BIG DECISIONS LOOMING
Houston Astros philosophical differences have put the owner in a tough spot
Sep 15, 2022, 5:25 pm
Will Dusty Baker and Astros GM James Click be back next season? Composite image by Brandon Strange.
It appears that Astros owner Jim Crane has some decisions, really one, to make. Manager Dusty Baker’s contract is up at the end of this season. So is general manager James Click’s contract.
Baker and Click don’t seem to see eye to eye on how this team is supposed to run. Baker is old school and flies by the seat of his pants. He trusts his gut. Click is new school analytics. Numbers don’t lie. (Except they do, of course.)
We don’t know if either one is telling Crane, “Make up your mind. It’s either him or me, one of us has to go.” How’d that work out for Kevin Durant? The Astros possibilities are not endless. Either both Click and Baker stay, one or the other leaves, or they both leave.
If it does come down to one stays and one goes: who ya got?
But that’s for after this season ends. The Astros are in first place in the American League West by miles and near clinching home field advantage through the AL playoffs. The over/under for total Astros wins in 2022 was 92.5 before the season started. They’ve beaten that with weeks left on the schedule.
Who deserves the credit for the Astros amazing success since Click and Baker took over the Astros in 2020. Is it Click’s bottom line decision making or Baker’s calming influence in the clubhouse and quirky decisions on the field?
Baker is the more recognizable of the two. We see him in the dugout, in full MLB combat gear, making mincemeat of a toothpick. Baker explains his sometimes unexplainable decisions after every game. Click looks like a discount tax accountant near the front door of a Walmart. He wouldn’t say nothing if he had a mouthful of it.
It probably won’t matter if the Astros win the World Series this year. I’m thinking it’s going to be one or the other going. Baker is 73 years old, already one of the oldest managers in MLB history. Click is 44, considered one of the brightest minds in baseball, with other teams lusting after his services.
This week, sports columnist Ken Rosenthal wrote an open letter to Chicago White Sox manager Tony LaRussa, age 77, essentially saying, “you need to quit.”
Perhaps that letter should have contained “cc: Dusty Baker.”
Of course, the big difference is, LaRussa has a confrontational relationship with some of his players, plus he’s an ass. Baker is supported by the Astros players, plus he’s lovable. More important, the Astros are a juggernaut lapping the league with an owner obsessed with winning. It doesn’t seem to matter that the Astros lose key players, like Carlos Correa, Gerrit Cole and George Springer, to higher-priced bidders. The machine just reloads and heads toward the playoffs with newer and less expensive players. To the naked eye, the Astros are a model franchise, despite percolating turmoil behind the scenes.
A natural observation would be, why fix something that clearly isn’t broke? Why can’t Click and Baker just get along while the getting is good?
It doesn’t work that way. Success doesn’t keep people together. The Beatles broke up while being the biggest act in entertainment history. The Florida/Miami Marlins busted up their team after winning the World Series – twice. Who didn’t think that Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson were perfectly matched lovebirds forever?
Are the Astros piling up wins because of Baker … or despite him?
Click is tight-lipped about his relationship with Baker, but it’s easy to imagine that he, like cranky fans on Twitter, is frustrated by Baker’s constantly changing lineups and batting orders. Sometimes it’s like Baker throws nine names into a Yahtzee cup, shakes it up, and however the names come spilling out, that’s tonight’s batting order.
Click reportedly isn’t happy with which players play and which players sit. Remember, the Astros hired Baker as manager before they hired Click as general manager. Click did not pick Baker as his manager.
This week, Baker explained to the media that Yordan Alvarez was going to miss a game because of his hand injury. Alvarez, in a rare and possibly significant move, especially for a young player, gathered the media to say, “huh?”
Until season end, Crane is like the dad driving and Baker and Click are his kids fighting in the backseat. “Don’t make me come back there!”
My guess: after the World Series parade in downtown Houston, Crane will call Dusty into his office and cold-heartedly explain what needs to be done. You know, like when Michael Corleone sent Tom Hagen to convince Frank Pentangili what needed to be done in Godfather II.
Baker retires in a blaze of glory, stays on as Crane’s “special assistant,” and Click gets to pick his manager this time. And the Astros continue to dominate the American League happily ever after.
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The Astros have already been swept in four series this season. They were swept in four series all of last season. As Mexico City says bienvenidos to the Astros this weekend, there are certainly more than a few folks fretting that the Astros are already close to saying adios to playoff hopes. The Astros are not at the point of no return, though one can see it out there on the horizon. It wouldn’t take another month of their garbage level 7-19 performance for the season to be essentially down the drain.
If the Astros were in the American League East, they’d already be ten games out of second place. But they’re not! If in the AL Central they’d be eleven and a half games back of Cleveland. But they’re not! Dozens of teams have rebounded to win divisions from larger deficits much later in the season than the Astros face presently. The Seattle Mariners lead the thus far weak AL West at 13-12. The Astros being six and a half games in arrears of the M’s and six back of the Texas Rangers in late April is far from optimal but nowhere near devastating.
Multiple media outlets have noted how few teams historically have started a season in as stumblebum a fashion as the 2024 Astros and wound up making the playoffs. What every outlet I have seen noting that failed to include: this is just the third season since Major League Baseball added a third Wild Card to each league’s postseason field. So, while 7-19 out of the gate is indisputably awful, it is not the death knell to the extent it has been over generations of MLB.
The issue isn’t where the Astros sit in the standings, it’s that they have played atrocious baseball and aren’t providing reason for optimism that a stark turnaround is imminent. The starting rotation is the best hope. Justin Verlander has made two starts. Framber Valdez rejoins the rotation Sunday. Cristian Javier should be a week or so away. Obviously, Ronel Blanco isn’t going to continue pitching as well as he has through his first four starts. But if he is a good number four starter, that’s fine if the top three coming into the season pitch to reasonably hoped for form.
Hunter Brown simply is not a good big league pitcher. Maybe he someday fulfills his potential, but the data at this point are clear. What can Brown do for you? Not much. Spencer Arrighetti needs better command to be a good big league starter. J.P. France was a revelation over his first 17 starts last season, but since has looked like the guy who posted underwhelming numbers when in the minor leagues. If the Astros wind up with 50-plus starts from Brown/Arrighetti/France their goose will probably be cooked.
The only MLB teams with worse staff earned run averages than the Astros’ horrific 5.07 are the Chicago White Sox (Wait! They have Martin Maldonado!) and Colorado Rockies. At 3-22 the White Sox are on an early pace to post the worst record in the history of Major League Baseball. The Rockies never have a chance to post good pitching stats because of the mile high offensive freak show environment in Denver.
Way to go, Joe
Props to Joe Espada for his conviction in making what he believed to be the right call in pulling Verlander after four and a third innings Thursday at Wrigley Field. Verlander allowed no runs but had reached 95 pitches in just the second outing of the injury-delayed start to his season. Not easy for a rookie manager skippering what has been a Titanic journey thus far to pull a surefire Hall of Famer who was two outs away from qualifying for a win. Many were no doubt poised to destroy Espada had Rafael Montero given up the lead in the fifth. Verlander was angry at being pulled from any chance at his 259th career win. Understood, but the manager’s job is to make the decisions he thinks are in the ballclub’s overall best interest. That Montero and Bryan Abreu combined to blow the lead in the sixth is immaterial.
Then there's the offense…
Six runs total the last four games. Scored more than four runs in just one of the last nine games. Timely hitting largely non-existent.
At last check Alex Bregman still hawks that “Breggy Bomb” salsa. At the plate, he’s been mostly stuck in “Breggy Bum” mode, including zero bombs (home runs). 23 games played without a homer is Bregman’s longest drought since 2017 when he had separate 35 and 27 game stretches between dingers. Bregman has a history of slow first months of the season, but never anything as inept as he’s posted thus far. A litany of lazy fly balls, infield pops, and routine grounders add up to a .216 batting average and feeble .566 OPS. Reference point: Martin Maldonado’s worst OPS season with the Astros was .573. If Bregman was a young guy handed a starting job coming out of spring training, if a viable alternative were available, there’s a chance he’d be a Sugar Land Space Cowboy right now. Bregman’s track record makes it a decent bet that he winds up with decent numbers, but nothing special. Certainly nothing remotely worth the 10 years 300 million dollars or whatever Bregman and agent Scott Boras intend(ed) to seek on the free agent market this coming offseason. Two hits Thursday did get Bregman to the 1000 hit plateau for his career.
Despite arriving south of the border with his batting average at .346, even Jose Altuve has his warts. With runners in scoring position, Altuve has one hit this season. One. In 16 at bats. Small sample size, but it counts. That’s .063. Yordan Alvarez has been no great shakes either, five for 24 (.208) with RISP.
One wonders what would happen if the Astros got a hold of and “lost” Jose Abreu’s passport/visa this weekend in Mexico City and Abreu couldn’t get back into the U.S. after the two-game set with the Rockies.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.