The Houston Astros have a way of making the story behind the podium feel as big as the one on the field. Three years after the franchise turned a championship parade into a referendum on its front-office structure, Houston is again workshopping power and permanence in public. The names are different, the standings are not as kind, but the choreography is familiar: the general manager explaining the plan while the rest of us ask how long he’ll be the one executing it.
That’s why Dana Brown’s week landed with such a thud. The team missed October for the first time since 2016, and the first meaningful conversation of the offseason wasn’t about free agents or trade targets — it was about control, runway, and who actually gets to decide both.