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ARLINGTON — The draft is done. The trade deadline is passed. The next bit of baseball business: playoff races. For most teams. Not the Rangers.
Though wins and losses mean more to them this year, they are once again left to start planning for the future. That is why Bubba Thompson and Cole Ragans made their major league debuts this week. And why more MLB debuts may be forthcoming. But there is also another bit of business: To evaluate fourth-year manager Chris Woodward.
The trade deadline had barely passed Tuesday when president of baseball operations Jon Daniels was asked about Woodward’s future. Daniels was non-committal, in part because the draft and trade deadline have become all-consuming month-long events, but also because, well, the Rangers haven’t made as much progress as they’d like this year.
Woodward gets it.
The last two months of the season are as much about his future as the Rangers’.
“That’s an obvious element to the industry and sports,” he told the Dallas Morning News Friday before a 2-1 loss to Chicago when asked about his future. “When you are the manager, you take full responsibility for a loss or any failures that we have as a team. That falls on me. I knew that coming in.”
Woodward, who turned 46 in June, is approaching his 500th game as the Rangers’ manager. To try to evaluate his performance over that time is difficult, at best. Woodward knows ultimately baseball is a performance-based industry. But from the time he arrived, he preached dedication to a process that might take time to absorb and implement but would produce a sustainable championship culture.
It’s not difficult to point to the record, 207-272 before Friday’s game with the White Sox, and conclude the performance has fallen short. The process: more complicated.
The Rangers overachieved in 2019 when they went from 67 wins before his hiring to 78 in his first year. His next season, marked by the pandemic and devastating first-week injuries to Corey Kluber and José Leclerc, was a complete wash. In 2021, under a new baseball operations structure with Daniels and new GM Chris Young, the Rangers committed to a tear down and rebuild. They put together a 100-loss team, which is what they ended up with.
This year, though, the Rangers invested more than $580 million in free agents and hoped to take a big step forward. There have been steps. How big the strides is yet to be fully determined.
“I think where we are in the standings, that’s not a reflection of any one person or any one group,” is the way Daniels put it Tuesday. “Ultimately that’s on [myself and Young] more than anyone else. I think [Woodward] and the staff are working tirelessly and doing everything they can do to continue to develop this group and push forward. But as far as evaluating individual departments or individual people, it’s not something I want to do right now.”
That’s what the next two months are for.
And to be sure, if the Rangers deem a change needs to be made at manager, there is going to be some critical evaluation of Daniels, too. Woodward is his fourth manager; not many executives get to hire a fifth. Daniels has taken the Rangers to five playoff trips and overseen the greatest era in team history. But a sixth consecutive losing season, which is what they appear headed for, may trump five playoff berths in the ultimate evaluation.
“Why should they come out publicly and say ‘that’s perfectly fine’,” Woodward said about comments regarding his job. “This is where my job comes in. We have to show signs of improvement, especially in the last couple of months.”
This is why the last two months of the season are important. While the Rangers have shown signs of progress, they have an opportunity to affirm it is substantive. They spent all of June flirting with .500, but never getting over the hump. They spent July back-sliding.
“I take ownership of that,” he said. “If we don’t [improve], whatever happens, happens. I am going to push them and challenge them.”
Evaluating this Rangers team, basically comes down to this: Are they anything more or less than they appeared to be coming out of the delayed and abbreviated spring training? On first glance, the answer would be: No. They are a team with some nice lineup parts, but short in the rotation and thin in the bullpen.
They have neither under- nor over-achieved. They are what they are.
Woodward believes they can be more.
“I’m very realistic of where we are,” he said. “I’m realistic of what’s going on around me. I’m very aware somebody may see me as a guy who tries to have a positive light, but it’s not always with a smile on my face. Sometimes, it’s ‘we’ve got work to do; we’ve got to get better.’ And that’s the message they get. I’m always trying to stay true to what I set out to be in the first place. I think I’m still the same guy with the same vision for this team: To be a champion.”
That part of the vision remains a goal still off in the future. The next two months are about showing that he can still be part of the vision.
On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
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