Albert Pujols Has Never Managed in Affiliated Baseball. The Astros Are Interviewing Him Thursday.
The Houston Astros will interview Albert Pujols for their manager job on Thursday. He has managed one season of professional baseball in his life, and it was in the Dominican winter league.
The report came Wednesday from Dominican journalist Mike Rodriguez and was matched by ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez and Jeff Passan and by MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart and Mark Feinsand. The interview is in person. The Astros have not confirmed it.
He is not the only name on the board. Yankees bench coach Brad Ausmus, a former Astros catcher who has managed the Tigers and Angels, has already interviewed. Rangers bench coach Luis Urueta is interviewing this week, stepping away from the LIDOM club he is managing to do it. So is Morgan Ensberg, a former Astros third baseman who has run the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate in Durham for three seasons. MLB.com reports Houston wants a manager named by the end of the week.
What Pujols has actually done
Pujols, 46, managed Leones del Escogido in LIDOM for the 2024-25 season. He won the Serie Final 4-3 over Licey, the club’s first title since 2015-16, then won the 2025 Caribbean Series. He managed the Dominican Republic at the 2026 World Baseball Classic and finished third after losing to Team USA in the semifinals.
That is a real resume for a first-time manager. It is also the entire resume. He has never managed or coached in Major League Baseball or anywhere in affiliated American baseball. He said in September he has no intention of managing in the Dominican league again, and his current title is president of baseball operations for Estrellas Orientales.
He was a finalist for the Angels and Padres jobs last offseason. Both went to other first-time managers. He also remains inside a 10-year personal services contract with the Angels, which would have to be negotiated around.
Why Houston keeps circling this profile
The playing career needs no defense: 703 home runs, 3,384 hits, 2,218 RBI, three NL MVP awards, 11 All-Star selections and World Series titles in 2006 and 2011. He is one of two players in history with 3,000 hits and 700 homers, and he hits the BBWAA ballot for the first time in 2028. He also hit 62 home runs against Houston, more than against any other franchise.
The connection that matters here is newer. Randy Flores, hired as Houston’s general manager in late October, pitched for the Cardinals for five seasons alongside Pujols, including the 2006 title team. Flores is running a baseball operations department for the first time, and this hire is his first real decision. Ensberg, another candidate, was his teammate at USC.
Hiring a former teammate is not automatically a mistake. Handing a major league clubhouse to someone with no affiliated coaching experience, in a city that treats October as the baseline, is a real gamble.
The job is open because .500 was not enough
Joe Espada went 256-229 across three seasons and 0-4 in the postseason. The Astros declined to renew his expiring contract on Oct. 14. Houston won the AL West on the final day of 2026 at 81-81, then got swept by the White Sox in the wild card round.
So Flores is picking a manager for a .500 division winner with a closing window, and he is doing it against a clock. The collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and the industry expects owners to lock players out the following day. Whoever Houston wants, it needs to move now.
Pujols will manage in the big leagues eventually. Somebody is going to give him a dugout. The question Flores answers this week is whether a team that just played .500 ball is the right place for everyone involved to find out.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
.jpg){kind=link}