Rangers Owner Ray Davis: 'Bottom Line is We're Not Good'
Firing Texas Rangers president Jon Daniels on Wednesday came down to one simple thing, according to the team’s principal owner, Ray Davis.
“The bottom line is we're not good,” Davis said. “And we haven't been good for six years”
By firing Daniels, the Rangers jettisoned the final front office connection to the 2010 and 2011 World Series teams. They also let go of someone who joined the organization 17 years, ago, replaced one of the game’s better general managers in John Hart and survived what many fans perceived as a power struggle with former team chairman Nolan Ryan.
Daniels joined the Texas baseball operations department in 2002 and was appointed as the Rangers’ eighth general manager on Oct. 4, 2005. He was promoted to president of baseball operations in March of 2013.
But this was nothing more than the bottom line. The Rangers haven’t had a winning record since 2016, when they won 95 games and the American League West under Jeff Banister. Banister was Daniels’ hire, which came after Ron Washington, which was Daniels’ hire, too.
So was Chris Woodward, who replaced Banister in 2019.
This was a surprise to Daniels, who was informed on Wednesday morning. Forty-eight hours before, he and general manager Chris Young announced that the team was firing Woodward and promoting Tony Beasley to interim manager.
Turns out, Davis had been contemplating the move for months. And he knew on Monday that he was going to let Daniels go.
His logic for waiting until Wednesday?
“I felt it was necessary to get Chris and Jon through the trade deadline, through the draft and the things that were happening at the time,” Davis said. “On Monday, when Jon and Chris came in and wanted to relieve Woody of his responsibilities, I didn’t want to connect the two and I didn’t want it to be done at the same time. Chris signed on to relieving Woody. So I’ve separated the two and we did Woody then and Jon now.”
Daniels had been fully in charge of baseball operations until the team lured Young away from a position in Major League Baseball in late 2020. At that time, Daniels move into the team president role and Young moved into the general manager role. But everyone in the organization described it as a “partnership.” Daniels and Young both described the search to replace Woodward on Monday as “collaborative.”
The baseball staff will still collaborate moving forward, but Davis made it clear that Young will be the decider. He is in charge of all baseball operations, including the hiring of a new manager.
Like Monday’s move, Daniels’ firing was designed, in part, to give Young a head start on 2023.
“I felt Chris needed a running start on the off-season and that’s why we did it now,” Davis said.
As for the future, Rangers fans were sold on a rebuild that would yield a team that could contend in 2023. Davis said that is still the plan. He said he feels the fans’ desire for a consistent winning team, something it hasn’t had in a half-dozen years.
“The fans have got to be as upset as I am,” Davis said. “I’m not a good loser. And all I can say to the fans is we’re treating it with a sense of urgency. That’s why we made a couple of moves this week. And we plan on putting a very competitive team on the field next year.”
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard
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