Jim Crane conveniently ignores his role in Astros’ struggles in post-clinch comments

One of the more annoying results of clinching a playoff berth is that team executives that fans either dislike or know nothing about come out of the woodwork to start trying to bask in the glory of the moment. When the Houston Astros clinched the AL West with their win over the Mariners, one such figure made his presence known in Astros owner Jim Crane.

Crane is a divisive figure among Astros fans. There is no denying that Houston has seen the most success in franchise history under Crane, as the numbers are abundantly clear there. However, there are a lot of people who (probably correctly) think that the Astros' success in recent years has often been despite Crane instead of because of him, with his high profile feud with former GM James Click being just one example of his meddling.

Nevertheless, it was a given that Crane was going to get in front of at least one microphone to talk about the team once they had clinched the division. What was telling in Crane's interview, however, was how he glossed over his role in Houston's struggles this season, as well as how little credit he gave his front office -- led by Dana Brown -- for fixing his mess.

Jim Crane glosses over Astros front office's role in cleaning up his messes

The linked version of Crane's interview is longer and contains more context here. For starters, most of what Crane had to say was boilerplate owner comment stuff. He was proud of the team, talked about how they never quit, and noted that the Astros have the best fans in baseball. Again, the standard "yadda yadda yadda" stuff that every executive is coached to say.

However, it was pretty curious that the only mention of general manager Dana Brown was sort of a backhanded compliment about Brown's trade for Yusei Kikuchi and seeing "what no one else saw" at the trade deadline. While it was nice to get at least that much out of Crane, he conveniently ignored the fact that Brown's biggest accomplishments this season involved undoing two mistakes where the blame lies squarely with the head honcho.

During Crane's short fever dream tenure in charge of the Astros' front office after he ran Click out of town, he handed out a pair of ill-advised deals by signing aging free agent Jose Abreu, as well as significantly overpaying to bring reliever Rafael Montero back. Brown had the fortitude to be willing to get Abreu off the roster completely, despite his contract, and also sent Montero to the minors after a pair of dreadful seasons. Those moves allowed for all of the roster machinations that got the Astros to this point, yet they were not mentioned at all.

Perhaps it was just an oversight in the moment by Crane, or he just wanted to focus on the positives in the wake of a postseason berth. However, his revisionist history here smells a lot like a guy that still refuses to acknowledge his mistakes and shortcomings as an owner. Yes, the Astros are a very good baseball team and need to be celebrated for that, but it would have been nice to see the owner give proper credit where it was due, even if it meant acknowledging that his own failures were a part of Houston's obstacles this season.

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