Astros & Rays Reactions To James Click Hiring
As they try to shift attention to the coming season, the Astros introduced new GM James Click yesterday. He joins new skipper Dusty Baker on a re-formulated leadership team hand-picked by owner Jim Crane to replace fired GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. It’s a move with major implications both for the ‘Stros and for the Rays, who lost yet another top executive.
The Houston organization is obviously hoping that Click can hit the ground running after coming over from an analytically driven Rays club. Crane noted that Click should fit right in from that perspective, as Jake Kaplan of The Athletic explains (subscription link).
Kaplan further analyzes the trickier questions surrounding the hire. Click will be stepping out from behind the curtain for the first time. And he’ll be doing so at a time when the Astros are facing intense scrutiny.
From a baseball perspective, Click says he expects “to just continue doing what they’re doing and continue to push it forward.” He spoke of working “to keep a championship-caliber roster on the field for years to come.”
In terms of the internal culture developed by Luhnow — the one blasted by commissioner Rob Manfred and defended by Crane — Click walked a line in his public comments. Click said he’s “focused on the future,” as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart reports, noting that he’ll “bring a fresh look and keep what’s working.” Though Click says there’s a “positive culture” in Houston, he did note an intention “to continue to make sure that this is an employee-first culture kind of place where people want to work and are involved and engaged.”
For the Rays, it’s hardly an ideal situation. Owner Stuart Sternberg said yesterday that the team can handle the loss, but noted that it’ll hurt — all the more so due with Spring Training right around the corner. He suggested the organization will continue to rely upon its front office intake and development system.
Per Sternberg: “We have great organizational leadership, strong faith in our ability to regenerate, and we have supreme confidence in the men and women who will be stepping up into their newfound opportunities and responsibilities.
The Rays have moved ahead with some internal promotions to account for Click’s departure, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. Former MLB hurler Jeremy Sowers and Sammi Bireley will take over the bulk of Click’s portfolio, with recently promoted VP of development Peter Bendix taking charge of the analytics work. (Bendix was one of the execs elevated after the previous departure of Chaim Bloom.)
Astros Have Made Offer To Hunter Pence
The Astros have made an offer to free-agent outfielder/designated hitter Hunter Pence, FOX 26’s Mark Berman reports (via Twitter). Pence said recently that he intends to continue playing in 2020 and has spoken to multiple clubs about a deal. The Giants are another rumored suitor for the affable 36-year-old.
Pence, 37 in April, was a finalist for American League Comeback Player of the Year honors in 2019 after he posted an outstanding .297/.358/.552 batting line with 18 home runs, 17 doubles, a triple and even six steals in 316 plate appearances with his hometown Rangers. Groin and back injuries limited him to about a half season’s worth of games, but Pence was unequivocally excellent when healthy enough to step into the Texas lineup.
Latching on with the Rangers would represent a different kind of homecoming for Pence, who was Houston’s second-round pick back in 2004 and spent the first seven-plus seasons of his professional career with the ‘Stros. Pence made his MLB debut with Houston back in 2007 and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting behind Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki (when Houston was still an NL club). He’s gone on to appear in four All-Star Games (including 2019) and win a pair of World Series titles as a member of the Giants.
Pence would surely be utilized in a part-time role in Houston, given the stacked nature of their lineup. But his right-handed bat would pair well with lefty-swinging outfield/DH options like Josh Reddick, Kyle Tucker, Michael Brantley and Yordan Alvarez. He’d provide some insurance against an injury to any of the club’s outfield starters and, of course, bring one of the game’s most unique and respected personalities to the Houston clubhouse on the heels of a tumultuous offseason.
Houston already projects to be in the second bracket of luxury tax penalization, so adding Pence would mean paying a 32 percent overage fee on any money guaranteed to him. But, as a soon-to-be 37-year-old coming off an injury-plagued season and looking at a part-time role in 2020, Pence shouldn’t come with a particularly burdensome price tag in the first place.
MLBTR Video: Astros Poach Rays Exec As New GM; Mariners Lock Up A Lefty
James Click is in as the Astros’ new GM, and the Mariners signed lefty Marco Gonzales to a four-year extension. MLBTR’s Jeff Todd has what you need to know in today’s video!
MLBTR Poll: How Good Are The Astros?
The Astros have been a juggernaut dating back to 2017, evidenced by their three 100-win efforts, two American League pennants and World Series title. However, thanks to the sign-stealing scandal from their championship-winning campaign, the Astros’ recent excellence has been sullied in the minds of many observers. Although the club’s the reigning AL champion, it’s now going into 2020 with plenty to prove on the field. It also has a new GM and manager, having parted with the eminently successful Jeff Luhnow-A.J. Hinch duo after MLB issued each of them one-year suspensions for their roles in Houston’s misdeeds.
With spring training closing in, the Astros moved quickly to replace Luhnow and Hinch after firing them in mid-January. They tabbed former Rays vice president of baseball operations James Click on Monday to take over for Luhnow in the wake of selecting veteran Dusty Baker as their new manager last week. Click’s coming over from an organization known for doing a lot with a little, but despite the chaos that has enveloped the Astros, he’s not walking into a franchise low on talent. The 70-year-old Baker, meanwhile, is a calming influence and a longtime winner whom the Astros hope will help them sail through stormy waters.
Of course, one of the knocks on Baker is that he has never helped guide a team to a title in his 22 seasons as a manager. Could that change in 2020? Perhaps, though he’s inheriting a roster that has taken some hits this offseason. There’s no more ace Gerrit Cole, who left for the hated Yankees for a record contract after two straight sterling seasons in Houston. There’s also no more standout reliever Will Harris, who became a National in free agency, or offensive-minded catcher Robinson Chirinos (now a member of the division-rival Rangers). And the Astros haven’t done anything remotely splashy via the trade or free-agent markets (the latter of which is all but devoid of impact players now) to cover for their key departures or strengthen other aspects of their roster.
While this has not been a banner winter for the Astros, they do still look to be contenders on paper. Last year’s all-world offense – one fronted by Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, George Springer and Michael Brantley, among others – remains intact. Better still, the Astros could get full seasons from Alvarez (the 2019 AL Rookie of the Year whom they didn’t promote until almost halfway through June) and the Altuve-Springer-Carlos Correa trio after those stars were limited by injuries in the most recent campaign. And while Cole and now-Red Wade Miley are gone from their rotation, the Astros still boast an elite top two with reigning AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke. They’ll also get Lance McCullers Jr. back from Tommy John surgery, though it’s up in the air how the rest of Houston’s starting staff will look once Opening Day arrives.
As nightmarish as this winter has been for the Astros, there’s no denying there’s plenty of talent still on hand. However, another 107-win season may be too much to ask – especially with their division having gotten stronger in recent months. The Athletics, a 97-win club twice in a row, look capable of challenging for the crown. Meantime, the Angels and Rangers appear to have made significant improvements after the pair stumbled to sub-.500 records a year ago. All that said, how do you expect the scandal-ridden Astros to fare this season?
(Poll link for app users)
How many Astros wins do you expect?
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90-94 37% (5,999)
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95-99 31% (4,910)
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85-89 14% (2,275)
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100 or more 10% (1,592)
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Fewer than 85 8% (1,238)
Total votes: 16,014
Astros Name James Click General Manager
7:36pm: Click received a multi-year commitment from the Astros, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link).
6:14pm: The Astros have decided upon James Click as their new general manager, per a club announcement. Click had served as Rays vice president of baseball operations.
Having already installed Dusty Baker as its new manager, the scandal-ridden Houston organization has now replaced its prior leadership team. Manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow were suspended and fired for lack of oversight in the sign-stealing episode that clouded the team. Owner Jim Crane, who sat atop of those two in the organizational hierarchy but escaped censure or discipline, led a fast-moving hiring search.
Meanwhile, it’s another major departure for the Rays, who had touted a three-person baseball operations leadership team that included Erik Neander, Chaim Bloom, and Click. While Neander still commands the GM seat in Tampa Bay, he’ll now be doing battle rather than collaborating with Bloom (now the Red Sox chief baseball officer) and Click in the American League.
Click, a Yale grad, had been with the Rays since 2006. He entered the organization as a baseball ops coordinator, then touched most all the bases on his way up the food chain.
The team’s account of his most recent position reads as follows: “he is involved in all aspects of the baseball operations department with a focus on baseball research and development, baseball systems, clubhouse operations and departmental logistics.” Click had been tasked with an expanded role following the departure of Bloom. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand spoke with Click last year on his podcast, if you’re interested in learning more.
Click seems sure to fit right into the Astros’ analytically oriented system after 14 years with the Rays. Crane explained that the organization “zeroed in” on Click after several interviews, noting that “he comes from a team that does a lot of things like we do.” Click simply “knew exactly what we were doing,” says Crane, and “felt he could add another dimension to it.” (Via Mark Berman of FOX 26; Twitter links.)
At the same time, Click will presumably be tasked with instilling discipline and establishing ethical guidelines for a baseball operations outfit that actively participated in the sign-stealing scheme. Commissioner Rob Manfred determined that, while Luhnow had not directed or specifically engaged in the malfeasance, he had created an “insular culture – one that valued and rewarded results over other considerations, combined with a staff of individuals who often lacked direction or sufficient oversight.” Though Crane disputed the findings of Manfred in that regard, and we can’t know how he’ll direct his new baseball operations leader, we may at least hope that Click will make a positive impact on the Houston baseball ops group.
There’ll obviously be a longer-term process for Click as he takes the helm in Houston. But he also faces an immediate challenge of preparing for Spring Training in just two weeks’ time. The Astros roster is loaded with talent and largely complete, depending upon one’s perspective (and Crane’s willingness to spend). But Click will no doubt have his own preferences on the margins, if not even some relatively larger thoughts on preparing for a season in which the Astros will again be among the favorites in the American League even in spite of their self-inflicted wounds.
Quick Hits: Astros, Venable, Suter, Kim
In the wake of the sign-stealing scandal that has enveloped the Astros and become perhaps the biggest story of the offseason, Astros fan Tony Adams decided to analyze the data from the 2017 season in perhaps the more straight-forward way possible — Adams listened for any loud banging sounds (i.e. someone hitting a trash can) during every opponents’ pitch thrown during Astros home games in 2017. The whistling, clapping, and vocal signals the Astros allegedly also used to alert batters weren’t chronicled, as such sounds are harder to detect amidst the usual sounds of the ballpark.
After breaking down the 58 Houston home games that had available video, Adams made his work public at SignStealingScandal.com, with intriguing results. The banging sounds were almost non-existent for the first two months of the season before spiking during a May 28 game against Baltimore (an 8-4 Astros win) and then staying at a noticeably high level for most of the remaining games over the following four months. More data is available on a game-by-game basis, and on a player-by-player basis.
More from around the baseball world…
- Will Venable interviewed for the Astros’ managerial vacancy earlier this month and for the Cubs’ and Giants’ jobs earlier this offseason, though he appears to be stepping out of the managerial race for the time being. MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reports that Venable will remain as the Cubs‘ third base coach and thus won’t be a candidate to fill the sport’s last remaining managerial opening with the Red Sox.
- After undergoing Tommy John surgery in mid-2018, Brent Suter returned to the Brewers in a relief role in September and looked tremendous, allowing just a single earned run in 18 1/3 innings (for a tiny 0.49 ERA). While the Brewers generally like to be as flexible as possible with their pitchers’ assignments, GM David Stearns told reporters (including Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that he thinks Suter will continue to work as a reliever in 2020. “We’ll make sure Brent lengthens out so that he can cover multiple innings and accentuate his versatility. It’s keeping someone in a role where they’ve demonstrated they can be successful,” Stearns said. Suter pitched mostly as a reliever in his 2016 rookie season but started 32 of 42 appearances in 2017-18, though rarely pitching too deep into games. A soft-contact specialist whose fastball averaged only 87.5mph last season, Suter provides quite a contrast paired alongside with Milwaukee’s other multi-inning relief ace, the hard-throwing strikeout machine Josh Hader.
- Korean outfielder Jae-Hwan Kim did not draw sufficient interest from MLB teams this winter to make a move across the Pacific, but he’s determined to try again after the 2020 campaign, Jee-ho Yoo of Yonhap News reports. “If I do well this year, I’ll take another shot at the majors,” Kim said. The outfielder had a monster run with the Doosan Bears from 2016-18, averaging nearly 40 homers per season and topping the 1.000 OPS plateau in all three years. In 2019, however, Kim dropped back to a .283/.362/.434 slash and 15 dingers last year, which he said isn’t just a reflection of the suppressed KBO offensive environment. Kim is hoping to iron out his swing in 2020 and turn in a convincing season before offering his services again to big league clubs.
Latest On Astros’ Coaching Staff
The Astros have a new manager in Dusty Baker, whom they hired Wednesday, but they’ll have the same bench coach in 2020. Joe Espada will stay on in that role as part of Baker’s staff, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com tweets. Expectations are that Baker will add one coach from outside the organization, though, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
At this late stage of the offseason, it would’ve been difficult for Baker to shake up the Astros’ staff even if he wanted to go that route. Thanks to the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal from 2017, they recently found themselves in the awkward position of having to replace manager A.J. Hinch just weeks before spring training. By now, just about all coaching staffs have been established, so Baker’s not in position to make many changes to the group he inherited from Hinch.
In Espada, Baker’s getting a well-regarded right-hand man who has two years in Houston under his belt and has drawn significant interest from manager-needy teams over the past couple offseasons. The Giants, for instance, looked as if they’d hire Espada as their manager this winter before tabbing Gabe Kapler for the role.
If Baker does end up hiring one more coach to fill a to-be-determined position, Chris Speier’s the probable pick, according to Rosenthal. The 69-year-old ex-infielder has already been on Baker’s staffs with the Cubs, Reds and Nationals.
Latest On Astros’ GM Opening
The Astros have spent a large portion of January reeling from the fallout of their 2017 sign-stealing scandal – one that cost them championship-winning GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. They’ve already replaced Hinch, having hired decorated veteran skipper Dusty Baker on Wednesday, but there’s no successor to Luhnow yet. However, the Astros continue to tack on candidates in their quest to replace him.
Houston has interviewed Royals director of pro scouting/special assistant Gene Watson and Rays vice president of baseball operations James Click for its GM role, per reports from Jeff Passan of ESPN.com and Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. Watson and Click join MLB’s senior vice president of baseball operations, Peter Woodfork, and former Giants GM Bobby Evans as known candidates for the Astros’ vacancy.
It’s notable that Evans worked with Baker when the two were in San Francisco, but there’s no indication he or anyone else is the favorite at this point. It seems the Astros will continue to take their time in finding a new GM, as Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle explains. For now, owner Jim Crane and a four-executive team consisting of assistant GM Pete Putila, special assistant Kevin Goldstein, senior director of baseball strategy Bill Firkus and senior director of player evaluation Ehsan Bokhari are at the helm. That quartet played a part in Crane’s decision to hire Baker, per Rome, though it’s not clear whether anyone from it will emerge as a GM candidate for the club. It may not look good if the Astros do hire an in-house GM, considering that individual would have connections to the Luhnow-Hinch regime.
As for the newest outside possibilities, Watson – a Texas native – is a two-time World Series champion (2003 Marlins, 2015 Royals) with a long scouting history who has worked in Kansas City in various capacities since 2006. The Yale-educated Click caught on with the Rays the same year Watson joined the Royals. Click has since worked his way toward the top of a Rays front office that already lost another noteworthy exec earlier this offseason in Chaim Bloom, who became Boston’s chief baseball officer.
Astros Hire Dusty Baker
5:34pm: The Astros formally announced that they’ve hired Baker as their new skipper.
4:08pm: Baker’s contract is actually a one-year deal with a club option for the 2021 season, per Nightengale and Rosenthal (Twitter links).
3:15pm: The Astros have found their replacement for recently fired manager A.J. Hinch, having reached an agreement on a “short-term” deal with veteran skipper Dusty Baker, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). It’s a two-year pact, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. Nightengale reported yesterday that Baker was the team’s choice, and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman added that a deal would be finalized today.
When Baker formally puts his signature on a contract, it’ll set the stage for a fascinating season in Houston. The Astros are loaded with talent but face no shortage of organizational adversity in the wake of the sign-stealing scandal that resulted in the firing of prior manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow. The club has yet to hire a new baseball operations leader.
Baker, who commands a presence as large as anyone else in the game, certainly comes with an old-school vibe that runs counter to the analytically driven organizational culture that had predominated in Houston. But the job of this skipper will be to help guide the team through a difficult stretch; Baker is generally beloved in clubhouses and charming with the press. And his different cultural mooring may well be an asset in this case.
It’s also rather unfair to dismiss Baker as a present-day manager. True, he has not yet taken a team to the promised land in his 22 seasons as a manager. He ultimately became a bit of a symbol for certain outdated thinking about the game, particularly regarding the management of pitchers. But Baker has expressed an openness to evolving and certainly didn’t stop his most recent team from posting a whole lot of wins.
Baker’s 2016-17 stint with the Nationals provides quite the secondary dramatic undergirding for the coming season. His D.C. charges posted 95 and 97 win seasons, claiming consecutive NL East titles. But the team lost a pair of heartbreaking postseason series and Baker was somewhat surprisingly not offered a new contract after the end of the year.
It seemed Baker, now 70 years of age, had missed out on his final shot at a World Series. Now, he’ll have another. And he’ll do so with the team that just lost a barn-burning Game 7 to those very same Nats, who finally donned an elusive crown. Those two teams share a Spring Training facility that’s sure to draw flocks of press (and provide quite the boon to the West Palm Beach Marriott). And they’re also slated to square off in a series in D.C. over July 4th weekend.
Scott Kazmir Launches Comeback Attempt
Three full seasons have elapsed since Scott Kazmir pitched in a Major League game, but the veteran left-hander is set to launch another comeback attempt at 36 years of age. Kazmir recently tweeted a video of himself throwing in a bullpen session, and the former Rays, Indians, Angels, A’s and Dodgers southpaw confirmed to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that he hopes to return to the big leagues in 2020.
Kazmir, who’s open to a minor league contract and a chance to prove himself in Spring Training (as he’d need to be after such a lengthy absence), tells Topkin he’s still in the process of rebuilding his arm strength and fastball velocity. He’s worked out with Driveline this winter and recently topped out at 90.9 mph in a bullpen session. That’s already a far sight higher than the 86 mph at which his heater sat when he first began throwing with an eye toward a big league return. Kazmir’s fastball sat at 91.4 mph in his final season with the Dodgers in 2016, so he’s not quite yet even topping out at his previous fastball average. However, he also has nearly two months before the season would begin.
This, of course, wouldn’t be the first comeback attempt for Kazmir. The former Rays ace saw a sharp decline in 2009-10, pitched just 1 2/3 innings in 2011 and was out of affiliated baseball entirely in 2012 before embarking on a similar journey. That career renaissance proved quite fruitful, as Kazmir parlayed a minor league deal with the Indians into a quality 2013 campaign in which he tossed 158 innings of 4.04 ERA ball with better than a strikeout per inning.
That showing landed him a two-year, $22MM deal with the A’s the following winter, and Kazmir made good on that deal as well, throwing a combined 373 1/3 frames of 3.33 ERA ball with the Athletics and (following a 2015 trade) the Astros. He headed into the 2015-16 offseason as a highly sought-after commodity and landed a three-year, $48MM pact with the Dodgers that proved regrettable for the club when neck and hip injuries wiped out years two and three of that pact.
It’s been a long time since Kazmir was at the top of his game, but he’s nevertheless a three-time All-Star with six career seasons featuring a sub-4.00 ERA and at least 140 innings of work. In total, Kazmir has a 4.01 ERA with 8.6 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 1.01 HR/9 and a 40.2 percent ground-ball rate in 1689 2/3 innings at the MLB level. Given that the free-agent class has been largely picked over at this point in the winter, a returning Kazmir adds a source of genuine intrigue to the dwindling remnants of this year’s class of open-market starters.