The Colorado Rockies, coming off one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball history, are preparing to make a much-needed hire.
After decades of ignoring advances in data and analytics and mainly promoting from within, the Rockies seem intent on hiring an outsider to be their new head of baseball operations, after dismissing general manager Bill Schmidt at the start of October.
That could be great news for Rockies fans, but the search brought bad news for a Toronto Blue Jays executive who was looking to return to the top spot in a major league front office after a brief tenure as the leader of the Houston Astros general manager.
On Wednesday, Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that James Click, the Blue Jays’ vice president of baseball strategy, was taken out of the running for the top gig in Colorado.
“The Colorado Rockies have begun to pare down their list for their next head of baseball operations, with Arizona’s Amiel Sawdaye and Cleveland’s Matt Forman two of the finalists for the job, league sources told The Athletic on Wednesday,” wrote Ghiroli and Rosenthal.
“There remains a possibility that other finalists exist, but both Kansas City’s Scott Sharp and Toronto’s James Click — who garnered interest according to The Athletic’s previous reporting — are no longer under consideration, sources with knowledge of the situation said.”
Click, 47, came up in the Tampa Bay Rays’ front office and was hired as the GM in Houston when Jeff Luhnow was dismissed in 2020 following the exposure of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017. He spent three years in the Houston front office and won the World Series in 2022 — only to immediately depart the organization after he was only offered a one-year contract for 2023.
Now, having helped build this Toronto team that reached the World Series for the first time since 1993, Click clearly has a solid resume. But he’ll have to wait until another job opens up to get his crack at returning to a No. 1 role in a front office, because the only other vacancy this offseason, the Washington Nationals job, was filled by former Boston Red Sox exec Paul Toboni.
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