When he was fired in July of 2025, I was curious to see what was next for Mike Rizzo. At the time, he was 64 years old, but he did not seem to have any desire to step away. After a year on the sidelines, Rizzo is in the mix for the Astros GM job. Yesterday, Bob Nightengale reported that Rizzo would get an interview.
We will see if he gets the job, but I would sure be curious to see how he would do in Houston. The Nats and Astros also have quite a few connections. Obviously, Houston was the team that Mike Rizzo’s Nats beat in the 2019 World Series. The two clubs also share a Spring Training site at West Palm Beach.
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If Rizzo gets hired, we will be seeing a lot of him during Spring Training. It would be very interesting to contrast how the two teams do things at the same Spring Training site. Rizzo’s successor in DC, Paul Toboni, has changed a lot since he took over. The “I don’t care how hard you throw ball four” signs have been replaced by Traject Machines and other tech.
Despite Rizzo being an old school guy, I do not think it would be impossible for him to have success in Houston. He would have to adapt some, but a veteran Astros team that is not afraid to spend money would suit Rizzo better than a young, smaller budget club.
Rizzo may not be an innovator at this stage of his career, he still has an eye for a good trade and does a solid job with pro scouting. I still believe that he will have to lean into analytics more than he did, but maybe he has learned some lessons since being let go in DC. That is definitely something that will be brought up in his interview which is taking place today.
Based on his past achievements, Rizzo would be a strong candidate. He turned the Nats into one of the best teams in baseball last decade. However, the 2020’s have been a different story for Rizzo. Bad drafting and an inability to adapt led to him losing his edge.
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How much of this was his fault and how much was he hamstrung by the Lerner’s? If he gets the Astros job, we will be able to find out. He built a World Series championship team and won the NL East four times, but there is not a ton of recent success here.
It is also no lock that Rizzo gets the job either. He is one of several candidates in the Astros search. However, the interest he is getting for this job seems to be more serious than when he was floated as a candidate for the A’s gig.
If Rizzo gets the job, I will be rooting for him. Things did not end well in DC, but I appreciate the good times as well. For Astros fans sake, I hope you are getting 2010’s Rizzo and not the 2020’s version.
