General manager Click leaves the team

Clicks’ contract expired on Oct. 31, just days before the Astros won the World Series in six games over the Philadelphia Phillies, although Click continued to run Houston’s baseball operations department.

Conflict within the organization over baseball operations decision-making persisted throughout the Astros’ championship run this season, sources told ESPN, and Click’s reluctance to accept owner Jim Crane’s one-year contract offer was the topic of conversation at baseball general managers’ meetings in Las Vegas.

Speaking Wednesday at a news conference announcing the return of manager Dusty Baker, Crane tiptoed around questions about Click and said he was “in talks” with the now-former general manager.

Click and Baker were hired in 2020 after Crane fired then-general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch following the revelation of the team’s sign-stealing scheme during the team’s championship-winning 2017 season. Houston reached the American League Championship Series in 2020 and lost in the World Series in 2021 before winning the title this year.

Click, 44, said Tuesday he was “optimistic” he would return to the Astros. In general, top executives of World Series-winning teams return next season with several years remaining on their contracts or receive long-term extensions. The last time a baseball chief operating officer did not return at the helm of his team the following season was 75 years ago, when general manager Larry MacPhail of the New York Yankees resigned.