The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros General Manager James Click Joins The Matt Thomas Show

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Hey, it's James Arden. What a pass. What a finish. Listen to your home of the rockets on your smart speaker, just as. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on IHR radio. That is something else, folks. Our time is 1231.

It is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We are happy to be joined now by the first year general manager of the Houston Astros, James Click, who I don't know if he's getting any more information than we are, but man, it feels like every single day there's a new development in terms of a start up again. James, thanks for the time. I appreciate it coming on. How often are you getting updates? Not that you have to give away all the information, but how much is there a communication line between each individual team and the Major League Baseball Office about when hopefully you guys will start up again?

Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me on. It's a good question. There are many, many avenues of communication because we have to coordinate all sorts of aspects of the possibility of starting back up, you know, primarily it's a medical conversation about the logistics of getting the clubhouses for the point where they're safe, maintaining social distance, and how do we do that in a competitive environment? And then obviously you have to loop in the business side, you have to loop in the players and the players association, you have to loop in the front offices so that, you know, we can talk about what this will look like.

So there are many, many avenues and communications. Some of them are very frequent. them are less so because there's just less to talk about. Yeah. I think it's obvious from all of the different plans that have them put out there publicly that we are trying to make sure that whenever we get the green light from the medical people, from the government's municipalities, all that, that we have a plan that's ready to go so we can get out there as quickly as possible.

If I was to look at your daytime or your schedule, and I think you've got some meetings today and I appreciate you joining me before you get to those, how much are you talking about the operation of the team? on the field and how much of it right now is about just trying to get the sport back on its, back on its feet? Yeah, we're unfortunately a little bit limited on what we can do with the team on the field because they're the transaction freeze. And so it's interesting because I spend a ton of time on the phone every day,

sometimes with other general managers. And normally we'd be talking about trades or ways to improve our team or ways to try to line up on things. And because of the transaction freeze, we're just, unable to do that. And everybody is focused on getting back out there, getting out on the field, figuring out how we do that as safely as possible. So, like I said, when we get the green light, we're ready to go. Rossville, we're out here, James. And what's the communication like with the players and with Dusty? Is their daily group communication individually? How's that going for you?

It's kind of all of the above. Dusty and I talk regularly, sometimes about wine. because he's out there in Sacramento with his winery. But, you know, a lot of times we're talking about when we get back out there, you know, what is, what does he want that to look like? How does he want to operate the dugout? Who's he going to be leaning on for various decisions

and how are we going to run a game plan? And then with the players, it's always the balance, right? Because we want to check in with them as much as possible to let them know that, you know, things are moving or we're trying to find a way to get this back going. But you also don't want to bother them too much.

and, you know, where I'd you're welcome, so to speak. They're professional. They know how to keep themselves in shape. And unfortunately, you know, there's not a lot of news to give them a lot of times. You can say, hey, this is something that has been considered, but it is nothing more than an idea at this point. It is just an idea. It's just a plan in case we get going.

So we don't all need to start packing our bags for Arizona if that's what you're wondering. Yeah, and what is their general feeling, just the players? Like, what's the consensus you think in your mind about kind of balancing, wanting to play games, but also wanting to be with their families and wanting things to be normal, even though we can't really do that, considering the circumstances. Yeah, there's no right answer there. But, you know, the guys that I talk to, especially the guys with young families, are hyper-sensitive to the potential to, you know, go into a quarantine situation just to start playing games again.

And none of us wants to put that burden on our families, especially those with young kids. And so that is another consideration that goes into all of these different plans about how are we going to start this back up again? It's how to we make sure that not only the physical health of the players and the staff is protected, but the emotional health of all of them dealing with, you know, the stress that this is putting on all of our families. It's a tough balancing act. So you're telling me that Dusty Baker has asked you to join one of his Zoom meetings. Is this accurate? I have seen Dusty on the camera on the computer.

I've seen his office. He's got a much nicer office than I do out there. So yeah, we're all getting up to speed on this. I mean, you know, if I have a problem, I just call my 8-year-old, and he comes up and shows me to have to do it. He showed me how to change the background, so I'm on the Death Star or something like that. And then Dusty, the same thing.

He's got to sound Darren out there. It was a junior account right now. He always jokes that if he had a problem, he just called Darren. name and Darren fixes it. So we're all being on the younger generation office out of the day. That's for sure. James Click Astros, General Manager with us. Have you moved your family here now, or has all this pandemic kind of slow that down as well?

Well, I mean, how much time do you are. Well, I got to 3 o'clock, but I don't take commercial breaks. You've got some meetings doing up in half an hour. So it's up to you. You say as long as you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. And I appreciate you got squeezing in before the meeting.

But, yeah, we are trying to get out there. as fast as we can, but as you can imagine, with, you know, getting hired at the beginning of February, you know, we were having a spring in Tampa, St. Pete, and so the school year was over, so they're not to disrupt the kids, but, you know, the world had other plans for that. So, yeah, we're going to be out there very, very soon, definitely before the draft, just kind of working on final details. All right, well, obviously, this delay helps Justin Verlander, in a sense that he wouldn't be missing time on the disabledist. He spoke with the media last. week. How often can you get in contact with him, perhaps his rehab plan, the doctors he's spoken to,

where are you in terms of where he is? He sounded encouraged. I'm assuming you're sounding encouraged as well. Yeah, and I like to let a guy like JV kind of take care of himself. I mean, he is a true professional. He knows his body. He's been through this injury before. So he has the experience of having to get back or how to get back. And he talks with our trainers daily. He keeps us up to speed on exactly what's going on. But he doesn't need me breathing down his neck asking him, you know, how his last feels and how his groin feels and everything else and, you know, how the ball is coming out and, you know,

he's wearing a mask and et cetera. So we touch base when, you know, it's called for by other issues or, you know, if I want to just get to try to take his temperature on what he's thinking about, how to start this back up. but in terms of the medical aspects of things, he's a pro and we've got our athletic training staff that are keeping our close eye on them. What have you told, not necessarily you per se,

but all the general managers about the minor leaguers because we're hearing various numbers about how big the rosters are going to be, what kind of activity they will have if they go to Arizona or Florida, go to their home stadium, whatever the end game is, what have you told the minor league system, you know, all couple hundred of them about what their future is going to be for 2020? Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of why this is much more complicated than it seems like on a surface level of trying to get baseball back out there in the field because you're not just dealing with a 26-man roster.

And especially in these times when there will be additional screening and safety protocols for entry into clubhouses, you know, I expect that we're going to rely on minor league players or guys who are in minor league rosters right now. to help us out, just like we would in any professional baseball season. It's just going to be more so these days. And this is another one of those issues that everybody is scrambling and working as hard as they can to try to figure it out. But unfortunately, the best thing that we can say right now is that we don't know. And as much as we don't like to say that and we don't like to tell people that there are things that are uncertain, I think all of us are recognizing that a lot of the world in the

launch of baseball is pretty uncertain right now. And James, you're a guy who was high. a few months after any other general manager late in the game. So your head was kind of spinning in the fact that you have to learn the Astros organization and you have to get to hit the ground running. And then this happens. Can you just take us through? I mean,

what was your mindset from February where it kind of probably felt like a whirlwind to where this all, has it slowed down for you or has it just continued to be hectic? What has it been like for you? Well, at least now I have company with 29 other GMs who are also trying to deal with their head spinning all over the place and trying to figure out a bunch of places. problems that we've never really seen before. Yeah, I mean, when I first got there, I knew, I think I knew what I was getting into and had an idea of kind of the things that we were going to have to deal with.

But it was a very, not a lonely situation, but no other team was going through that. Now at least, you know, when you have conversations with other teams and other general managers, all of us can compare notes and say, okay, you know, these are the crises that we're having to deal with. These are the things that we're trying to solve. does anybody have a good idea and everybody just says, you know, we've never been for anything like this before, so there's no

playbook, we're just going to have to figure it out. Last question, and I feel like we've asked you a lot of things that the answers are, I don't know, but just as you're a reassuring voice and we trust your valued opinion. Obviously, in the middle of spring training, you're trying to get this season started and then everything comes to a crashing halt. I'm going to assume,

James, that most of the players have not faced much live batting. I'm going to assume that guys are not rigorously throwing like they would as they were getting ready for start of the season. In your mind, how long would it take for effectively your roster, for that matter, any major league baseball roster, to get tuned up? So that first set of games, especially if it's only an 80 or 100 game schedule, we're seeing the players at their best and that no one can say, well, it took us 20 or 25 games to kind of get acclimated to playing

baseball again. Yeah, well, you guys are doing a good job asking really good questions. This is an active conversation among all areas of the organization. It's an active conversation with the players. You know, hitters and pitchers obviously are on very different schedules. Veterans and rookies will be on different schedules. You know, we have debates about how valuable is it to have, you know, spring training games against other teams versus can we just do this intra-squad? You know, how valuable is it to actually get through nine-ending games or back-to-back?

or these kind of things. And there's so much that goes into getting ready for a major league baseball to see them. You know, fortunately, Dusty's been through this before. I mean, he's been through a couple of strikes. He keeps talking about, you know, back in 81 where they had, you know, a couple weeks to get ready, and they did. So, you know, I had that benefit of working with somebody who's actually been through something sort of similar to that. And we're going to lean very heavily on Dusty and obviously the medical staff and the players themselves to try to figure that out. but by we hit it on the head.

Among all the things that we don't know, that's just another one. And we'll try to figure it out. That's one of the least I think that we can work out based on Dusty's experience, our trainers, our players. We'll figure it out. But, you know, that's the reason that we're having discussions about different roster configurations and things like that to address the short runway that we may have. Well, we are such vested baseball fans and of your organization in particular.

So thank you for spending some time with us. I know we're still in a bunch of what ebb, out there, but it's just good for us to kind of talk baseball with somebody in the industry. So we thank you for sparing some of your time with us today. And we look forward to having you on the next time when it's a much more encouraging detail about we definitely have a plan in place and looking forward to a season. So again, James, thanks very much for the time this afternoon. We greatly appreciate it.

Same, guys. Thank you. All right, take care of yourself. James Click. Astros, General Manager with us here on the Matt Thomas Show.