ESPN Insider: Inside the champion Astros’ behind-the-scenes turmoil [$]

“Sometimes I wonder if Jim thinks he’s Jerry Jones,” said one Astros employee, who was among the dozen people with knowledge of the organization with whom ESPN spoke to better understand the inner workings of arguably the most successful franchise in baseball. Not since Larry MacPhail in 1947 has a championship franchise parted ways with its top baseball executive so soon after a title, but what became clear over those conversations was Crane’s willingness to meddle in baseball-operations decisions, much like the Dallas Cowboys owner who also serves as GM. It’s a path certainly in Crane’s purview as owner but rare among his peers in baseball—and it suggests that Click’s work always came with impediments.

Crane, sources said, felt coming into the 2022 season that the team needed more “baseball men” involved in operations decisions and invited Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Reggie Jackson into the team’s weekly senior baseball-operations meetings. Crane, sources said, killed an agreed-upon deal for Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras at the trade deadline. Crane, sources said, this week personally negotiated the three-year, $34.5 million contract that brought reliever Rafael Montero back to the team—a deal that was widely seen in the industry as a hefty price to give a 32-year-old with only one good full big league season….

Disagreements over player evaluations furthered the chasm between the sides and further isolated Click. Baker was among those who convinced Crane to kill the trade that would have sent right-hander Jose Urquidy to the Cubs for Contreras. Bagwell, who “Jim might trust more than anyone,” according to one source familiar with their relationship and corroborated by another, was critical of the Astros’ player-development system, even as it was graduating eventual ALCS and World Series MVP Jeremy Peña. Jackson, who joined the Astros in May 2021 as an “executive assistant” despite never playing for the organization, yelled at members of the team’s front office this year and later would apologize, according to sources.