Since Brad Mills was removed from the managerial position by the Houston Astros, a handful of names have come up regarding who might eventually take his place and the place of now current interim manager
Chris Maloney from the Cardinals and Jim Riggleman from the Reds are two of the bigger names being thrown around, but Astros blog The Crawfish Boxes thinks that the favorite may just be Houston's bench coach Joe Pettini. In fact, they even have a theory as to why he hasn't just been given the job yet since he's such a favorite for it:
Here's the guy pretty much everyone assumes will get the job eventually. Heck, everyone assumed that when he was hired and everyone assumed he'd be the interim manager.
Yet, Jeff Luhnow and this front office threw us a curveball. Pettini is still the bench coach, leaving us to wonder why they didn't just give him the job now. My theory, which I brought up on the podcast last night, is that if we all assume he's getting the job, then any potential candidates to be interviewed might view him the same way.
By keeping him on the bench, Houston can make him a candidate and still hear from the other likely guys on this list. Plus, he gets to avoid having the last stench of this 100-loss team on his resume. Instead, he'll just have next year's 100-loss team to worry about.
Not many new names have been thrown into the mixer lately for the vacant position, so Pettini will probably remain the favorite until a more qualified candidate starts getting sewn into the rumor mill.
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