Photo: Getty Images
It has been one heck of a year for the Houston Astros that has been capped off this week with plenty of celebration. They have also started taking care of some business as the winter season is a full go now, signing Dusty Baker to a new one year deal and declining the options on Trey Mancini and Will Smith. It is a harsh reality that the celebration does not last for long, it is literally right back to work for your push for back-to-back titles.
While Dusty has been given the new deal that he deserves, the James Click situation still lingers. He has been in Las Vegas this week working for the Astros without a contract at the GM Meetings. That by the way is very normal and he is not the only GM to be there doing this as Brian Cashman currently is out of contract with the New York Yankees. But all of this is still so odd. There has been the reporting within the last week that James Click and Jim Crane do not see eye-to-eye as Crane stepped in during the season to do a lot of the baseball decision making. All of the signs and rumors have been pointing towards a divorce, but one has not come. Is this a battle with optics? Do the Astros want to be a team that wins a World Series and lets their GM go? Should they even care how this looks? There are so many odd layers to this, but even odder is the way the questions about it today were answered by Jim Crane.
I walked away from the press conference today finding this all still so very weird. The Astros clearly have to battle the public perception here and extend an offer, but if the reports are true that it is simply a one year offer, they clearly are not that committed to him moving forward. Why kick this can down the road just to do it all again next year?
At the end of the day, baseball is a business and decisions like this get made all the time in normal walks of life, but not with the public magnifying glass that this one has on it. I have said for a while now that it is completely okay to move on and admit that you both simply just no longer fit each others needs. It truly is okay if that is the case. Jim Crane wants someone that will be more aggressive, like Jeff Luhnow was and James Click comes from a background that is far more disciplined in Tampa Bay. They are just two different styles that clearly no longer work.
Click came to Houston with the same goal as Dusty Baker, looking to keep the Astros train rolling down the tracks. And like Dusty, Click has done just that. The club has finished a win shy of the World Series, losing the World Series and winning the World Series in their three years here. With limited draft ability and a depleted farm system, making big signature moves has not been as easy as it was for Luhnow. Restocking the system to do that takes time, more than Click will clearly ever get. And that too is okay. He has come to Houston and done his job overall, not setting them back at any point along the way.
Resolution on this situation needs to come quickly for this club. Click is scheduled to be back In Houston on Friday and Jim Crane is scheduled to speak with him. I do wonder if Click would turn down the one year offer. Would he be better off taking a year away and landing a job elsewhere a year from now in a place where he might be more aligned with ownership. Do not get it twisted, the process overall for hiring Click was a rushed one. They waited and waited as long as they could before they made the announcement to fire Luhnow, waiting until both he and AJ Hinch had been suspended.
There have been rumors circling for a while now that David Stearns is someone that Jim Crane wants to bring back to run his club. If this is the case, there is no shame and simply admitting it and getting a deal done. No matter what happens here, I ask again, why delay the inevitable with James Click?