Matt Kleine Passes on Astros Official Offer for GM Position

The Houston Astros have now hired their next general manager, as they have brought on Randy Flores to take over as the next GM, which is a key move for this franchise as Houston aims to be much more competitive moving forward.

With that said, the Astros did offer Milwaukee Brewers assistant GM Matt Kleine the GM position earlier in the week around the time of Milwaukee's World Series win, however, he declined the offer and decided to stay with the Brewers.

On that note, according to Chandler Rome of the Athletic, the Astros offered Kleine the job on Wednesday night shortly before the Brewers finished off their World Series victory, per multiple sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the hiring process.

Additionally, Rome noted that league sources said Kleine was looking either for a higher salary or a president of baseball operations title with the Astros, but Houston was not willing to meet either of those asks, and as a result, Kleine decided to stay with Milwaukee despite being the favorite for the Astros' GM vacancy.

It is important to note that giving the GM the president of baseball operations title is not something that owner Jim Crane has done, and he actually did not give it to Flores either, so that does appear to be where the disagreement happened.

Rome also included Crane's thoughts on Flores and how the interview process went. "Randy has had a huge impact on the Cardinals over the last 10 seasons. Throughout the entire interview process, we’ve been thoroughly impressed with Randy and his background in scouting and player acquisition," Crane said.

After seeing this quote from Crane it is very clear that he and the Astros were impressed with Flores throughout the interview process and what he has been able to with the St. Louis Cardinals over the past 10 seasons, especially when it comes to acquiring players and scouting them as well.

Focusing in on the scouting and player acquisition aspect, that is something that will play a major role for the Astros as they are in a very interesting situation with several players becoming free agents, entering their walk year, as well as some other players being two years away from free agency. With that said, based on Flores being hired as the new GM, it does appear that Crane trusts him to handle this situation.

Another thing that Flores will have to manage is the potential lockout that is expected to start early in December, with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire on December 1st, and if the lockout does occur, Rome notes that at that point no MLB employees will be allowed to contact players on the 40-man MLB rosters, so Flores has to get familiar with the Astros roster sooner rather than later so he can begin making moves.

In addition to having to build the roster, Flores will also have the task of hiring a new manager and based on his background with the Cardinals it will be interesting to see if he considers any candidates from St. Louis, or if he has another candidate in mind.

With all this information in mind, while Kleine may have been the favorite to be the next GM in Houston, the Astros opted to move forward with Flores, and with his great background, he could be the exact GM that Houston needs to get great talent on this roster and put this team in a position to be a consistent contender once again.

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