National Reaction to Crane's Choice to Dump Click Is Nearly Universally Negative
I canvassed reaction by baseball writers outside of Houston to Jim Crane's choice to move on from James Click and it's almost all negative. This may make it more difficult to hire Click's replacement.
On Saturday, November 5, the Astros won the World Series. Yordan Alvarez hit one over the batter’s eye to take a lead the bullpen did not relinquish.
On Friday, November 11, the Astros elected to part ways with the General Manager of that team.
Reaction to this move in Houston and on Astros Twitter was relatively nonchalant. For example, Houston Chronicle columnist Brian T. Smith described having the owner run the team’s baseball operations as “unorthodox,” but noted that “[Jim] Crane has often worked outside the box and spent the past decade-plus challenging baseball normalcy while turning an unprecedented rebuild into an annual contender.”
I’ve been extremely critical of Crane’s decision to get rid of Click and to not explain why he chose to move past a successful GM. As best I can tell, my opinion that the team is in worse shape long-term with a rich guy running baseball operations instead of someone steeped in baseball is a minority opinion among Astros fans.
Those in my replies have argued that 1) Jim Crane can do whatever he wants with the team, 2) that Crane is the reason for the team’s success over the last six seasons, and that 3) Click did not have a personality that Crane liked and we shouldn’t expect Crane to change his preferences despite the team’s success under Click.
While each of these seem really bad reasons to get rid of a successful general manager to me, the fact that I seem to hold the minority position indicates that I might need to expand my own thoughts.
And that led me to the question, what do other people think of Jim Crane’s decision to move on from James Click as the Astros General Manager? Are there other arguments that might persuade me to change my opinion?
So I canvassed what baseball people from outside of Houston have written about the Crane’s choice to find a new general manager. I’ll detail what others have said below, but the opinion from national sources is pretty clear—they have a nearly universally negative impression of Crane’s choice.
I will detail what national baseball writers said below, but I broke the comments down into four major categories:
Baseball people don’t understand the move.
Praise for the job James Click did as Astros general manager,
Adjectives used to describe Crane’s decision—they are all negative.
Crane’s reputation has taken a hit.
Were there any comments from national writers that viewed Crane’s decision to dump Click from a more positive light. I found only one that was more neutral, and even that is disingenuous in its intellectual argument.
After I detail each of these comments, I then try to address the question of why this negativity might matter. The self-inflicted reputational hit Crane has created makes the job of running the Astros less valuable to baseball executives. Does a top executive want to work for someone who will get rid of them despite winning a World Series? It is an important question to have in mind as Crane begins the long process of identifying Click’s replacement.
To highlight the comments from national baseball observers, I’ll simply post the quotes or tweets below under a heading based on the four categories I identified above. I’ll post a brief headline that highlights the most important element of the quote, the author and their affiliation, and then the quote.
I then include a quote that I headlined “The Most Positive Thing Written About Jim Crane Isn’t That Positive.” I then include some comments below that quote that begins “My take,”
The section that follows is titled “Why Does This Matter?” That includes my commentary on the entire set of quotes and the search for Click’s replacement.
Baseball People Don’t Understand It
Rival executives were appalled. Andy McCullough. TheAthletic.com.
The uncertainty surrounding Click was the talk of the executive class at this week’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas. Rival executives were appalled that Crane only extended Click a one-year offer despite the team’s success.
Abuzz over the bizarre treatment. Jon Heyman. New York Post.
MLB execs are abuzz over the bizarre treatment of GM James Click following his Astros’ World Series win. Everyone around the game finds it stunning he was offered only a one-year deal to remain GM, which seems like an invitation to leave following two consecutive World Series appearances, and not surprisingly, word is he’s quite upset over the situation.
Praise for Click
Maintaining that roster no small task. Jay Jaffe. Fangraphs.com.
Maintaining and augmenting that roster over the past three seasons was no small task given the departures of stars Gerrit Cole, George Springer, and Carlos Correa via free agency. While Click was able to do so largely with players who entered the organization on Luhnow’s watch, it still takes the right judgment to decide that rookie Jeremy Peña, with zero major league experience, was ready to fill Correa’s shoes as of Opening Day, or that Framber Valdez. Cristian Javier, and Luis Garcia could replace the likes of Zack Greinke and Wade Miley.
Adjectives to Describe Ousting Click
Inexplicable. Logically out-of-left-field. David Laurilla. Fangraphs.com
“The Astros inexplicably jettisoned General Manager James Click six days after winning the World Series…
Not after Crane’s logically-out-of-left-field decision to cut ties with his World Series-winning GM. Which isn’t to suggest that Crane wasn’t well within his right; billionaire owners have the power to both hire and fire. Moreover, they rarely have to defend their decisions, even the highly-questionable ones. Click deserved better.”
An insult. Jay Jaffe. Fangraphs.com
Click rejected a one-year offer, ending his tenure atop Houston’s front office.
Frankly, under such circumstances, a single-year offer is an insult, particularly for an organization’s highest-ranking baseball official, the person who is supposed to be the architect of the team.
A veritable slap in the face. David Laurilla. Fangraphs.com.
Jim Crane…offered Click just a one-year deal to remain in Houston — a veritable slap in the face given what the team had just accomplished. For all intents and purposes, the owner’s offer was an invitation to vamoose. Crane wanted Click gone.
Crane’s Reputation Has Declined
Winning It All May Not Be Enough. Jay Jaffe. Fangraphs.com.
Crane…will find somebody to step in, just as he found Baker and Click while the team became Public Enemy Number One. Given the stars on the roster and the resources at hand, the job has obvious appeal, but whoever takes it will have to know that even winning it all may not be enough for the guy writing the checks.
Crane’s unwillingness to reward an employee was well-noted. Andy McCullough. TheAthletic.com.
On the surface, running the Astros looks like one of the game’s premier positions. But Crane’s unwillingness to reward an employee like Click — who inherited an excellent group from fired predecessor Jeff Luhnow, kept the core intact and build a dynamic bullpen in 2022 — was well-noted by other executives.
Won’t Have to Work for Jim Crane Anymore. Craig Calcaterra. Cup of Coffee Substack.
Continuing to be honest, this is probably for the best for James Click, because he is now leaving Houston (a) with a ring on his finger; (b) with 100% certainty that he’ll be a top candidate for the best baseball operations jobs which come available; and (c) he won’t have to work for Jim Crane anymore.
Not the right way to treat people. Marc Normandin. Patreon.com.
It’s clear with the short-term deals handed out to any authority figure that this remains Crane’s club built with the vision he shared with his disgraced former GM, and it will run exactly as he wants it to in the years after him. Ruthlessly efficient, and through fear of loss. There is no assumption that there will be time to fix mistakes, only a leash without slack that tells you what the boss thinks of failure…
Surely Crane will find more people who think working for him is worth the risk, especially since, despite the immense pressure he generates while looming over his underlings, Baker and Click are now both World Series winners, their résumés more impressive than they were a year ago. None of that means we have to just nod and say it’s the right way to treat people.
Track Record of Activists Owners is Terrible. Joe Sheehan. Joe Sheehan Newsletter.
The one-year offer to James Click when he still had champagne in his eyes was an insult. It may work out for Jim Crane because the talent level in Houston is so high, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if we go quite a while before the Astros do their next dogpile. The track record of activist owners in baseball is terrible, and Crane’s decision to become the new George Steinbrenner bodes ill for the franchise.
The Most Positive Thing Written About Crane Isn’t That Positive.
Hardly Unprecedented. Bob Nightengale. USA Today:
Crane will be criticized for firing Click, but it’s hardly unprecedented. Dave Dombrowski, president of baseball operations for the Philadelphia Phillies, and Walt Jocketty, special assistant for the Cincinnati Reds…were each fired after winning World Series titles, too.
Dombrowski was fired eight months after leading the Boston Red Sox to the 2018 World Series championship, and Jocketty was fired one year after the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series.
It was almost as if Crane believed the Astros were winning in spite of Click,…Certainly, he was looking forward to the day he could have someone else in the role that would earn his respect.
Nightengale’s take was the most neutral on Crane’s choice to dump Click as I could find. It’s also a disingenuous take. Click was let go immediately after the team won the World Series. In fact, it was only 6 days after the Series ended.
Both Jocketty and Dombrowski were fired months later, after their teams had disappointing attempts to repeat as World Champions. These are only similar if you are looking to make the case for Crane.
Why Does This Matter?
The near universal negativity toward Crane and his choice to let Click go as his General Manager is at one level, a lot of “one man’s opinion.” Some people don’t think well of Jim Crane. People think a lot of things.
But the people who are shaping opinions about Crane are shaping opinions for the person Crane wants to hire as Click’s replacement. The most important quotes above are probably not those from columnists (or the modern equivalent) with opinions. It’s from the baseball executives—those in the game—who are “appalled,” “confused,” and “abuzz” with discussions of Crane’s “bizarre” treatment of Click.
Their befuddlement is understandable. Baseball executives know they are primarily judged based on their team’s win-loss record. These baseball men may like and/or respect people like Al Avila and Drayton Moore. But they know why both of these executives were fired during the 2022 season—their teams were not winning enough and did not seem on track to be doing so in 2023.
The opposite is true for James Click. His team won the World Series and will be one of the favorites to do so again in the 2023 season.
So why did Jim Crane decided to move on from James Click? We do not the answer, as Crane has not explained his reasoning publicly, and can only speculate based on leaks, which only explain part of the story, at best.
People inside the game would also like to understand why Crane made the decision he did, but they have an additional motive to know. They would like to know the standards by which they will be judged. And letting the General Manager whose team won the World Series go tells them that they will not be judged by the normal standards of winning and losing baseball games.
And for some, it may lead to the conclusion that they do not want to be judged by unusual standards. They do not want to be part of an organization where winning the World Series is not good enough to keep your job. It’s hard enough to win one in the first place. To say it is not enough to keep your job seems like madness to other baseball executives.
How many baseball executives will reach this conclusion? I don’t know. There is no good way of finding out this information, which is locked in the minds of potential general managers.
And how many of the baseball executives who decided they don’t want to put up with Jim Crane are among the 30 best baseball executives in the world? I also don’t know. But it’s possible that this group is more likely to hold this opinion than the broader group. The top candidates may be candidates for other team’s top baseball operations jobs. They do not necessarily have to take the Astros offer.
We also know that one of the 30 best baseball executives in the world will not be the Astros general manager next season. I don’t know that James Click is one of the handful of best executives in the game—he really didn’t have time to show that—but I’m confident that he easily clears the bar as one of the best 30 available.
Will Crane be able to find one of the other 29 from this group. Again, we do not know. It’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that a candidate will just demand more money so they can feel more independent if they take the job. All that costs is money from Jim Crane’s bank account. So that’s not a big deal as Crane can afford that. It’s also possible that there will be longer wrangling with a desirable candidate who demands independence from Crane’s interference in baseball operations.
In short, my concerns could well be overwrought.
But this review of what national baseball reporters have written about letting Click go has only confirmed my opinion. Jim Crane’s choice to dump James Click has hurt the reputation of the Astros. We will see if it affects the quality of the replacement Crane finds for Click. I hope that it doesn’t and I fear that it does.