By Jordan Long
The Texas Rangers stand at 52-63, 22 games behind the Houston Astros for 1st place in the American League West division. They also are 9.5 games back of the Toronto Blue Jays for the 3rd and final Wild Card spot. The Rangers decided to fire Manager Chris Woodward for the poor season to this point.
The Rangers hired Chris Woodward on November 5th, 2018. This was a perplexing hire. Woodward had never been a manager at any level, let alone a bench coach. If he was a bench coach at least he could learn from a manager. Instead, Woodward’s experience was as an infield coach and first base coach for the Seattle Mariners lasting from 2014 to 2015. He was then the third base coach for the L.A. Dodgers as part of Dave Roberts’ staff from 2016 to 2018.
The Rangers were hoping for positive results with Woodward. 2019 was their best finish under Woodward finishing 78-84. The Rangers still missed the postseason. After that, it was all downhill. In the COVID shortened year, the Rangers ended 22-38.
Last year should have been a sign that Woodward wasn’t the right manager for this franchise. They went 60-102. The front office needed to fire him then. What was the point of him managing this team? They probably wanted to see if last season was a fluke.
It wasn’t. The Rangers stand at 52-63. It was time to let Woodward go. According to ESPN, Jon Daniels, who is the Rangers’ President of Baseball Operations said, “We did not come into this season thinking we had put together a championship roster. We thought we’d taken a major step forward in talent from where we were a year ago. We’ve certainly had aspirations maybe to overachieve some and still do have those, but we were, and continue to be, realistic about where we are. … That said, we did think that we’d be better than our record, and better than the way that we’ve played at times.”
Firing him now doesn’t make any sense. The Rangers are out of a playoff race. It would have made more sense to fire him in May or June. At least by letting Woodward go then, the Rangers might have had a chance to make the postseason. The Rangers have 47 games left in the season.
The Rangers will go with third-base coach Tony Beasley as the interim manager. Once the year is over, they will start a managerial search. The next one must find a way to end their playoff drought. The Rangers haven’t been to the postseason since 2016 when they were swept by the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Divisional Series. The last time the Rangers advanced in the postseason was in 2010 and 2011. Both seasons they made it to the World Series. Hopefully, the next manager can turn this franchise back into a winner once again.
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