Joe Espada’s Time With the Astros Needs to End

Both the Houston Astros and manager Joe Espada are on their last leg.

After a miserable 15-23 start to the season — which has come due to a variety of factors, the most major being the multitude of injuries that have plagued the roster since the onset of the campaign — it appears that 2026 is set to be a wash. Baseball Reference gives the team a 1.3% chance to make the postseason, with a less than 0.1% chance of winning the World Series. Yes, it’s early, but it’s also easy to see that this team just doesn’t have the juice.

Who’s supposed to supply that juice? Is it the front office? The players? The manager? The answer is probably a little bit of everybody, though that doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to deciding who’s going to pay for the disappointing seasons that have come in the wake of the ALCS defeat to the rival Texas Rangers in 2023 — all of which have come under the watch of one man: Joe Espada.

Time Running Out for Joe Espada

Houston Astros manager Joe Espada. | Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images

It’s officially time for the Astros to cut bait with this managerial experiment. It’s just not working.

The club is staring down its second straight season without making the postseason, which is unacceptable, especially when one considers the talent on the roster. Sure, a ton of it is injured at the moment — especially on the mound — but many other key contributors like Yordan Alvarez and Christian Walker are still here and playing well. The fact that this team hasn’t been able to put something together in the first month and a half of the season is bewildering.

Is Espada to blame for everything? Absolutely not. He can’t control which players get hurt and which ones don’t. He also can’t control how well his pitchers perform on a day-to-day basis. But he is in charge of the vibe in the clubhouse to some extent, and that vibe is not in a good place.

Sometimes it takes a big move to propel a squad in the right direction, and sometimes that big move entails getting rid of the head honcho to light a fire under everybody. As a general rule, managers don’t matter all that much — at least in the macro. They really matter on the margins, in the areas of the game that the general fan doesn’t see when watching a game. Is it fair to fire that guy when pretty much everything, not just the margins, is going wrong? Maybe, maybe not. That doesn’t change the harsh reality that something needs to be done.

Because this team isn’t playing with passion or joy; it’s playing with the type of emotion one sees from a child who’s had his favorite toy taken away.

So while Espada might’ve picked up some wins in his first two seasons at the helm in Houston, those aren’t going to be enough to calm the waters in 2026. Not enough winning has occurred under his watch, and that’s just not going to cut it in a city that needs to claim victory — no matter the cost.

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