The Astros are still in the early stages of finding a permanent manager, but they have begun forming a list of candidates.

Houston's decision makers are trying to gain information about the men on the list.

Tony DeFrancesco has been managing the Astros since Brad Mills was fired on Aug. 18.

"We're continuing to assess our list of candidates," Jeff Luhnow said. "I mentioned before that it's a relatively long list and what we're trying to do right now is do as much as we can prior to engaging in any conversations to trim that list down a little bit, and there are a lot of conversations going on between George and Jim and myself and us reaching out to people in the industry we know and trust. That's the process we're going through right now."