Orioles Boss Sheds Light on New Astros Executive

After the conclusion of the 2023 season, general manager Dana Brown entered his first full offseason as the head of the Houston Astros' front office. When he was hired in January of 2023, there was very little he could do before the year started.

It was expected that some changes to the Astros' front office would come with Brown shaping things to fit how he wants it to look under his leadership.

That took place at the beginning of the offseason as they parted ways with assistant general manager Bill Firkus and farm director Sara Goodrum.

Eight front office promotions were announced as part of the reshaping under Brown, including Gavin Dickey moving into the assistant general manager role where he'll oversee player development.

At the GM meetings, Dickey laid out an early strategy for Houston, saying, "We just need to do a better job of creating more depth. Losing first- and second-round picks obviously hurts your system. We’re back now. We have a first-round pick. We have a second-round pick. I think we’re going to be better."

One GM at the top of his game right now is Executive of the Year winner Mike Elias of the Baltimore Orioles.

Dickey worked under Elias when the Orioles GM was with the Astros.

He shed some light on what Houston should expect from their new executive.

"He’s been reared in a very analytics-oriented operation, but his job has been to retain some core baseball compass as a scout and I think he’s going to bring that to the farm system there," he told Chandler Rome of The Athletic.

Houston's pipeline has consistently ranked towards the bottom and at the bottom of the MLB because they have traded away so much talent over the years.

The prospects they do hold onto has been able to be developed into high-level Major League players, but Brown and Dickey want to ensure they have more options to choose from going forward.

"I think it’s going to be great for him and for the players — he’s got a great way of relating to them, but he also understands what everyone is doing in (research and development) and up and down the whole program," Elias said.

Getting high praise from the reigning Executive of the Year is a good start to his tenure.

Now, he has to go out there and execute.