” other than Milwaukee in the short term and stressed he was embracing an opportunity to spend more time with his family with his lightened workload.

A few people are known to be under consideration for the Houston job. Braves vice president of scouting Dana Brown, former Giants general manager Bobby Evans, Guardians assistant GM James Harris and longtime Astros catcher and former Tigers/Angels skipper Brad Ausmus have all been linked to the search in recent days. A report from USA Today over the weekend pained Brown as the frontrunner, but Rome hears from a source that it’s still too early in the process for any individual to have pulled firmly ahead of the pack.

Jumping straight into the GM’s chair would be a first for Ausmus, though it wouldn’t be his first stint in a big league front office. Ausmus was a special assistant in the Padres’ front office shortly after retiring as a player, and he held a similar role with the 2018 Angels under then-general manager Billy Eppler.

Since retiring, however, the bulk of Ausmus’ experience in the game has come in a big league dugout. That includes a four-year stint as the Tigers’ manager from 2014-17 and a 2019 run as the Angels’ skipper. He spent the 2022 campaign as the bench coach under newly hired A’s skipper Mark Kotsay, but Ausmus turned down an offer from the team to return for a second season in that position. Ausmus’ decision to decline that offer came just a week before ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Ausmus traveled to Houston to meet with former teammate Jeff Bagwell, who’s been a key advisor to owner Jim Crane and has held some sway in the team’s baseball operations decisions.

At the same time, there are renewed connections with now-former Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns, who served as an assistant GM in Houston before being hired as the GM in Milwaukee more than a half decade ago. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes that Crane has maintained some interest in bringing Stearns back to Houston.

As has been the case each time Stearns has been rumored as a potential fit for another front office vacancy — the Mets courted him in two separate offseasons, for instance — there are notable caveats to consider. While Stearns stepped down as president in Milwaukee, he remains under contract with the Brewers through the end of the 2023 season. He’s no longer running baseball operations but remains an advisor to newly minted GM Matt Arnold and owner Mark Attanasio.

Furthermore, Stearns appeared at the Brewers’ press conference to announce the reshuffling of the baseball operations hierarchy and plainly declared that he was “not going anywhere” and planned to remain in Milwaukee. That was several months ago, of course, and Stearns didn’t place a definitive timeline on a return to baseball operations — or even whether he planned to pursue such opportunities at all. However, because he’s under contract, the Brewers would need to grant the Astros permission to interview him, and Milwaukee may even require player compensation if Stearns were to depart prior to the conclusion of his contract.

The Astros have operated without a GM this offseason after parting ways with World Series-winning GM James Click following the season. Click rejected what many viewed as a token one-year extension offer that came on the heels of myriad reports about mounting friction between the GM and Crane.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan provides a deep dive behind the scenes, taking a look at how such an unusual situation came to be. Interested readers are encouraged to check out the full piece for all the details, but the essence is that Crane didn’t like Click’s approach to the job as much as he liked that of Jeff Luhnow. Luhnow, of course, was fired after the sign-stealing scandal was revealed, with Click quickly hired to replace him.

Over the past year, Crane has seemingly taken a more hands-on approach to the team. He apparently was the one who closed the deal to bring Verlander back for 2022. He also felt the organization needed more “baseball men,” bringing in former big leaguers Jeff Bagwell and Reggie Jackson to take part in front office meetings. He also reportedly blocked a deadline deal, on the advice of manager Dusty Baker, that would have sent José Urquidy to the Cubs for Willson Contreras.

With Click and Powers now gone, it seems as though Crane is running the show, at least to some degree. Bill Firkus, recently promoted to assistant general manager, seems to be handling day-to-day operations. Andrew Ball and Charles Cook, who also have the title of assistant general manager, are also involved to some degree. But according to Passan, Crane personally negotiated the three-year, $34.5MM deal given to reliever Rafael Montero last week and he seems to be directly involved in Verlander’s free agency yet again.

It might continue in this ad hoc fashion for some time as well, with Crane telling Brian McTaggart of MLB.com that he plans to take his time with his search for Click’s replacement, probably not making a hire until the calendar flips to 2023. “I’m going to take my time on it this time,” Crane says. “Last time, I was in a little crunch. I didn’t have a GM and didn’t have a manager. We’ve got a pretty solid baseball ops team that’s been around. Firkus and Charles Cook have been with the team a while. … We’re going to interview a bunch of people and see where we land with that. I don’t expect anything to happen before the first of the year.”

Passan floats some names as candidates who cover a spectrum of styles. Sig Mejdal, formerly of the Astros but now with the Orioles, is known for his expertise on the analytical side of the game. While former player and manager Brad Ausmus is thrown out as someone with an arguably more traditional approach. Passan adds that Ausmus was recently in Houston and met with Bagwell, though it’s unclear if they discussed the open GM position. Even when a new GM is hired, all signs seem to point to Crane staying heavily involved.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty in terms of what lies ahead for the Astros, but the idea of them turning their backs on their calculated approach has the potential to alter the trajectory of the franchise. The club’s current golden age has been achieved not by wild spending, but largely by player development and quantitative analysis. They’ve never given a free agent a deal longer than four years and only crossed the competitive balance tax threshold once, in 2020. Justin Verlander took a sizeable investment but the rest of their rotation was homegrown, either through the draft (Lance McCullers Jr.) or international free agency (Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Luis Garcia, Urquidy).

The position player core is similar, with most of the lineup having been drafted by the club and sometimes subsequently extended. Even when players do reach free agency, like George Springer and Carlos Correa, the club has been savvy at replacing them internally. Their primary shortstop and center fielder this year were Jeremy Peña, a third round draft choice playing in his rookie year, and Chas McCormick, a 21st round pick playing in his second season.

That makes it especially eyebrow-raising that Bagwell, who apparently is one of Crane’s most trusted advisors, criticized the club’s player development system. From an outside perspective, it would seem that the Astros’ recent run of success would be credited in large part to their successes in that department, but perhaps Bagwell and Crane don’t see it exactly that way.

Though it seems the Astros are making a pivot on the heels of their second World Series title, we likely won’t know for some time exactly how drastic the changes are. Perhaps any suggestion of a sea change is overblown and the club will continue largely on a familiar path. Though if they do indeed move away from what has made them so successful, it would make for a stunning and fascinating turn of events. For now, the Astros are pushing forward without Click and Powers, and without Pete Putila and Oz Ocampo, two front office members who recently left for the Giants and Marlins, respectively. It seems that Crane is now the one driving the bus, and time will tell where he takes it.

Ausmus only spent a year in Oakland. The A’s tabbed the 53-year-old as bench coach in January, giving first-year skipper Mark Kotsay an experienced hand. Ausmus has five years of big league managerial experience, four with the Tigers (2014-17) and a lone season as an Angel (2019). Kotsay will now have to look elsewhere for his top lieutenant heading into his second year as Oakland skipper.

It was a predictably rough season for the A’s, who tore the MLB roster down the preceding winter to cut payroll. Oakland finished an AL-worst 60-102, a record besting only that of the Nationals. It’s certainly not the way Kotsay would’ve hoped to start his managerial career, although he and the front office were aware heading into the season there’d be plenty of growing pains with a mostly unproven roster.

Ausmus, meanwhile, seems set to land in a baseball operations department somewhere over the coming months. He’s worked in the Padres’ and Angels’ front offices in the past, so a transition back to the executive ranks wouldn’t be unfamiliar.

Replacing Bush as the top hitting instructor is Tommy Everidge, who’s been promoted from the same role at Triple-A Las Vegas. It’ll be the first big league coaching job for the 38-year-old, who briefly appeared in the big leagues with the A’s back in 2009. He spent the bulk of the last decade coaching his way up the Oakland system.

Pairing with Everidge is Chris Cron, who’ll join the staff as assistant hitting coach. The father of Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron, Chris Cron logged some big league time in the early 1990’s and joins the A’s after a long run working with prospects in the Diamondbacks system. Previous assistant hitting coach Eric Martins will slide over to first base coach, with Mike Aldrete vacating that post to serve as quality control coach.

The pitching instruction tandem will remain in place. Pitching coach Scott Emerson is back for his fifth full season in the role. Marcus Jensen, who (along with Bush) drew some consideration in the A’s managerial search this winter, returns to last season’s position as bullpen coach.

The 52-year-old Ausmus has been linked to several other managerial positions since leaving Anaheim, interviewing with the Padres, Astros, and (most recently) the Mets about their openings in the dugout.  This also marks the first actual coaching job of Ausmus’ career, as he worked as a special assistant with the Padres in between the end of his playing career and his hiring as the Tigers’ manager in November 2013.  Ausmus then worked another special assistant job for a season in the Angels’ front office before taking over their managerial position.

Now paired alongside newly-hired Oakland skipper Mark Kotsay, Ausmus will provide a veteran voice as Kotsay embarks on his first gig as a big-league manager.  Ausmus has 808 games (386-422) and five seasons under his belt managing Detroit and Los Angeles, highlighted by an AL Central crown with the Tigers in 2014.

When the A’s let Bob Melvin take the Padres’ manager job, it also led to the departure of former bench coach Ryan Christenson, who followed Melvin to San Diego.  Kotsay and now Ausmus will fill those two vacancies, though it remains to be seen if Oakland might yet make any other changes to the coaching staff heading into 2022.

Martino notes that the current list of candidates still has room to grow, but throws cold water on the notion that beloved Mets alumni Curtis Granderson and David Wright will interview after their names surfaced in earlier discussions. Whoever makes the shortlist and earns a shot at interviewing will meet with newly-minted GM Billy Eppler and his staff. Owner Steve Cohen will meet with vetted candidates some time after the initial round of interviews.

The identity of today’s interviewed candidate was none other than Brad Ausmus, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Ausmus has quite a few things going for his candidacy that surely helped net him the first opportunity to meet with Mets decision-makers. One such factor working in Ausmus’s favor is his relationship to Eppler, as Ausmus served as a special assistant to Eppler before being promoted to dugout manager in 2019 while the two were with the Angels. In other networking news, Fansided’s Robert Murray also notes that Ausmus is a Dartmouth alum like Mets president Sandy Alderson and assistant GM Bryn Alderson.

Unlike some of the candidates who have yet to interview, Ausmus also has a track record as a Major League manager. Between his time with the Angels and Detroit, he has compiled a 386-412 record as a manager, including two winning seasons at the helm and a playoff appearance. It probably also doesn’t hurt Ausmus’s case that his best season in Detroit coincided with Max Scherzer’s last season in the AL. Scherzer, one of the Mets’ marquee pickups this offseason, owns one of the game’s more fiery personalities and is perhaps best handled by a dugout operator who’s familiar with his tempo.

If Quatraro’s name rings a bell it may be because he interviewed with the A’s within the past couple of days. That the Tampa Bay bench coach has landed interviews for 100% of this offseason’s managerial vacancies is no surprise. The Rays have proven their division’s winningest team during Quatraro’s time as bench coach, no small feat considering the powerhouses that reside within those same confines. Martino reports that Quatraro is in line for a Tuesday interview.

There aren’t many updates for the remaining candidates of Espada, Kelly, and Showalter, though they all remain highly credible options in the wake of MLBTR’s profile of their candidacies last week. Jon Heyman does note (via Twitter) that Espada and Eppler share a “strong link” dating back to their time in the Yankees organization, and calls Espada a “serious contender”.

9:49 pm: Robert Murray of FanSided reports (on Twitter) that longtime big league outfielder Curtis Granderson is also under consideration for the Mets. The 40-year-old announced his retirement from playing in 2020 following a 16-year big league career that included a trio of All-Star appearances and a Silver Slugger Award.

Granderson had emerged as a respected veteran presence in clubhouses over the course of his career. He currently serves as the president of the Players Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at increasing accessibility within the sport for Black athletes. Granderson played four seasons with the Mets during team president Sandy Alderson’s time as the club’s GM. Prior to that, he spent four years with the Yankees — a stint that overlapped with Eppler’s time in the club’s front office.

6:35 pm: The Mets declined an option to bring back skipper Luis Rojas shortly after the end of the 2021 season. Two months later, they remain without a manager. After spending a significant chunk of the early offseason in the search for a new GM that eventually landed Billy Eppler, the Mets turned their attention to the player market last week in advance of the lockout. With clubs barred from making major league transactions for the duration of the work stoppage, the Mets and the Athletics, the other team currently without a manager, figure to zero in on those respective searches in short order.

Andy Martino of SNY reports some preliminary candidates, naming Astros bench coach Joe Espada, Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro, Pirates bench coach Don Kelly and former MLB managers Buck Showalter and Brad Ausmus among those under early consideration. Martino cautions that’s not an exhaustive list, and it’s not clear whether everyone in that group will get an interview.

No one from that group registers as much of a surprise. None of Espada, Quatraro or Kelly has managed at the big league level, but they’ve all been rumored as part of searches elsewhere. Espada, 46, has been the bench coach in Houston for the past four seasons, working underneath both A.J. Hinch and Dusty Baker. He’s interviewed for a few different managerial openings in recent years and at one point even looked to be the favorite for the Giants job that eventually went to Gabe Kapler.

Quatraro’s name has come up a few times over the past couple offseasons. Kevin Cash’s top lieutenant over the last three years in Tampa Bay, the 48-year-old Quatraro has interviewed with the Giants, Pirates and Tigers in winters past and was reportedly a finalist for the Pittsburgh job that went to Derek Shelton. Kelly has worked underneath Shelton in the Steel City over the past two seasons. The 41-year-old interviewed with the Tigers and Red Sox last offseason and was reported to be among the top handful under consideration for the job that went to Alex Cora.

Showalter and Ausmus, meanwhile, come with significant managerial experience. The former has been one of the more accomplished skippers of the past couple decades. Showalter, now 65, landed his first big league managerial job with the Yankees in 1992. He spent four years in the Bronx, managed the D-Backs from 1998-2000, the Rangers from 2003-06 and the Orioles from 2010-18.

Over his career, Showalter won Manager of the Year Awards at three of those four stops. He’s overseen five playoff clubs (including three division winners), taking the 2014 Orioles to the AL Championship Series. Showalter hasn’t managed since being dismissed by Baltimore after the 2018 campaign, but he’s continued to express openness to a return to the dugout.

Ausmus, meanwhile, has managed at two separate stints. He spent the 2014-17 campaigns at the helm of the Tigers, then managed the Angels in 2019. That stint in Anaheim overlapped with Eppler’s tenure as Angels’ GM, fueling immediate speculation upon the latter’s hiring with the Mets that he could look to bring Ausmus to Queens.

Prior to that stint as skipper, Ausmus spent the 2018 season as a member of the Los Angeles front office. Eppler’s Angels fired Ausmus after just one season in the managerial chair, but it was reported at the time that call was made by owner Arte Moreno (perhaps not coincidentally just one day after it was announced Joe Maddon was leaving the Cubs).

In addition to Washington, Padres’ brass has done some background work on veteran managers Bruce Bochy and Buck Showalter, reports Buster Olney of ESPN (Twitter link). Bochy told Chris Russo of SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio channel last Friday that he hadn’t been contacted by the Friars to that point, but he expressed some openness to considering the role if the club were interested. Showalter, meanwhile, has a lengthy managerial career that includes stints with the Yankees, D-Backs, Rangers and Orioles dating back to 1992. The 65-year-old last managed in 2018 with Baltimore, but he’d bring an accomplished resume — three Manager of the Year award wins and five postseason appearances — to the table.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today adds three more candidates to the mix, suggesting each of Brad Ausmus, John Gibbons and Jeff Banister could be under consideration. Ausmus, a former Padre player and front office executive, had previous stints managing the Tigers (2014-17) and Angels (2019). Gibbons spent two separate stints at the helm of the Blue Jays, leading the club to a pair of playoff appearances from 2015-16.

Banister, meanwhile, spent four years leading the Rangers — somewhat ironically succeeding Washington in that position after the latter stepped down near the end of the 2014 season. Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has hired quite a few former colleagues from his time in Texas, but Preller had already matriculated to San Diego by the time the Rangers hired Banister. The 57-year-old Banister spent four years at the helm in Arlington, leading the team to a pair of playoff appearances in his first two seasons before they dropped below .500 over his final couple campaigns.

Olney also adds one more interesting wrinkle, suggesting the Friars may have interest in Yankees’ skipper Aaron Boone. Boone has spent the last four seasons in the Bronx, but his contract is set to expire at the end of this season. It’s entirely possible the Yankees sign Boone to an extension and keep him in the fold, but there’ll be at least some uncertainty regarding his status until New York makes a formal announcement about his future with the organization.

Clearly, San Diego has taken a broad approach to the initial round of hiring, with a wide array of early candidates in the mix. Kevin Acee of the San Diego of the Union-Tribune reports that the club is hoping to pare things down a bit by the end of this week, although there’s no firm timetable set for advancing the process.

Interestingly, each of the publicly-known initial candidates has some degree of managerial experience at the major league level, a few having managed with multiple franchises. Padres’ chairman Peter Seidler indicated last week that wouldn’t be a prerequisite for the position. It’s likely there are also others under consideration who have no prior MLB managing history, but it’s nevertheless noteworthy to see the Pads at least kicking the tires on a group of well-known skippers after Preller’s first two hires (Andy Green and Tingler, respectively) were both assuming the role for the first time.

Ausmus had two stints with the Astros during his playing career, accounting for ten of his 18 seasons in the majors. He has gone on to manage the Tigers and the Angels, though neither stint has turned out as hoped.

The Halos decided to move on from Ausmus after just one season, putting him into limbo for the 2020 campaign. Ausmus sat down with the Padres earlier in the offseason to discuss their opening, but did not get that gig and wasn’t prominently connected to any others.

Ausmus joins a long list of known candidates that includes quite a few other experienced skippers and some others who’d be managing for the first time. In the former camp are Dusty Baker, Jeff Banister, Buck Showalter, and John Gibbons. Candidates without prior MLB managerial experience include Joe Espada, Eduardo Perez, and Will Venable.

It’s now clear that Braves third base coach and former Rangers skipper Ron Washington is a serious possibility. He interviewed today, as Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. It was already known that Brad Ausmus had interviewed as well.

But those aren’t the only candidate to get a sit-down interview. Indeed, Scott Miller of Bleacher Report tweets that quite a few others have already been in to meet with GM A.J. Preller and company.

Rod Barajas and Jayce Tingler were already known to be candidates. They have in fact held interviews, according to Miller. Unlike the two men mentioned already, Barajas and Tingler are each looking for their first opportunity to helm a big-league team.

It may be that the list doesn’t extend beyond those four names. Miller reports that long-time MLB managers Buck Showalter, Joe Girardi, and Mike Scioscia appear not to be part of the ongoing Padres search. Whether there are more candidates still under consideration beyond those isn’t yet clear.

It’s been a whirlwind couple weeks for the 50-year-old Ausmus, whom the Angels fired Sept. 30 after just one season in the position. The Angels mustered a horrid 72-90 record under Ausmus in 2019, though it would be unfair to place all the blame on him after the team dealt with so much adversity that was out of his control. Injuries to key players weighed the Angels down throughout the season, but there was no worse blow than the death of one of their top starters, Tyler Skaggs, on July 1.

Before Ausmus’ lone year running the Angels’ dugout and clubhouse, he managed the Tigers to a 314-332 record with one playoff berth from 2014-17. Ausmus is also well-known for a long run as a major league catcher from 1993-2010, during which he played his first three-plus seasons with the Padres. He now has a home in San Diego, Acee notes.

Along with Ausmus, Rangers player development field coordinator Jayce Tingler and former Rangers manager/current Braves third base coach Ron Washington are reportedly among the Padres’ candidates. But it’s not clear whether they’ve interviewed anyone other than Ausmus yet.

The latest rumblings on dugout vacancies from around the sport….

• Joe Maddon has widely been linked to the Angels’ job and “is set to interview with” the club, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (subscription required).  As of Tuesday, there reportedly hadn’t yet been any contact between the Halos and the former Cubs skipper, though many expected it was only a matter of time before Maddon emerged as a candidate in Anaheim, given his longstanding history with the organization.  Maddon spent 31 seasons with the Angels as a player, minor league manager and coach, and member of the MLB coaching staff.
• Brad Ausmus, the Angels’ former manager, is expected to interview with the Padres, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).  A hiring would represent something of a homecoming for Ausmus, who began his 18-year playing career with 303 games for San Diego.  Ausmus is still owed two years’ worth of salary after being — rather surprisingly — fired by the Angels after the season, though it’s also understandable that he would pursue other opportunities for a quick return to managing.
• The Padres had interest in interviewing Carlos Beltran for their managerial vacancy but the former outfielder declined the request, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link).  Since retiring after the 2017 season, Beltran was interviewed for the Yankees’ managerial opening that eventually went to Aaron Boone, and had worked for the past season as a special advisor in the Yankees’ front office.  Beltran had long expressed interest in working in a front office and potentially even as a manager, though it isn’t known why he turned down the chance to speak with the Padres.
• Given the links between Beltran and the Mets, Feinsand wonders if Beltran could potentially be a candidate to replace Mickey Callaway, though Olney feels Beltran “seems like a total long shot” to be the next Mets’ manager given some of the hard feelings that exist between he and the organization dating back to his playing days.  As per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Beltran’s “relationship with [Mets] COO Jeff Wilpon is not good.”