Astros Cheat Tampa Bay Rays Out of Vice President

The Tampa Bay Rays lost their Vice President of Baseball Operations on Monday night when he was hired to fill the Houston Astros’ vacant GM position.

The Houston Astros have hired Tampa Bay Rays‘ Vice President of Baseball Operations, James Click. He will fill the vacancy left by former general manager Jeff Luhnow when he was terminated upon the conclusion of MLB’s investigation into the Astros’ cheating scandal.

Major League Baseball suspended Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch for one year. Astros’ owner Jim Crane followed the suspension up by terminating the deceitful duo.

As a reward for cheating during the 2017 season, the Astros have acquired a great baseball mind in VP-James Click.

Click has been with the Rays for the past 14 years. He was entering his fourth season as Vice President of Baseball Operations.

According to his bio for the Sports Analytics Conference, James’s fingerprints were all over Tampa Bay’s front office, literally and physically. He was,

"“involved in guiding and overseeing all aspects of the baseball operations department. His particular areas of focus are research and development, strategic planning, and innovation, but he is also involved in player evaluation, roster configuration, trade and contract negotiation, league relations, and staff management.”"

Click has a bachelor’s in history from Yale and wrote for Baseball Prospectus prior to accepting a position with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2006.

Click held the following titles during his time with the Rays:

• Coordinator of Baseball Operations
• Director of Research and Development
• Director of Baseball Operations
• Vice President of Baseball Operations

There’s no doubt that he’s played a major role in formulating the “Rays-Way.” Tampa Bay makes great use of analytics to stay competitive despite their division rivals, Yankees and Red Sox, each having payrolls equivalent to the Rays’ gross revenue.

It is a great opportunity for him and Rays’ Nation is happy for him.

However, that doesn’t mean we have to be happy about how we came about suffering a loss like this.

Rays’ fans are left scratching their heads on Monday night as to how the Astros were able to parlay their punishment into acquiring one of the top young executives in the game, less than a month away from spring training.

How could Major League Baseball make these scenarios more fair in the future?