Daniels to get extension

A pretty good day to be a Ranger fan - a new President with some baseball credibility and JD extended - works for me.

8 days to pitchers and catchers.

All we need now is a new pitching coach.

This is great. I was a little concerned that hiring Nolan would mean the end of JD, but extending him... this is even better than I could have hoped for.

Sean: I agree with the statement on needing a new pitching coach... maybe Nolan will be the guy that finally sees how innefective Mark Connor is, and sends him packing. I know there's something to be said for stability, but we've needed a new pitching coach for a long time - and there's no better time to go and get one, since we're right in the middle of rebuilding.

I like the Nolan hiring. However, i was hoping that it would mean the end of J.D. and Washington. What no extension for Mr. Positive? Looks like Wash is going to take the fall in the spring. Ha Ha. I was going to ask, does Ryan have the power to hire and fire the GM and the Manager without Hicks? If he doesn't then he is a figure head. Is he getting part ownership? No one need look any further for what a success Nolan has been with his AAA and AA franchises. Does he get to keep those or are they transferred to his sons and daughter? I find it hard to believe that he can be owner of those minor league Astro affiliates and be the prez of Rangers. Can you say conflict of interest? Any thing that can lessen the role of Hicks is a good thing. See you at Del Frisco's Nolan.

"J.D. has done a great job." That's Horsesh!t!

And so now Ryan's hiring as club president is an endorsement of Daniels??? My goodness, well... this is completly absurd.

JD doesn't deserve to get this extension. He's NOT earned this and his contract should not even be considered right now. ****, we just gave him a one year contract extension last summer around June.

I'm so disgusted with this organization right now by extending Daniels contract.

Oh... and hopefully Ryan will focus on pitching while he's now Mr. President. Since JD likes to get rid of our up and coming pitchers.

So glad to see MR.Ryan back on our team. We also need to remember that this is a BUSINESS and certain people had better get ready when some of their favorite players are traded because MR. Ryan was involved in the decision. That way they will tell us how he doesn't know anything about baseball.

It has always been great to listen to someone talk that has been there and MR. Ryan has been there. I also think that there is not going to be much symphony for some players that don't deliver. The players say its a business then its time for some of them to earn their money.

PLAY BALL!

JD deserves the extension. The reason being is they are letting him do it his way now instead of doing what Hicks says. I was at one of the town hall meetings, and part of the emphasis was how Sunny is now the go between for JD and Hicks. Now there is one more person in between. Another baseball person. This is ideal. So, now JD will be able to try HIS plan. And it starts with player development. And he started that with the Tex trade.

(Can you hear the infield grass growing?) (stolen from XM radio)

As I mentioned in a previous blog or two, it would be a coup to hire Fergie Jenkins as Major League pitching coach and also teach the youth down on the farm. Case in point:

Fergie was cool as a cucumber on the mound. He bent but never broke. He didn't walk batters. He wasn't ruffled by a runner at first threatening to steal second. He was around the plate. He pitched with a nice pace (often pitched games that only went about 2 hours). He had a nasty slider. He was a consummate pro. With these credentials, what member of our pitching staff wouldn't prosper with such sage advice?

Tejeda might learn the mental part of the game. Padilla ditto. These two could learn to pitch with a faster pace where the fielders wouldn't be back on their heels. I'm sure Brandon McCarthy, Kason Gabbard, Jason Jennings could flourish with Fergie's tutelage. Anyway, this might be a real coup for either JD or Nolan. I'm hoping it will happen, so I'm guaranted it won't. It makes way too much sense.

Bingo, I wish the Fergie Jenkins thing was even a rumor. Where do we start the grass roots campaign?

I love Nolan, but what exactly qualifies him to be the President of the Rangers other than he was popular here and Hicks could use a little good PR? Nolan went to 1 World Series, had 3 to 5 no hitters during the heart of his career, was the first million dollar a year player, amassed a lot of stats due to his health and longevity. Definitely deserves to be in the Hall, but i remember when he was being knocked as having only won 20 games and it was marginal if he would make the hall of fame. Does anyone else remember that? I thought it was ridiculous then but it was an argument against him. Kinda like what TR says about Blyleven. The only difference is Ryan came to the Rangers played 5 years got over 300 wins, 5000 strikeouts and 2 more no no's. That is what put him over the top. He should be here as owner not employee.

Good move. John Daniels has assembled one of the deepest and most talented minor league systems in baseball and he deserves the chance to see it come to fruition.

TR,

Could you take a look at the question I asked about slugging percentages on the unsigned free agents listing and if worthy of comment perhaps provide an answer?

What qualifies Nolan to be the team president? He's a successful businessman in Texas, who has experience owning and running two minor league teams. He also knows a thing or two about talent and player development (again, stemming from running two minor league teams). That's why he was brought here, to run the business side of things, and provide some positive input for JD.

I agree, I would love to see Nolan own the team, that's a fantasy of mine - but right now, it's not really a plausible situation. However, it might very well turn into one in the future, so for now, I am very happy to have Nolan on board with the team, in any capicity.

Newsflash fellows, Hicks doesn't need help with the business side of things. He needs help with the organizational aspect of things, like a strategy to achieve victory. I like to call it a plan. If Hicks were honest and opened up his books entirely, he probably made over $200 million with the load of **** that he put on the field out there last year. So Hicks in essence makes Ryan, from a financial standpoint look like a peon. Where Hicks misses the mark is his refusal to commit to a longterm plan and it is the major reason why we haven't won. He always has his GM throw money at spent free-agents, guys that won't be here within 5 years. So he is always plugging in players on the short term. We have to get a 5 year plan and if Nolan doesn't help bring some common sense to Hicks in that area, we will never win. I personally believe that Hicks just brought Nolan in to take some of the heat and pressure off of him. Hicks does have feelings and a huge ego. I was deeply disturbed that the day of the biggest signing a monumental event, Hicks had to say Daniels is being extended. To me that was just Hicks saying, hey, i am still in charge here. Nolan should have walked right then and there. A good business approach would have been to let your new President make an evaluation of his people, then let him decide whether Daniels deserved an extension.

I always thought that it was the farm director and/or the director of scouting that was responsible for stocking the minor league system. At least that is what Sandy Johnson used to do for us. I thought the General Managers job was to improve the major league team. Broussard is a good acquistion, but he can't hit left handed pitching, he has proven it out over time. The bottom line is we are going to struggle again this year and Washington, Ron that is, is going to pay his job. Just watch as Daniels distances himself from Mr. Positive. Remember this is the guy that Hillman was rejected for, by DANIELS who was afraid that Hillman was too much like Buck. Well Daniels your manager hasn't had control of this team since Buck left.

I said that we should have hired Hillman and we should have forked over the extra money to hire him.

But JD and Hicks decided to go with Wash after the dinner at Hicks house. Remember that? One good thing Wash is good at is selling himself as a great baseball guy. Well, that sold JD and Hicks so they figured we'll sign him for a cheaper price and he's black so this will be good.

I blame JD for hiring Washington (who has no clue and can't lead this team) as the Skipper. I blame JD for getting rid of Chris Young, Adrian Gonzalez John Danks, Nick Masset, Edinson Volquez, AJ Murray, and letting Soriano go.

Sorry... I forgot. It wasn't a real fancy prepared dinner.

They cooked hamburgers

http://tinyurl.com/275kkl

Thank you hurler, my 5 cents worth exactly. But watch out their are a lot of sheep on here who like to beleive things are gonna change. The only thing that Daniels has gotten wise to is now when he makes trades he trades known quantity for Prospects that are 18, 19 maybe 20 years old. This buys him time! Remember when we got Soriano and Arias, Arias was about 18 or 19 years old, a can't miss prospect. Well he hurt his shoulder and doesn't look like he will make it. I personally think that if you are rebuilding, Texiera 27 years old would have looked good in right field for the next 7 to 10 years. Why do we even draft any Boras clients? All of them go to free agency, oh wait, all of ours do also no matter who the agent. It is counterproductive to develop players, spend money on them and then trade them because they won't give up their free-agency. That is the hold up with Kinsler, he has 4 years before he can be a free agent. The Rangers want him to give up his free agency rights, he won't so they are already talking of trading this guy. It is 4 years away. Ridiculous. A viscious cycle.

At no point in the hamburger article did they mention that the A's didn't want him. Or did they mention that he had no managerial experience other than class a which was a complete failure. Daniels should lose his job on picking Washington. Don't you have to be confident to be a GM, don't you hire the best person for the job? Or do you just hire someone you can control? Wash will be gone by the all-star break and Daniels won't be seen or heard as he continues to collect his paycheck.

Galloway says it all in todays article in FWST, "Good luck, Mr. Ryan, and excuse me for wondering what the heck you were thinking."In my book, when Hicks brought up an extension for JD, Nolan should have leaned over and said, hey wait a minute, i have two sons that have done a better job at AA and AAA than Jon Boy. In fact they are both about the same age, lets give them a try. Daniels has been a complete and utter failure here. Get rid of him. He gets and extension and his handpicked manager gets to twist in the wind. What a character guy Daniels is. It is all about self protection.

"I always thought that it was the farm director and/or the director of scouting that was responsible for stocking the minor league system."

Did Scott Servais or Ron Hopkins pull the trigger on the deals that brought in Jarrod Saltalmacchia, Matt Harrison, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Beau Jones, Engel Beltre, or Max Ramirez?

I'm sure there was input from many sources including Don Welke about the '06 and '07 drafts that brought in among others, Chris Davis, Kasy Kiker, Blake Beaven, Michael Main, and Neil Ramirez but ultimately those decisions are either made or delagated by Jon Daniels and those decisions along with the trades at the end of last season are the reason why the Rangers, in 1 year, went from one of the worst minor league systems to one of the best overtaking 24 other clubs in the process.

If a team in this market is going to have sustained success then there has to be a constant influx of talent from the minor leagues and there will be begining with German Duran, Eric Hurley and others in the summer of '08. It's the talent now assembled in the minor leagues that gives reason to believe that the future will be better. Past "rebuilding" efforts were that in name only. Without stocking the minor league system, they failed.

But, hey, I'm sure the organization would be doing much better in your capable hands, dgod, when next year instead of Josh Hamilton in center field we'd have Anthony Webster who can't hack AA.

And while we're on the subject of ignorance, the Astros minor league system is one of the worst in baseball. Not that that has anything to do with Nolan Ryan or his sons because they merely own the teams and run them from a finacial standpoint while the personnel/talent decisions are made by the Astros front office.

I seem to recall that during the hunt for Bucks successor that a round of second interviews was going to occur before the "Hamburger interview" that led to RW's hiring. To me reading between those lines says that Tom, not JD made that decision then and there. Hillman was thought to be the front runner for the job at the time and was in the midst of winning the Japan series. I jsut don't think we can put RW completely at JD's feet.

A simple metric should be is the team/organization better now than this point last year? Put your favorites aside and take an objective look and I think you have to say yes. So JD deserves a bit of credit.