3 depart Astros’ organization
lockout has not disrupted an annual brain drain of the Astros’ front office and coaching staff.
Houston lost senior manager of player valuations Brendan Fournie, Latin American scouting supervisor and international crosschecker Roman Ocumarez and Class AAA Sugar Land hitting coach Ben Rosenthal to other organizations within the past week. All three men left for promotions.
Houston was in danger of losing bench coach Joe Espada, too, but he did not get either of the two managerial jobs still open during the lockout.
Espada interviewed with both the New York Mets and Oakland A’s. He made it to the final round of Mets interviews before the club hired Buck Showalter. Oakland hired Mark Kotsay on Monday.
Rosenthal joined Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s staff as a major league hitting coach. Rosenthal spent five seasons in the Astros’ organization, including the past three as their Class AAA hitting coach.
Ocumarez is leaving to direct the Miami Marlins’ international scouting department, a person familiar with the plans confirmed Monday. Among many of
Houston’s successes in the international market, Ocumarez is perhaps most well known for helping to find and sign little-known pitchers Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier for $10,000 apiece.
Fournie is the Baltimore Orioles’ new director of baseball strategy, reuniting him with former Astros assistant general manager Mike Elias. Fournie had been with the Astros since 2016 and was promoted to his most recent job in 2019.
Chandler Rome
Kotsay takes over as A’s manager
The Oakland A’s are hiring Mark Kotsay as their new manager.
Kotsay, 46, will succeed Bob Melvin and lend contiBaseball’s
nuity having held multiple roles on the A’s coaching staff in recent years. The team has yet to officially announce the hire, which was first reported by MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
Kotsay served as Oakland’s third-base coach in 2021, quality-control coach from 2018-20 and bench coach for a season and a half before taking a leave of absence in 2017. Before joining the A’s staff, Kotsay was a special assistant in the Padres’ front office in 2014 and San Diego’s hitting coach in 2015.
Kotsay played 17 seasons in the majors as a first baseman and an outfielder, including for the A’s from 2004-07. Former A’s teammates lauded the choice of Kotsay — who interviewed for manager openings with the Giants, Pirates and Tigers the past two offseasons — as the new Oakland skipper.
Minor league teams sue MLB
Four minor league teams that lost their big league affiliations before the 2021 season have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball, using a law firm that has represented players’ unions.
Parent companies of the Staten Island Yankees, Tri-City Valley Cats (a former Astros affiliate), Norwich Sea Unicorns and Salem-Keizer Volcanoes filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, accusing the baseball commissioner’s office of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
MLB ended the Professional Baseball Agreement that governed the relationship between the majors and minors in late 2020, after minor league seasons were canceled because of COVID-19. Affiliates were cut from a minimum of 160 to 120, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues that had governed the minors since 1901 was shut down and MLB took over operation of the minors.