Though, I do agree that they in general are more like peace-time Luhnow. Always aggregating talent. Though, I would say Luhnow was very much like the Rays except for the Verlander, Cole, and Greinke trades. All three involved Crane laying out money.
Its amazing the Rays have been as consistently good as they have been, and not just because of their low payroll. Aside from Kevin Kiermeier (and Longoria and Archer awhile back), they have not had any player put up star numbers on their team for more than 2-3 seasons. It’s an amazing amount of roster turnover for a winning small market team. It’s almost like the Rays have a secret sauce to unearth players who can be really good for a season or two. In the last 5 seasons they’ve gotten a 3+ fWAR season out of the following players: 2015: Archer, Kiermeier, Forsythe, Longoria 2016: Kiermeier, Longoria 2017: Archer, Morrison, Kiermeier, Souza 2018: Mallex Smith, Joey Wendle, Snell 2019: Morton, Meadows, Pham This season, their star players have been Lowe, Glasnow, and Adames. Squeezing star quality production out of guys like Forsythe, Morrison, Souza, and Smith is likely the biggest thing allowing them to field consistent winners.
If Click were suddenly presented with the same payroll restrictions he faced with Tampa, its no wonder what he’d do. Springer and Brantley would be QO’ed with no expectation of resigning. No other free agents would be made reasonable offers. Correa, Greinke, McCullers, and Pressly would be traded, while Altuve would likely be shopped. His expectation from those moves would likely be to get a lot of underrated prospects and possible 2-3 underrated big leaguers to fill in around Alvarez, Tucker, and Bregman on offense and supplement the rotation around Urquidy, Valdez, and Javier. The bullpen would almost certainly be filled in-house. Then a small amount of money would be allocated to 3rd tier free agency to fill any remaining short term holes. The likely outcome would be a team that projects to win 90-95 games with a payroll under $100M and a farm that’s back to being rated around average.
Hopefully its not some secret wet dream around here to be a small market A's/Rays like franchise with limited payrolls. Yes, you need smart management/asset accumulation... but you also need to spend when necessary. Teams that cannot spend, or choose not to spend, have a built-in decision-making tree based on those restrictions.... sort of like managing in the NL, pre-DH.
I don't think anyone wants the Astros to be a small spender. The Astros likely need to be a smart spender as even the Yankees can end up 7 games behind the Rays despite spending 2-3 times as much. The Rays are probably the team most like the Astros except for their budget restraints...which is huge.
oh hell no. I want click to build tampa bay, and then we spend on top of that ... for perennial 95-100 win teams that are around eighth to tenth in payroll.
Right. The idea being that if you took Tampa’s current roster and farm and added in a 1-2 big free agent contracts, 2-3 middle tier free agent contracts, and made a big trade for an ace, you’d probably have rosters on par (or possibly even better) than the 2017 and 2019 Astros.
It actually took me a while to find a Click thread. Most posts about him have been inserted into other threads not about him. I think Click has done a fine job overall. Not perfect but not bad. FYI I am only listing MLB players or top prospects. Journeymen AAA players who came and went without playing for the parent team are skipped. I am also only considering players he decides to get rid of via trade, waivers, release, etc.. Free agents leaving are not counted against him. Off season 2020: all transactions done prior to hiring. In season 2020: + Hector Velazquez, Chase DeJong, Brooks Raley. - none "D" = bullpen was a mess and team was underachieving. Only gets "D" not "F" for not losing any players and gaining a serviceable Raley Off season 2021: + Seth Martinez, Jose Siri, Ryne Stanek, Pedro Baez, Jason Castro, Robel Garcia, Jake Odorizzi, Luke Berryhill. - Carlos Sanabria, Brandon Bailey, Jack Mayfield, Rogelio Armenteros, Cy Sneed, Cionel Perez, Humbert Castellanos. "A-" = Martinez, and Stanek were great bullpen gets. Castro was great in 2021. Siri was great and helped get Mancini for no cost. Odorizzi was hot and cold but had some very good games and filled some much needed pitching innings. All this without giving up much of anything. In season 2021: + Kendall Graveman, Rafael Montero, Yimi Garcia, Phil Maton, Marwin Gonzalez, Yanier Diaz, Jacob Wilson. - Joe Smith, Abraham Toro, Myles Straw, Austin Pruitt, Nivaldo Rodriguez. "A" The Astros won each and every trade. The team does not get to the World Series without the bullpen improvements. Off season 2022: + Hector Neris, Niko Goodrum (Justin Verlander) - Garrett Stubbs, Kent Emanuel, Ronnie Dawson. "A+" if you count Verlander "B" if you don't Goodrum was a failure but didn't really cost anything or negatively impact the season. Neris is huge part of a great bullpen. Nobody of consequence was lost although having Garett Stubbs would have been a benefit ( but likely prevented the team from getting Vazquez) In season 2022: + Mauricio Dubon, Christian Vazquez, Trey Mancini, Will Smith, Jayden Murray. - Pedro Baez, Jose Siri, Jake Odorizzi, Chayce McDermott. "B" the thing not making it an "A" is not getting a CF or 2nd bat at the deadline. Dubon was a great depth move for a valuable 26th man. Mancini and Vazquez really add to the team and strengthen the World Seties hopes. Odorizzi needed to go and Will Smith is a lottery ticket that so far isn't winning. Sad to see Jose Siri go but he simply could not be counted on to hit.
Given where the team was when he came on board and where it is now, I give him a solid B for his efforts. He's basically won almost every little transaction and upgraded the team at the margins without much going out. It becomes an A if he wins a ring this year or next. Sometimes you gotta shove prospects in for a ring and he didn't do that. Remains to be seen if he'll regret that.
This is completely fair point all around. B seems reasonable. The best tbing you can say is he did not harm. The flip side of that is everything he did to improve the team was very marginal and he oversaw a net loss of talent from the Major League roster at a time where the team was all in for rings. That loss of talent enabled the flexibility so we shall see where that ends up. I thought it was a bad decision to let guys walk and bring nobody of consequence back while nibbling at the margins with middle relievers and JAG starters. If Crane does get rid of him this off-season the new guy has as good a situation to walk into as JL left Crane.
LOL…You thought I was really calling Jim an actual coward. Not that serious. Spoiler Really, never heard of the phrase?
I'm still at incomplete. But I liked his first full draft. I like signing JV and I like the Vasquez and Mancini acquisitions so I'm leaning toward good. I can't wait for his first Manager pick.
The centerfield position is the one I have a problem with. I'm not sure if I blame Click or Baker for that because I really think Chas could develop into the full time guy there. This off season will be when the grade will be complete since we have a lot of decisions to make. Verlander, catcher, first base and yuli, left field and Brantley.
We are getting so spoiled. WS last year, maybe our best record ever, and getting after the GM because he couldn’t overpay for a mediocre CF and block Leon and others. I don’t like Dusty as a manager and hope he is replaced, but man give Click a break. Luhow is over an he left of us with a system and ability to be relevant for another 5 years at least. The goal all along is the St. Louis model of being competitive almost every year and we are set at that for at least another 5 years. Tucker will be extended at some time, and, regardless of what the misinformed press are saying, we continue to load up from the minors.
