Rangers Today Baseball Podcast gets an assist from Ian Kinsler
Retirement wasn’t supposed to be this busy for Ian Kinsler, but the best way to put it is he retired only as a player in 2019.
He never left baseball, and as of Monday he is a special assistant to Rangers general manager Chris Young.
Kinsler is also the manager of Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic after playing for Israel in the Tokyo Olympics. Before he joined the Rangers, who drafted and developed him into an All-Star, he was a special assistant to Padres GM A.J. Preller.
Add to that his duties with Warstic, the baseball bat company that now also makes pickleball paddles and surfboards, and Kinsler is one busy guy.
Yet, he managed to find time Thursday to join the Rangers Today Baseball Podcast after something came up Friday morning.
Kinsler hopped on Zoom from his home in Dallas and his sweet collection of autographed memorabilia acquired during his career with the Rangers, Tigers, Angels, Red Sox and Padres. Not seen in the background was the World Series ring he won in 2018 with the Red Sox.
He, John Moore and I talked Israeli baseball, Rangers baseball, how he ended up in his new role, and then dug into some more fun stuff.
It’s another fun episode, this one with a Rangers Hall of Famer from the glory days that T.R. Sullivan covered in his latest memoirs.
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Jeff Wilson, jeff@rangerstoday.com
He was my favorite player until Joey Gallo came along (even as he wasn’t even on the Rangers). I loved his 2 30-30 seasons. I think he and Soriano are the only second baseman in MLB history to have even 1 30-30 season. His 89/71 walk to strikeout ratio was quite impressive. He could teach hitters a lot about plate discipline. Many guys are treating baseball like cricket instead of showing plate discipline. Kinsler is really a minor league coach, but he should also help guys like Tavares, Thompson, Garcia, and others with that walk to strikeout ratio. The pitchers are certainly going to bring their K/BB ratios up, with deGrom’s career 5.30 ratio being second all time in MLB history! He had 12+ the last 2 years, Eovaldi has had several 5+ seasons recently, and Heaney is coming off a 5+ one too. Texas may actually end up with a better pitching K/BB ratio than their hitters this year! I haven’t known Texas to be good in that area at pitching, but especially at hitting. I hope his mentality rubs off on guys.