The Blue Jays announced Monday morning that former Astros general manager James Click has been hired as their new vice president of baseball strategy.
In Click’s new role, he’ll work “closely with general manager Ross Atkins and department heads on strategic planning, decision making, and evaluation.” Click will also “work across both professional and amateur levels to identify best practices, develop plans, and implement strategies.”
The Astros rather surprisingly moved on from Click just weeks after winning the 2022 World Series. Reports of mounting friction between Click and team owner Jim Crane began to surface late in the 2022 regular season, and upon conclusion of the postseason, Crane put forth a one-year extension offer that was generally viewed as a token offer that never stood a chance of being accepted. Houston spent most of the offseason operating without a general manager before hiring now-former Braves vice president of scouting Dana Brown to fill that vacancy in January.
There’s been little doubt that Click would land on his feet with another club. His three-year stint as the general manager in Houston resulted in three playoff berths, after all, two of which (2021-22) saw the ’Stros take home the American League pennant. While it’s only fair to acknowledge that the prior front office regime, headed by Jeff Luhnow, laid the groundwork for a good deal of that success with acquisitions/signings of stars like Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and others, Click oversaw trades acquiring Kendall Graveman and Rafael Montero, signed free agents like Hector Neris and Ryne Stanek, and was in the GM seat for extensions of both Ryan Pressly and Alvarez.
Prior to his that three-year run with Houston, Click spent 15 years in the Rays organization. The Yale graduate first joined Tampa Bay as a baseball operations coordinator back in 2006 and slowly made his way up the organizational ladder, spending time with most departments along the way before eventually being tapped the Rays’ vice president of baseball operations in 2017. He held that post for three years before being hired away by Houston in the fallout from MLB’s investigation into the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
The Blue Jays didn’t specify a length on Click’s contract, though it stands to reason that regardless of contract length, he’ll again emerge as a candidate for teams seeking either a general manager or president of baseball operations in the future. It’s a relatively similar situation to the one that brought Ben Cherington to the Jays for a few years. Cherington, the former Red Sox GM, was hired as a vice president of baseball operations in Toronto back in 2016, less than a year removed from being ousted in Boston. He held that post through the fall of 2019, when the Pirates hired Cherington as their new general manager.
Any future GM/president appointments for Click will obviously depend on his own appetite for returning to a position with baseball autonomy and the slate of candidates he finds himself interviewing against, but at the very least there will surely be interest in a 45-year-old exec with 15 years of experience in one of the game’s model baseball ops departments (Tampa Bay) and a three-year run in Houston that included three playoff berths, two World Series appearances and a World Series championship.
Jeff Luhnow deserves another shot somewhere other than a Mexican soccer league.
Why are you putting down a Mexican soccer league? Luhnow is doing just fine, he’ll survive, I never understand why fans give two shi*ts.
Wasn’t putting down anything. Chill
What’s Canada’s view on truckers?
I can guess what the view is of millions of truckers in the US…
His affiliation with soccer isn’t as a manager. He’s part-owner of a Mexican soccer club and owner of a Spanish club.
I think he does deserve to be an MLB GM again, because I think he got screwed by his underlings in the front office and by Crane. He apparently didn’t know anything about the cheating scheme because they deliberately kept him out of the loop, and he has emails to prove it. But I don’t know if he’s interested in returning to MLB when he’s so invested in soccer now.
No he doesn’t.
Why not? He wasn’t involved in the cheating, and his lawyers have emails from the perpetrators conspiring to keep him in the dark.
He’s deserves what someone is willing to off him. That’s how that works
Evolving doesn’t always mean better.
Luhnow is in ownership of 2 soccer teams. One in Spain and one in Mexico. Why would he come back from being an owner in the most popular sport in the world to be an employee in baseball.
Nice move and he has no connection to trash cans.
They don’t dispose of waste in trash cans in Canada?
@Steve Cohen Owns You
I’m sure they do, however, the guy wasn’t on the 2017 team, so he wasn’t involved with that situation.
Ah I misunderstood. Thanks
Who cares? Move on.
I think you’re the one who needs to keep your mouth shut and keep scrolling. gtfo
I believe they’re referred to as ‘rubbish bins’ north of the border.
And “wheely bins” in England.
`Garbage cans, eh?
I really hope you aren’t a Yankees fan.
What difference does it make what team he roots for?
Full circle, now he can try his hand with an organization that exports domestic abusers instead of importing them.
What’s next? Will teams start hiring offensive and defensive coordinators, and the manager paces the dugout wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard?
@solaris602
The geeks behind the scenes are running the show. Just look at what’s happening with the Dodgers. The geeks tell the manager how to manage a game. Guy has gone through the lineup once, oh, now it’s time to take him out and bring in the next guy because my stats show that we can’t trust the pitcher to go through the lineup more than once.
Games evolve.
The geeks won a long time ago and have been running the league for awhile. This is why it’s hilarious these dinosaurs on here still think batting averages and pitcher wins are important. Ask those “geeks” with Ivy League diplomas if those stats are important.
Now the geeks are beginning to change some rules and the dinosaurs are stomping their feet about the changes, crying like little babies. It’s hilarious.
@iverbure
LOL! Those stats are also counting stats, because you’re evaluating people based on certain parameters of being able to get on base or how much power, but ultimately, it comes back to counting stats.
It’s hilarious that people thing anything has really changed in baseball, regarding statistics. You can play with statistics as much as you want to make it seem better or worse if you want.
In the case of OBP or wOBA, which is the better stat? How about BA or wRC+?
Those questions are actually rhetorical. Advanced stats are far superior than counting stats.
The owners let GEEKS come in and change the game, b/c that’s the ONLY way they would ever be able to get involved in the game. All they’ve done is introduced NEW terminology of OLD terms that’s disguised as forward thinking. Just reinventing the same wheels
Someone should come up with a WAR estimate based only on things like AVG, HR, RBI, positional adjustments that only look at the position and if it’s SS and give a slight boost, and DH and then completely wipe any value off for “only playing half the game” unless thr player was David Ortiz, for pitchers it’s pitcher wins and to a lesser extent Era and maybe whip if we want to be fancy and statistical and stuff. It could be called DinoWAR.
I’m pretty sure the ghost of internet past would land me right on some Tangotiger post where he did that exact exercise, assuming I wanted to spend 5 minutes on google.
@NoSaint
All of those advance stats still rely on counting stats. None of that is new at all. It’s just a different way of defining players.
For example in 1947, Roy Cullenbein the year was 1947. as Hank had a 224 batting average putting him at 89th out of 93 qualified batsmen that season but he had 137 walks and he had a 401 on base percentage good for ninth among qualified hitters and in July Columbine drew a walk in 22 consecutive games an MLB record that still stands today sadly.
At the time, the baseball culture was to focus on AVERAGE, however, modern culture is focused on OPS+. Again, all of this relies on counting stats, regardless of how you want to think. Nothing is new here, we’re just evaluating people in a different manner, WITH counting stats.
This is more about WAR than any other advanded stat but one big issue is how they treat clutch stats. No I don’t mean so and so is clutch and so and so is a choker but rather the correlation with contact and clutch. Low contact sluggers are actually usually worth less value than WAR totals indicate at a population level because the perform worse as a group in clutch situations and high contact players are undervalued for the inverse reason. Batting average and strikeout rate to have additional information beyond getting on base. There’s other issues with modern WAR stats, people throw around someone’s WAR total without emphasizing the error involved in that number. Defense is another big issue. Raw WAR stats can be wildly off on defense and takes several years to tell enough about how well a player really performed. When a player is fresh, scouting reports are far more important for defense. Same with pitching. Just because someone put up 4 WAR as a pitcher some year, if nothing about what they throw suggests that should have been the case, that should be a massive data. Teams account for that I’m sure especially ones like the Astros but the way WAR gets used around here is more what I’m talking about.
The real kicker for me is when someone just quotes last years WAR and assume that’s the players talent level or even the last couple years. Even for established players scouting data means alot when projecting (fancy word for educated guess) and I don’t think any public projections include that outside of maybe use of comparable players and fastball velocity.
The key is to put emphasis on what everyone else devalues. Right now, that’s batting average. Someone is going to corner the market on Stephen Kwan type hitters, throw in a couple bombers that can hit for power, too, and have success with a cheaper payroll. What if the assumptions that WAR is based on are wrong?
@keyser_soze
There is absolutely no correlation between batting average and wRC+. One is a ratio of hits to AB’s. The other uses weighted measurements of positive plate appearances events (walks, singles, etc.) adjusted for park effects and scaled to 100 (league average hitter). It is a measurement based on runs win games, not hits. That sounds like a better way to measure a batter’s plate appearances to me.
Oh, the owners didn’t let the “geeks” in. They saw the value they could provide and created entire departments for them to make the team better.
@Old York, and there isn’t a FO in baseball that relies on BA, OBP, and the like.
@iverbure,
I better not ever catch you on my lawn. Did I ever tell you about how everything cost a nickel when I was a kid?
It relies on rate stats. BA is a rate stat. OBP is a rate stat. # of hits is a counting stat. # of walks is a counting stat.
WAR is based on things like BA and HR.
RBI is a worthless stat for individuals since its not player dependent, its team dependent. The more their teammates get on base, the higher the RBIs. The percentage of baserunners driven in is a much better indication of the skill you are trying to get at with the RBI stat.
WAR already gives adjustments by position and wipes off any defensive value for games played as a DH.
Wins are a worthless stat for pitchers since they are a team dependent stat and not based on individual pitcher performance. The starting pitcher can be REALLY bad and still get a win if the team scores 8 runs.
Scouting data? What data exactly are you talking about?
WAR doesn’t make assumptions. Its a calculation utilizing other stats.
It’s all quite new, the organizations had to hire firms to review game footage to come up with entirely new stats (e.g. quantifying hard contact and intentional blooper hits vs. pure accidents). Most organizations have poached the data science people from the trailblazers so it’s all about the same now.
Oh, no, using data to help inform decisions. How awful.
The geeks are helping players perform better.
“Manaea logged a career-high 4.96 ERA across 30 appearances for the Padres last season, but he has a long track record as an effective Major League starter and said he’s open to making some tweaks to his pitch mix now that he’s working with Giants pitching coaches Andrew Bailey, Brian Bannister and J.P. Martinez.
“The information they’ve given me and what they see on the analytical side, it’s kind of opened my eyes and made me realize some things,” Manaea said. “They know stuff’s in there. I believe in that, too. It’s nice to have those guys.”
It’s amazing how the value of a pitcher’s individual pitches can be tracked and how a lot of pitchers are finding success just by ditching their worst offerings.
@solaris
Three foot long giant clown boots…
There’s a place for advanced statistics and a place for actual baseball people. It amazes me that people feel like they have to pick a side.
What are “actual baseball people”?
The first GM to really embrace analytics was a former player.
Many of the managers who are at the forefront of using analytics are former players. Boone, Cash, Cora, Baldelli, Roberts, Counsell, and Kapler off the top of my head all played in the majors.
In MLB baseball there really is no division between “actual baseball people” and analytics people. They are the same people.
I completely disagree. You’re simplifying something that is a bit more complex.
Most baseball people are hybrids , but there’s a difference between some of these front offices that are all in on advanced statistics and “baseball people” who though buying in on sabremetrics, would like some leeway in managing with a feel for the game and understand the human element.
There are even divisions between front office members on which advanced statistics to prioritize , so to think everyone is on the same page is unfortunately, just a pipe dream.
Why not? Astros a fool to fire the guy to begin with.
I dont know because once relationships get fractured, it’s hard for people to work together. Maybe it’s the model at fault – i.e., too much owner meddling. That said, people who can’t get along can’t work together, and the owner isn’t going to fire himself.
Are they still run by that ridiculous senior citizen dressed like a cowboy that was trying to get into fights with players? That dude was hilarious.
Jays management and front office being loaded with veterans. Can they win the ws already?
No Patrick, the Jays can’t win a WS and likely never will with Shapiro and Atkins at the helm. Click is a good hire. Hopefully he will replace Atkins.
It seems like they have in house replacements right now.
Schneider and Mattingly.
Now Atkins and Click.
All we need is Gillick to come out of retirement to work “alongside” Shapiro
Click has gone through a lot of “pay really well but don’t pay retail” dilemmas in Houston for extending players. Can’t please everyone and Toronto has a few warranting deep discussion who to prioritize, who perhaps to trade down the road for big return, etc. Just have to make sure you magically have your version of Pena developed they did to replace Correa for whatever guys Jays don’t want to allocate a fortune long-term.
Click was no Lunhow, but he sure build a better bullpen than his predecessor ever could
Vice president of baseball strategy lol. “Get him to hitter ball over there so the runner advances to third. The next guy has to hit it to right field because the right fielder can’t hardly throw and the guy on 3rd can score.” Lol.
You don’t understand the world, do you?
@retired/advisory role. Your post is the tactics of the strategy of one possible way to score a run.
You’ve decomposed from retired/advisory to senile in just a matter of weeks
Isn’t that what a baseball strategist should do? Figure out how score so they can win?
so then, where’s the joke?
The joke would be you.
Turns out the headline is Click bait.
Crane, not Click, put forth the offer…
Click may know a lot, but I found him to be kind of grumpy and stubborn.
Sounds like the two of you just didn’t click.
Ba-dum, tiss.
Even though he did a great job, for whatever reason things just didn’t seem to Click for him later on in Houston.
Good move for a good team
“Click landed on his feet”, yeah I guess if you consider a demotion and working for a lesser organization “landing on your feet”.
No offense to the Blue Jays, but they aren’t the Astros.
“Landing on his feet” would’ve have been a gm role with the Braves or some other World Series Caliber team?
Other than Crane, what owner is stupid enough to fire a POBO/GM immediately after winning a WS? If they are deep in the process of building a WS caliber team, why would a GM be fired?
Click landed on his feet by getting a high level job in a winning organization and is going to spend a year in Toronto before being hired for an open POBO/GM position in late 2023 or early 2024 when someone inevitably gets fired.
I think Click was a good guy who given time would have better grown into the GM role. But didn’t have the personality to work with a demanding owner. Good luck to him with the Blue Jays.
The owner put his ego ahead of the team.
Click, Mattingly, Martinez. Jays are loading up on baseball knowledge and IQ. For all the Shapiro haters- have a look at the Jays vs most of their 2014-16 competition. ( Tigers, Royals, R.Sox, Orioles, Rangers ) who would you rather be right now.
Great new facility in Florida, a new look stadium. He definitely convinced ownership to buy into his vision for the team.
For the first time in a generation we have a team that matches up with the Jays teams of the mid 80s > 92-93 Titles. Hopefully the same outcome on a shorter timeline.
Why would you interrupt the flow of a sentence with “after all” when you could just start the sentence with it, Steve?
Why would you waste your time on these writing critiques on a baseball website? Look, we don’t care. This from a guy who thinks BenBenBen is clever.
For the same reason you’re replying to every comment I make, cornball. You clearly have a lot of time on your hands because you have a pattern of stalking me now.
If you’re going to grasp at the straw of user names as a way to denigrate someone, let’s talk about how stupid yours sounds, cornball. The dumbest screenname in world history. Congrats loser.
Ben focused on the important things.
“Vice President of Baseball Strategy”? Is that anything like “Secretary of Keeping it Real”?…
Next season they’ll hire John Cleese to be the Vice President of Silly Walks to Firstbase.
I would pay to watch that. far and away one of his funniest sketches.
At this point, with his unwillingness to even talk to Click despite the desperate need to do so, it’s inarguable that Steve Cohen is both the de facto GM of the Mets, and that Cohen is just Jeff Wilpon with an unlimited bank account.
Classy move…..jays are truly building themselves as a leading destination