Inside Randy Flores' Rise to Become the Astros New General Manager

Houston finally has a new GM, and it's not the name that most initially expected.

St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Randy Flores delivers a pitch in the seventh inning to a Cincinnati Reds batter at Busch Stadium. Cincinnati defeated St. Louis 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Houston Astros general manager search wrapped up on Friday night as the club announced the hire of Randy Flores as the new GM.

Flores was formerly the St. Louis Cardinals' assistant GM for eight seasons from 2019-26 and is now the 15th general manager in Astros history. This is the first time in Flores' career that he will be in this role, managing a baseball operations department.

It's no secret that this is a surprise turn of events in Houston's GM search. The initial reporting by The Athletic on Thursday suggested that Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine had emerged as a favorite for the position. The Astros reportedly even offered the job to Kleine right after the Brewers won the World Series, per Chandler Rome of The Athletic.

A deal was not able to come together, and the 51-year-old Flores is now the replacement for Dana Brown, who the Astros parted ways with over two months ago on Aug. 24. Flores may not have been one of the top names in Houston's search, but is still someone with plenty of experience in various executive roles.

Flores' Rise to Astros GM

Colorado Rockies relief pitcher Randy Flores delivers a pitch in the eighth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field. The Diamondbacks defeated the Rockies 11-7. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Flores appeared in over 200 games as a relief pitcher and and played parts of eight seasons in the major leagues. Five of those seasons were with the Cardinals, including the 2004 season when St. Louis took down Houston in NLCS and the 2006 World Series title year. He threw 250 innings over his MLB career and made 350 appearances.

Flores was the pitching coach at his alma mater USC in 2013 during graduate school and also founded a video scouting technology company called OnDeck Digital in 2015.

He also worked as a college baseball analyst for ESPN and Pac-12 Network before he joined the Cardinals front office as the director of scouting in 2015.

He replaced Chris Correa, who had received a 46-month prison sentence after hacking into the Astros personnel and scouting database and email system.

All three of owner Jim Crane's previous hires at general manager have not had previous experience running a baseball operations department. That includes Jeff Luhnow, who came over from St. Louis as well. Luhnow had spent nine seasons with the Cardinals and was the vice president of scouting and player development before he got hired by the Astros in 2011.

Flores has a strong background in scouting and his AGM role was related to amateur and pro acquisition.

“Randy has had a huge impact on the Cardinals over the last 10 seasons,” Crane said per the press release. “Throughout the entire interview process, we’ve been thoroughly impressed with Randy and with his background in scouting and player acquisition. We’re happy to welcome Randy and his family to the Astros and we can’t wait to get to work on bringing another championship to Houston."

Brown also had a similar background in scouting, but Flores has been an executive with experience in various major league operations, as well as the trade deadline. While no front office can be perfect in every single draft, Flores has overseen multiple successful picks during his time as director of scouting.

The Cardinals drafted All-Star pitcher Zac Gallen in the third round of the 2016 MLB Draft and utility man Tommy Edman in the sixth round in 2016. They also selected utility man Brendan Donovan in the seventh round and outfielder Lars Nootbar in the eighth round of the 2018 draft.

Although the Cardinals haven't been as successful on the field, their farm system is ranked No. 2 in MLB by Baseball America. That's success under Flores the Astros need, considering their system ranks among the lowest in baseball.

St. Louis has hit on two critical first round picks recently; first in outfielder Jordan Walker in 2020 who won the 2026 Home Run Derby and star rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt in the first round in 2024. The Cardinals added two more successful picks in 2020 with shorstop Masyn Winn and first baseman Alec Burleson in the second round.