World Series-winning general manager James Click will not return to the Houston Astros after he rejected the team’s one-year contract offer.
Clicks’ contract expired Oct. 31, just days before the Astros won the World Series in six games over the Philadelphia Phillies, though Click continued to run Houston’s baseball operations department.
Conflict within the organization on baseball operations decision-making persisted throughout the Astros’ championship run this season, sources told ESPN, and Click’s reticence to accept owner Jim Crane’s one-year contract offer was the talk of baseball’s GM meetings in Las Vegas.
Speaking Wednesday at a news conference announcing the return of manager Dusty Baker, Crane tiptoed around questions regarding Click, saying he was “in discussions” with the now former GM.
Click and Baker were hired in 2020 after Crane fired then-GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch after the revelation of the team’s sign-stealing scheme during its championship-winning 2017 season. Houston reached the American League Championship Series in 2020 and lost in the World Series in 2021 before winning the title this year.
Click, 44, said Tuesday he was “optimistic” he would return to the Astros. Generally, the top executives for World Series-winning teams return the next season with multiple years remaining on their contracts or receive long-term extensions. The last time a head of baseball operations didn’t return to steward his championship team the next season was 75 years ago, when New York Yankees general manager Larry MacPhail resigned.
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