Big bucks, bright GM, dugout legend: How Rangers' 'unbelievable year' reached World Series
ARLINGTON, Texas – It is silly season for Major League Baseball’s executive wings, with 28 teams eliminated for the year, contracts expiring, relationships fraying and public-relations experts workshopping euphemisms for “fired” or “quit.”
Just two teams are alive, the others falling short due to inferior players, systemic dysfunction, perhaps a lack of commitment from ownership, perhaps a desire for too many voices to be heard once teams set out to score more runs than the other guy come the playoffs.
In North Texas, elusive nirvana has been found.
Thursday, the Texas Rangers will work out at palatial Globe Life Field, game-planning for the Arizona Diamondbacks and reveling in their American League pennant. Game 1 of the World Series is Friday, and a club that won its first seven games of this postseason and nine of 12 overall aims for four more victories and the first championship in franchise history.
On the surface, the executive template seems straight from central casting: An energy baron signing the checks, an Ivy Leaguer helming the front office, a gravelly-voiced venerable ball guy running the dugout.
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Yet in one full year as a power trio, owner Ray Davis’s dollars, executive vice president and GM Chris Young’s roster building and manager Bruce Bochy’s dugout maneuvers and clubhouse calm created a juggernaut.
And come playoff time, function turned into ferocity.
“In organizations where there might not be the success that they want to have,” says Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, “it seems there’s definitely a grind between front office and manager. You see all the firings and all the resignations and the mutual separations of managers and front office members of teams that aren’t really having success.
“It seems pretty clear to me, without looking too deeply into it, that we really have a good thing going on.”
Make no mistake: The “good thing” certainly starts with Davis’ checkbook, which guaranteed more than a half-billion dollars to shortstop Corey Seager ($325 million), second baseman Marcus Semien ($175 million) and pitcher Jon Gray ($56 million) in the 2021-22 offseason.
The double-down came this past winter, with two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom ($185 million) joining the nine-figure club, though his elbow reconstruction surgery ensured Nathan Eovaldi ($34 million) would be the newly-signed rotation anchor.
But perhaps the biggest addition came on Oct. 21, 2022.
‘He had Boch in mind the whole time’
Young was hired in December 2020 to work under longtime baseball ops head Jon Daniels, who constructed the only other pennant-winning clubs in franchise history, in 2010 and ’11. Daniels’ regime produced five core players on this pennant-winning squad, including closer Jose Leclerc, ALCS MVP Adolis Garcia and third baseman Josh Jung and center fielder Leody Taveras.
Daniels and Young aligned for less than two years, but it was a productive time: They procured 11 players on the expected World Series roster, including trades for Lowe and pitcher Dane Dunning days after Young’s hire, along with the first segement of ownership’s spending spree.
Yet their aptitude was not quickly apparent on the field: The 2021 Rangers lost 102 games and the ’22 squad was 51-63 and on its way to 94 losses when the club fired manager Chris Woodward on Aug. 15, 2022.
Two days later, Davis fired Daniels after nearly 16 years as head of baseball operations.
Young suddenly found himself replacing the man who was a burgeoning Rangers exec when the Rangers traded for Young in 2004, and who eventually traded the 6-10 pitcher a year later. Daniels’ firing brought “emotions and tears,” Young said then, calling Daniels a “tremendous partner and mentor.”
Suddenly, the apprentice was charged with finding a manager, a colossal and defining task that for Young involved almost equal parts introspection and external voices.
There was little reason not to trust his instincts, which came back to one man: Bochy, then 67, who had four pennants and three World Series titles to his credit and a desire to return to the game, after regime change in San Francisco marked the end of his 13-year tenure in 2019.
“Last year,” says Semien, “talking to C.Y. about who was going to be our next manager, he had Boch in his mind the whole time. Just a matter of whether Boch wanted to do it. He saw the situation. He saw what ownership wanted to do. He saw the desire in what players they wanted to get, even after Corey and I signed.
“They spent a lot of money.”
Young’s first year as a San Diego Padre was Bochy’s last as manager, before he went up north and won three championships with the Giants. By 2022, Bochy’s chops were well-established. Young, who worked as an MLB senior vice president for three years, was just developing his own.
“As we went into the search process,” says Young. “it was as much a self-evaluation of me and my management style and what I wanted from this position. And Boch fit all that criteria.
“I think we’re very aligned in terms of how we see the game, how we view players, the things we care about, the things that upset us, the things that make us happy.”
And who doesn’t thrill to the sight of future Hall of Famers in the rotation?
De Grom’s signing stunned the industry, and the subsequent adds of Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney gave the club what it lacked – a viable pitching staff. After deGrom’s elbow gave again yet the club raced out to 58-39 record as the trade deadline neared, Davis and Young upped the ante once more.
Davis took on $22 million of 2024 salary and Young surrendered prospect Luisangel Acuña to reel in Max Scherzer from the fading Mets. Young dealt three more prospects to land lefty Jordan Montgomery from the Cardinals.
While a shoulder strain slowed Scherzer’s playoff debut, those two combined to pitch the first five innings of the Rangers’ 11-4 Game 7 victory over Houston.
“Ownership went out and made a commitment and got us some pitching,” says Bochy. “Chris Young made his commitment. That’s where it starts. These coaches, with how hard they work.
“I’m just along for the ride.”
Don’t believe him.
‘An unbelievable year’
The necessity of managerial experience – even the role of the skipper in longtime responsibilities like game-planning and in-game maneuvers – has been increasingly under attack in the 28 years since Bochy filled out his first lineup card for the Padres in 1995.
But as 100-win dynasties flail in October, their decision sciences becoming canon, and new age skippers wear out their welcome just as fire-and-brimstone skippers once did, the position seems to regain importance.
In Texas, Bochy inherited a clubhouse of superstars near their career peak, young players on the verge of breakout and role veterans essential to any operation. He quickly proved his clubhouse manner – less is more – might remain unmatched the game.
“One hundred percent,” says outfielder Robbie Grossman. “Day One of spring training he’s kind of like, ‘Hey, let the boys play.’ He’s led us all year and look where we’re at now.
“Guys respond to him, they respect him, and we’re lucky he’s our leader."
Says Seager, who blasted 33 home runs and is an AL MVP frontrunner: “He’s led us from the beginning. He’s been a sound mind, he’s been calm when he needed to, he’s gotten our you-know-whats when we needed it.”
Certainly, the Rangers do their share of game-simulating and lineup design and worst-case spitballing, like so many other teams. Young says “there’s a lot of collaboration” between dugout and front office regarding key decisions “that give us the best chance to win.”
“But Boch has a baseball pedigree that’s as good as anybody in the game,” says Young. “I’m not here to change him, just want to help him and help the Texas Rangers be the best we can be.”
The proof was in the playoffs, where a manager’s handling of their bullpen brings the most scrutiny. Bochy lacks the passel of high-leverage arms he always enjoyed in San Francisco – from Brian Wilson to Sergio Romo to Jeremy Affeldt and others – yet has deployed what he has at just the right time.
The joyride could end at any minute, but guys like Josh Sborz, who posted a 5.50 regular-season ERA, yet has given up just one run in eight postseason appearances, have absolutely become the best versions of themselves when it matters most.
From top down, the equation looks attractive to outsiders, to the point that Scherzer’s wife, Erica, implored him to pack his bags when they weighed accepting a deal here in July.
“It takes the ownership, it takes the GM, it takes the manager. All those three things have to be absolutely solidified in a winning atmosphere,” says Scherzer, 39 and a World Series champion with Washington in 2019. “This is that structure it takes to win – and win in the postseason.
“Kudos to all those guys for building this team. That’s why we’re here. (Bochy) has done it so many times. I’m just a good soldier. Whatever he pushes, I’m down for. Because this is the moment we play for.”
Bochy is so even-keeled that designated hitter Mitch Garver said earlier in the playoffs it’s almost like he makes dugout moves while relaxing in a lawn chair.
Yet even the 68-year-old manager’s heart soars when he considers how quickly it all came together, with one hurdle remaining.
“I tell you what: It’s been an unbelievable year,” says Bochy. “When I went to spring training, I felt like something special would happen. And here we are. We got work to do.
“But it was just relentless – our desire to get to the postseason and get to the World Series. These guys never let up.”
