Even if Click was on board with going after those guys, I am skeptical that he was already to the point of talking details; Abreu at $38M/2yrs is a lot different than signing him to $60M/3yrs. But he wasn’t the GM when they were signed so he can’t be held accountable for those deals. I misremembered about McCullers; that deal still has a (very small) chance of panning out. Click’s tenure is going to be very hard to judge. He only oversaw 3 drafts, 1 where he basically didn’t have any picks, another where he didn’t have their top 2 picks, and another where his top pick was traded away as soon as he left. He didn’t make any major free agent signings or major trades. The Yainer Diaz trade was a major major win for him. And they obviously won a ring while he was in charge.
I have a feeling this off season is going to be very disappointing and depressing. How much money roughly will they have to spend after next season?
That’s a question only Jim Crane can answer, and also depends on what they do this offseason. Right now with only in-house options they project to have ~$150M committed, including arbitration players for 2026. So if they do nothing this offseason that impacts beyond 2025, I would imagine they’d have about $80M to spend for 2026. To be true contenders they’d need to add 2 star hitters (1B, 3B, RF, LF) and one good SP (to replace Framber’s innings, although it wouldn’t have to be someone quite as good as Framber) unless some internal options break out. They should have the resources to fill those holes again, as long as they’re smart/lucky. Seems like to me this board is underestimating how good the team is. As-is, this is likely a 90-100 win team favored to win the division. They almost certainly have the money to raise that to be a 95-105 win team with 1-2 really good value free agent signings. Pitching healthy and being committed to Jose Abreu (both of which can be attributed to bad luck) really derailed 2024, but that was an extremely talented team going into the season.
A lot of Lunhow fluffing up (and he made some great moves) but he's also the guy who traded Hader and Domingo Santana away for CarGo and the Rat. He released JD Martinez. He drafted Mark Appel and Brady Aiken back to back with the first pick in the draft. And he was oversaw the org during the sign stealing scandal, which he did not know about but bears responsibility for.
It's not hard to judge, he won a championship and traded for a star level player on the cheap with many years of control. His tenure was a success despite some mistakes along the way. Problem is what Luhnow built is about all gone except for the pitching and I doubt Crane will ever give any GM the power he gave Luhnow. Unfortunately it takes giving a genius level baseball guy that kind of power if Crane wants the dynasty to continue.
Underrated free agents I would like Houston to sign: 1B Josh Bell LF Joc Pederson 3B Donovan Solano If they can’t sign Bregman, give each of those dudes whatever they’re asking for on a 1 year deal, make them your 5-7 hitters, and roll on with McCormick and Pena in the 8-9 slots. Keep powder dry for the deadline.
It is very hard to judge both Click and Brown, because they both came into a situation where the organization was already in place and so it is hard to differentiate - especially with an owner that is as aggressive as Crane. I have said it before, if I had a middle market team that was willing to do at least a soft rebuild - I would strongly consider hiring James Click as my GM. I think he proved he was competent and smart, even if he did not always handle relationships the best. Still - there was some good and bad with him. He overpaid a Dodgers reliever - but then he added a couple of key relievers on the cheap that helped us win a WS. He overpaid for a back up catcher, and we lost a long term starting Gold Glove outfielder in the deal - but he also was the GM when the Astros traded Myles Straw for an all star level catcher. I think his greatest contribution was actually that he did not panic during COVID and traded our young prospects when Verlander went down and we had a terrible regular season. I would give him a B... and the only reason it isn't a A- was because he handled relationships so poorly. I think a more seasoned or experienced executive would have handled that part differently. Still - he was and is competent, and I think that the other owners around the league should look past his behavior at the Winter Meetings and give him another shot.
He made some mistakes. But he did setup a dynasty. I don't believe he oversaw the cheating scandal. That was on Hinch, Cora, Beltran. Plus the teams that he was in direct competition with were doing the same things.
Yep, he built on what Luhnow left and won a championship inspite of mistakes he made. What more can you ask of a young GM. Being a young GM and Dusty, Crane being older non analytical guys is what got Click into trouble.
I have long thought that by far the best thing Luhnow did was going thru a binder with Jim Crane that convinced him to do a complete and total rebuild. Once he had Crane’s commitment to letting him tank for 4 seasons, the rest was pretty easy. It’s hard not to build a juggernaut when you have 4 consecutive top 5 picks (including 3 #1 overall picks), a handful of major leaguers to trade for prospects, and a completely clean slate of payroll, especially considering at that time manipulating the draft bonus pool was a novel idea. For where he was drafting, Luhnow didn’t really perform that great thru the draft. His free agent and trade moves were a mixed bag akin to any average GM. His international signings were unbalanced (great at finding pitchers, awful at finding position players). His real genius was convincing Crane to endure the worst 3 year stretch in baseball history.
Luhnow made mistakes - and he did get lucky that the League Office saved him on the Brady Aiken draft picks and promised contract to Nix and Mac. He also early on fired a lot of people that really alienated him with some long-term fixtures in the Astros. The Cargo deal was in part because of the pressure from Crane, who was livid that Luhnow did not pull the trigger the year before at the deadline. Having said that - Luhnow completely rebuilt the organization from the bottom to the top, and built the most impressive organization in at least a generation when you consider the financial limitations. He drafted exceptionally well and developed players very well. He overall signed free agents that helped and made good trades. As for the idea that Luhnow didn't know about the cheating...... Luhnow knew which of his relievers had diarrhea by the 5th innings of games.
Yeah - I don't know about it being easy even with full gutting of the organization. He replaces like 90% of the coaches all the way to the bottom of the organization, he brought in new player development people, a new scouting department and was having hybrid workers when no one else in baseball was doing it. He also brought the very best young candidates for front office jobs. He didn't hit on all of them and he made changes - but he hit on a higher percentage than anyone since probably the Reds or A's 50 years ago. As for the Draft - I would say he did pretty damn well, even picking at the top of the draft. He got Carlos Correa at #1, when most teams didn't have him at #1 or #2. He also took Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker. He took McCullers, Ramon Laureano, Trent Thornton, Patrick Sandoval, Myles Straw, Jake Rodgers, Abraham Toro, Jake Meyes, Josh Rojas, Chas McCormick, Brandon Bielak, Jeremy Pena, JP France and Hunter Brown. That doesn't count all the prospects that were dealt for productive players - guys like Seth Beer, Corbin Martin, Phillips etc. Internationally it took awhile - but he ended up doing very well as well with the tremendous amount of pitching that he produced, that is still keeping the Astros afloat. Framber Valdez, Christian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Bryan Abreu, Luis Garcia, Cionel Perez and Wilyer Abreu all were from that international pipeline and I would consider Yordan to be as well, as the Astros (wink) had the Dodgers help them get him to Houston. Jeff Luhnow is black balled - but he is the most impressive front office executive in several generations of baseball. The last time an executive had this deep and long an impact, especially considering he only lasted like 7-8 years in Houston and hasn't been involved in nearly 5 years.... was maybe the Braves or if not them, then the A's in the 1970's. Teams like the Dodgers and Yankees had/have close to unlimited finances.
He drafted exceptionally well in the later rounds. His #1 picks were definitely a mixed bag, that, like you said, he got saved by the League Office (which led to the Bregman pick). Imagine the team without Bregs during this run. For that matter, the best player on the team, the only Hall of Famer during this run outside of Verlander, was already on the team when Lunhow took over. Imagine the team without Altuve. So he got very lucky, and was good. Both can be and are true. As for knowing about the cheating... that makes it worse. His team cheated and he condoned it, and then lied about his knowledge afterwards. That's not a guy I'd want running my org. And the cheating was entirely unnecessary to us winning the 2017 title. And it tainted the entire franchise and the title they won under his watch. It's really an unforgiveable sin.
That would apply to every GM during that era. It’s like saying you wouldn’t want a GM who had players on his team taking steroids during that era.
Agreed about Luhnow's greatest accomplishment was getting Crane on board with Luhnow's plan Strongly disagree about what Luhnow did being easy, because if it was easy teams in the last 50 years have had multiple high draft picks in consecutive years and haven't accomplished anything of note with those picks. I think you just dont like Luhnow and you're looking for reasons to discount the job he did. Why do I think that? Look at the results on the field even after Luhnow being gone for 5 years.
I know other teams cheated. I don't know (and you don't know) that it was every team. What doesn't apply to every GM is allowing a system that involved something as stupid as banging on trash cans. I would say we had the only trash can-based sign stealing system. Not every team got caught. Not every GM, on getting caught, lied about his knowledge. Not every GM traded for a domestic violence closer and then had an executive they hired make comments to female reporters about said DV pitcher. Lunhow is a smart guy but made questionable ethical decisions, bottom line. And they caught up to him.
