Chris Woodward fired by Rangers despite enthusiastically doing everything he was told to do
(AP photo/Gail Burton)
ARLINGTON — The 2019 Rangers weren’t a bad ballclub.
They had three All-Stars and two pitchers in the top eight of American League Cy Young voting, and were eight games over .500 two games after the All-Star break in the season after Adrian Beltre retired.
Then, two of the All-Stars were lost for the season and the team stopped scoring runs. At 78-84, that was the best record manager Chris Woodward would post.
Woodward was fired Monday amid what very likely will be a sixth consecutive losing season, the last three according to the plan set forth in 2020 by president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, approved by ownership, and embraced that offseason by general manager Chris Young.
Woodward willingly took on every loss, every overmatched rookie, every outclassed waiver claim, and every experiment the front office put on the roster, and showed up every day to take his beating but with an energy that players noticed.
Woody had some bad luck, but he wouldn’t crack the whip when the whip needed cracking. Some guys need to sit or as Beasley said “Tighten things up”. That includes all the platers, rookies and established players.
Woody took over a bad team with little talent at the minor league level. The FO seemed to know what they were in for in the years to come but needed to sell tickets, so the “rebuild” word came later even though most knew better. It’s hard for a guy to pass on the opportunity to manage at the MLB level, but I wonder if Woodward regrets taking the Ranges job? He most likely will never get another chance to manage at the Big League level again. Too bad. I would have been interested to see what he could have done with more seasoned talent. We’ll probably never know.
All that said, I’m not sad to see him go. This team expects to content NEXT YEAR and there was NO indication Woodward could make any difference in the win column. That’s why he’s gone.