If this guy is your source you may want to pump the brakes: not hard to have a blue check mark on Twitter anymore
I was able to speak to someone that worked under Luhnow, survived the MLB purge and was under Click for a short period of time before being fired for questioning Click and not being as rigid as Click wanted. I also spoke to someone that was lower on the totem pole but worked THIS season with Click and to a little degree with Dusty and Crane. Basically I was told the MLB highly recommended Click. When he got the job it was with the understanding he would rely on the people already in the organization and add to the talent in the front office. What happened was a lot of people in the front office felt Click was arrogant and tried to marginalize the people already in the organization. That made him unpopular. Second, Click let go of a few very popular and successful people in the front office and attempted to keep Crane out of the loop on baseball decisions. I’ve posted on it before but Crane has become engrossed in baseball scouting and analytics. Especially after the cheating scandal, Crane has been more involved. Click did not want him sitting in on discussions, etc. He didn’t obviously keep Crane out, but it was awkward from what I was told. There was obvious tension. Crane also didn’t like how Click would treat some staff. Lower level employees would go to Crane and involve him in disagreements with Click. This happened with Baker and others including my friend who was fired. Click and Crane would have shouting matches eventually. Click didn’t discuss this with anyone as far as I know. Crane supposedly lost confidence and patience in Click as a decision maker. For example Crane wanted Click to spend more in free agency. Click was adamant to wait to the deadline and then that blew up. The deals Click said would be available were not except for the Contreras deal which Crane viewed as an over pay. Crane was upset Click would not move on deals earlier and would miss out on players sometimes. The World Series in someways made it worse because a lot of the moves Crane supported turned out to be proper. For example, Verlander is an Astro because of Crane and not Click who didn’t want to offer him the deal Crane did. Verlander was going to leave for Toronto (weird). Also Click did not want Pena as the SS this season and then didn’t want him in the two hole late in the year. Baker convinced Crane to step in and that upset Click. Baker also was insistent that Maldonado catch the top pitchers and Click wanted Maldonado to become a back up. So Crane was not confident in Click. Also the relationship between Baker and Click soured. Click was viewed as a poor communicator. Crane was already handling a lot of the contract discussions and trade targets. When this was all going on Crane was speaking to friends in the game, and that influenced him to reach the decision he did. Crane won’t discuss anything to the others in the front office. The Astros lost the GM, their top assistant GM and the second guy overall that was in charge of player development (Pete). They also lost their top international middle man (Oz) and most likely their top scouting director will be gone within the year (Gross). So what now? Well Crane had to wait until the end of the WS to do anything and apparently wasn’t happy with some Click leaks during the playoffs. So we are going into the Winter without the three highest spots in the organization filled. From what I was told Crane isn’t concerned because he would rather find the right person than keep someone he doesn’t trust. The FA will be handled by Crane and Cook and Sharp will have more duties until roles are filled.
Most of the things I've heard disagreed weren't a big deal to me as far as my opinion on Click, but if the parts about Pena and him being "highly recommend" by MLB are true that's pretty damning when combined with everything else. If Crane was this confident Click was a goner he really should have kept Putila and/or Oz. He clearly had no issues go around Clicks plans anyway.
Both sides had issues. I can understand Click not liking that Baker and others would go to Crane - it undermines the authority Click had as GM. It made his job harder as well. As far as the decision to not fight for Click as GM, as it was put to me - it wasn’t something crystallized until late. Also, to be fair to Click - He can’t control what Jed Hoyer is going to demand for Contreras and he can’t force Hap be included. So if the Astros LOSE the World Series Click gets blamed for not getting a big bat that Crane and Dusty want. The Astros WIN the World Series and Click gets blamed for wanting to deal Urquidy for Contreras…. It’s a no win situation. I don’t know how good Click is because he inherited a lot of talent and couldn’t develop his own talent because of the draft pick penalties and the guy in charge of developing players was already in place when Click took the job. I can see both sides of it. From the position of Crane, Click was wrong at the deadline all the way around, Click was wrong about Pena and where to bat him in the line up, Click was wrong about Verlander. It’s not entirely fair to Click because it’s cherry picking his moves. The communication skills between Click and Baker and Click and Crane and Click and others seem to have been a big part of this. Really surprising because Click always seemed so measured and mild mannered. I’ll say this… Crane has huge balls. He fired his GM, fired his GM’s right hand man, after winning a WS a week earlier and he has no Luhnow type guy in waiting. No one told me this, but it also seems like after the 2017 abuse he and his team took, he doesn’t care what the outside media or fans think. He won a WS, he knows his GM was leaking crap to the media and the media was anti-Astro and he still offered a 1 year contract… the GM mentions his family and wanting to remain with a “deal” and Crane never even negotiates and gives his GM a take it or leave it scenario. 24 hours later Click is gone with the parade confetti still being cleaned up.
Well then it seems that fangraphs has a disconnect somewhere because they project Uruidy to have a WAR of 1.1 which puts him in the 140 range. https://www.fangraphs.com/projectio...ype=steamer&team=0&lg=all&players=0&sort=20,d
Having a blue check mark in unnecessary if half a million people think they need one. It became a status symbol rather than a service to prevent identity theft.
This is a projection of the future, not a look at past performance. I'd love for this to become true. It may even be a reasonable projection, But it's not a ranking of 2022 performance. I even say it fits into my opinion of value for trade purposes. I see more value in Urquidy and Garcia than many who would trade them for mediocre position players who will only take up valuable roster space without really improving the team.
Maybe, maybe not. Luhnow didn't sit on his couch waiting for a call from Crane, He's moved on. I'm glad he and Crane are on speaking terms, but he might not want to return to the stress entailed for the job any longer. It's not just Crane's decision. And you can't ignore that he would now have more difficulty making moves because of the MLB's use of him as a fall guy for a league wide scandal.
I understand what you are saying, but the Luhnow and Crane relationship is complicated. He still isn’t happy about Luhnow not taking care of the cheating scandal unless something has drastically changed. As far as I know, they have only recently (WS) started talking on the phone.
No one sympathizes with the sentiment more than me, but the reality is part of the job entails communication and some level of trust dealing with others outside the Astros. I could easily be convinced he got a raw deal under the heading of "knew or should have known." BTW - That phrase originated as a workaround of the element of criminal intent when going after fences for stolen goods. Conceptually, it adds negligence to criminal intent as sufficient for prosecution because criminal intent is so difficult to prove. Whether that was a good or bad thing is debatable.
I’m not involved in this discussion, I’ll just say WAR, especially for defense or pitching is not the only accurate measure of a pitchers real value. I don’t care if Urquidy has a projection of 1 war, he is a capable #3 starter on some playoff caliber teams and he is under team control for 3 more years. According to WAR, Valdez and Javier combined were only worth 7 WAR this season. WAR is a really good measure but it’s not the only one.
It only registered with me tonight that Nook is more than just another internet speculator working with details reported or speculated about by other's without direct knowledge. Nook obviously has real sources which places him in a different category. I hope I remember that in the future, but odds are I won't.
My understanding is that Crane was really concerned about the Dusty/Click relationship and wanted a sit down with both of them in the room. Whether or not that happened with some of the time constraints of Click going to the GM meetings and Cranes commitments with the Houston Open, I don’t know. Click’s comments at the GM meetings may have ultimately sealed his fate anyways. There was an avenue for him to be a long term GM but I also understand his unwillingness to take a prove it deal after winning a World Series. This is speculation but it has to make you wonder whether Click’s insistence that Yuli be left off the initial playoff roster was pure spite at Dusty. Even if you want Mancini to get the starting nod at first, it doesn’t make much sense to hamper the team and leave Yuli completely off. Weird move at best, terrible move if there was any personal feelings involved in it.
If this is all true (not doubting you, but it's the internet so you have to take everything with a grain of salt), then I can appreciate and respect Crane's decision, despite the poor timing. In the end, whoever they bring in, this roster is too talented and still so young, it'll be hard for anyone to truly screw this up. Better for them to bring in a GM they can trust long-term. I just hope they can make a decision on a GM quickly enough to be able to make the right moves and add some quality pieces this offseason. They could literally just run this roster back and still easily be in contention again, but there's an opportunity this offseason to make some key improvements, and they've got the financial flexibility to pull that off.
So ummm. It's Crane's money I guess, good for Montero. Sure hope this doesn't effect other possible signings.
