The Rangers Rebuild part 01: Tear It Down?
/I don't have it in me right now to write an epic post discussing every possible aspect of what the Texas Rangers look like going forward. I've got two videos to edit professionally, one of which requires the director's input (yech) and then I've got about a dozen to edit for myself; at least three other articles I've promised to write for various people by October because I was insane on the day, AND Windows 10 Creators Update just forced itself onto three different laptops I manage and I'm having to deal with all of the BS Microsoft forced into this update (It's not all that bad at the core, once you get rid of the cruft).
And then there's Yu Darvish.
OK, I have to eulogize here a bit. Like most of you, dear readers, I've been a fan of the Texas Rangers basically all of my cognizant life. I grew up with Texas being one of the "other" clubs...not even worthy of mention unless you needed to be precise. The Rangers' purpose in life was to develop talent for the real baseball teams...New York, Boston, Los Angeles. Texas didn't have it's own players...if they were any good, they would go to their real teams sooner or later. Or in many cases, Texas got a player in their dotage, even if occasionally their dotage was really damned good, like Nolan Ryan. But let's not fool ourselves...Nolan did great things as a Texas Ranger, but his best stretch of pitching was with the Los Angeles Angels. And then the Astros. Certainly he set all of the longevity records with Texas; and the almost inexplicable no-hitters; but he was still a borrowed hero. Just because he was from Texas didn't make him an automatic Ranger. This is why Pudge Rodriguez and Adrian Beltre are so important. Both are implicitly Texas Rangers, regardless of what they did elsewhere.
Yu Darvish was a Texas Ranger.
And yet, seeing him have such a fabulous first game for L.A. Seeing him throw the pitches he wanted, and succeed. Seeing him happy, something that seemed to happen only sparingly in Texas, where everything was apologies and defending him from his own "fans"...he's not a Texas Ranger anymore, I suspect. Darvish may not be a Hall of Famer, due to his age and the amount of time he has left, but he's going to be a footnote. And a footnote to that footnote will be that he was signed out of Japan by Texas, but then went only to win a World Series with...whoever. And then another one with someone else, probably. He'll pitch until he's 45, and maybe he'll make the Hall of Fame in the end, and he won't be wearing a Texas cap.
Texas never deserved Yu Darvish.
But...now that he's gone, it's time to see clearly. Texas has a rebuild in the works, and it's time for us interested fans to figure out what's going on, and I want your input.
The first question to be addressed: is this a restart? Are the Rangers going to tear it all down and start over from scratch? This is the important first step, because it establishes the framework. That is to say...if Texas is going to tear everything down and start over, then it's likely Jon Daniels will be gone at the end of the season. If the owners feel he has failed in his main task and want everything retooled, it is highly likely they'll want a fresh opinion put in place making those decisions. Banister and the other coaches likely aren't gone in this scenario...anybody will do while the team is rebuilding. Their job is to just...mind the store, until it's time to compete. Of course, one or more of the coaches may not find that an amenable opportunity and leave of their own volition, we don't know that.
As I said, I want input. There's not much point in watching the games right now, so give it some serious thought. I want to know, NOT whether Jon Daniels SHOULD be here next year, but given that some level of rebuild IS happening, will Jon Daniels be the person overseeing the first stages of it? Will he be at the helm next year?