Rangers Hit Home Run With Bruce Bochy
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The hiring of Bruce Bochy as Texas Rangers manager represents something the organization has never done before.
Texas has never hired a manager the led a team to a World Series title as a manager, much less the three in five years that Bochy did with the San Francisco Giants from 2010-14.
A few won rings as players, of course. Billy Martin with the New York Yankees. Don Zimmer with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. One won a ring as a player and then won a World Series as a manager AFTER leading the club, but you have to go back to Gil Hodges with the Washington Senators in the mid-1960s. Whitey Herzog managed to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a title in 1982 well after he led the Rangers for one inglorious season in 1973.
But, no, the Rangers had never hired one that actually had World Series championship credentials as a manager before Friday. Heck, they even lured him out of retirement and rather cushy jobs as the manager of France’s national baseball team and as a special advisor to the Giants.
Bochy isn’t expected to speak to the media until Monday. But in the team’s release he made it clear that it would take a certain job to get him to leave retirement and get back in a dugout one more time at age 67.
“If I was going to return to managing, it had to be the right situation,” Bochy said. “I strongly believe that to be the case with the Rangers, and I can’t wait to get started.”
This was nothing less than a home run for the Rangers and general manager Chris Young (who played one year for Bochy in San Diego) in his first major decision since former team president Jon Daniels was fired.
Texas lured the best-credentialed manager on the open market. Texas hasn’t had a winning season in six years and was coming off a relatively dysfunctional conclusion to 2022. That included the firings of manager Chris Woodward and Daniels, who had been with the Rangers for 20 years.
In that sense, it’s quite the coup. Certainly, Young’s previous relationship had something to do with it. But it’s also evident Young had a target and a goal. Bochy is one of only two people publicly connected to the job. The other was interim manager Tony Beasley, who formally interviewed right after the season ended.
For a process that Young said would take “three or four weeks” when he spoke to the media two weeks ago, Bochy’s hiring qualifies as swift.
Young has also said, as has principal owner Ray Davis, that the Rangers want to contend in 2023. This hiring is designed to bring in a manager that has been there and done that. Bochy is the first Rangers managerial hiring with previous MLB managerial experience since Buck Showalter back in 2002.
This is the best possible hire the Rangers could have hoped for given their current station. But the best possible hire doesn’t mean success, of course.
The Rangers have quality pieces in their batting lineup, but they’re also pitching starved. Both Young and Davis have made it clear the Rangers are prepared to spend for front-line starting pitching. That could mean money. That could mean prospects. That could mean both.
Hiring Bochy, in that regard, could have a ripple effect with free agents. He’s highly respected. Few in the modern game have done what he’s done. Players want to play for proven winners, and that is Bochy’s most valuable asset this offseason. Few have done it better in the 21st century than Bochy. Since 2000, the Giants are one of four teams with multiple World Series titles. The New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals are the others.
Bochy was the only manager to do it three times.
There have been times in Rangers history when the hiring of certain managers served as pivot points historically.
Martin was the first to make the Rangers winners, even if it was for just one season in 1974.
Bobby Valentine’s hiring in 1985 shook the Rangers out of a half-decade stupor and helped them to winning seasons in four out of six full seasons.
Johnny Oates’ hiring in 1995 got the Rangers to the postseason for the first time.
Ron Washington’s hiring in 2007 got the Rangers to the World Series twice.
Bochy’s hire has the makings of another pivot point. And there’s only one rung left on the ladder. And he’s one of a handful of managers qualified to do it.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard
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