Rangers stormed to the World Series 10 years ago. Here are 5 things to get them back.
Just after Colby Lewis woke up Thursday, his wife reminded him that it was the 10-year anniversary of the greatest moment of Lewis’ career and in Texas Rangers history.
He was the starting pitcher, pumping eight strong innings, as the Rangers beat the New York Yankees 6-1 in Game 6 of the 2010 American League Championship Series and clinched the franchise’s first berth to the World Series.
“It gave me goose bumps,” Lewis said, after finishing his morning workout Thursday in Bakersfield, Calif. “I’ll never forget it.”
The AL pennant was secured when Neftali Feliz froze Alex Rodriguez with a slider, which has become the most iconic image in franchise history.
The 2010 Rangers featured the best player on the planet, Josh Hamilton; a multiple-time All-Star and veteran who was the team’s leader, Michael Young; a future Hall of Famer in his final great season, Vladimir Guerrero; two spit fires up the middle, Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler; a right fielder who is still swatting home runs, Nelson Cruz; and veteran pitcher who knew how to win, Lewis.
And Cliff Lee, too. And Derek Holland, David Murphy, C.J. Wilson, Bengie Molina and Ron Washington.
Ten years later, the closest the Rangers are to a World Series is the one being played without them in their shiny new ballpark. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays are tied after two games at Globe Life Field, and the series resumes Friday after a day off.
Lewis and Young (and Darren Oliver) work for the Rangers as special assistants to general manager Jon Daniels, with Lewis focusing on minor-league pitching while Young has become a trusted voice in Daniels’ small circle of lieutenants.
They see what everyone else sees, a team in rebuild mode that couldn’t hit in 2020 and didn’t pitch all that much, either. That led to the worst record in the AL and the No. 2 overall draft pick in the 2021 draft.
Lewis and Young also see a path for the Rangers to return to the World Series, part of it paved with their own experiences and some of it with what they have seen from inside the organization.
There’s more to it than just what goes down on the field.
Player development
The 2010 team consisted of several players who were either signed and developed by the Rangers or acquired and developed by them as they started their rebuild in 2007.
Andrus, Feliz and left-hander Matt Harrison were acquired in the Mark Teixeria deal at the 2007 trade deadline. Murphy, a rookie added in a 2007 deal with Boston, played a key role for several seasons.
Holland had climbed to the top of the Rangers’ prospect lists in 2008. Kinsler was an 17th-round draft pick in 2003. First baseman Mitch Moreland was a 17th-rounder in 2007.
Cruz was acquired in a 2006 trade, and the Rangers patiently stuck with him until he broke through in 2009.
Young was acquired in 2000 trade, and he became one of the best players in club history.
The Rangers are working to find those players, a process that was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic shutting down minor-league baseball. However, the Rangers believe there is more talent than many industry publications are saying.
“Our farm system showed that it’s better than it’s been given credit for,” Daniels said. “A number of the young guys that were moved up and pushed into service at the major-league level performed really well. That handled themselves really well, and I believe there’s a lot more talent there ... that gives us a lot of hope.”
Star power
Hamilton was the 2010 AL MVP and ALCS MVP, hitting for average and power, running the bases like a cheetah and playing a solid center field.
The Rangers also got him in a trade from Cincinnati after his first full season in the majors, but he wasn’t their only star.
Guerrero was a former MVP, Young was a perennial All-Star, and Lee, another trade acquisition, had won a Cy Young. Andrus, Kinsler and Cruz were emerging as star players.
The Rangers, for the first time in a long time, don’t have a true star.
They think they have one in Joey Gallo, who took a step back after his breakthrough 2019 season. They say he made improvements this season that will help him going forward, to the point that Daniels said Gallo is a candidate for a contract extension this off-season.
Lance Lynn will receive many votes in Cy Young balloting. Jonathan Hernandez was great out of the bullpen. Leody Taveras gave indications of being a fixture.
“There is no Albert Pujols on this team,” manager Chris Woodward said toward the end of the season. “Or anybody close to it.”
Maybe the next wave stars are in the minors or just breaking through. Josh Jung, Sam Huff and Anderson Tejeda. Kyle Cody, Cole Winn and Hans Crouse.
Once a core group of players comes together, the front office will begin to supplement it with free agents and big-name trade acquisitions.
Chemistry
The analytics guys might not want to hear this, but the 2010 Rangers say that clubhouse chemistry played a major role in their success.
Chemistry isn’t just having fun together. Trust is a vital component. That kind of trust is built by building relationships off the field, Lewis said.
The 2010 Rangers meshed. They had fun together off the field, dining together or knocking back a few Budweisers. They knew what made the others click, and they weren’t afraid to let a player know if he had done wrong.
The wrongdoer didn’t sulk. He acknowledged his mistake and made sure it didn’t happen again.
“It just fun,” Lewis said. “We were all friends. We wanted to hang out with each other and at the same time, be able to go, ‘Dude, you were out of line.’”
That self-policing, encouraged by Washington, ran through Young but others chimed in.
“That Michael Young,” Washington said. “He’s a great man.”
There were multiple highly respected leaders in the clubhouse who weren’t afraid to say what needed to be said.
Lynn started to take that kind of role in 2020. Andrus is thought to be another leader. If they aren’t leading in the same vein as the 2010 leaders, the Rangers need to find some players who will.
It’s not an easy job, but a necessary one.
“In the best-case scenarios you have several guys,” Young said. “I believe in clubhouse culture. We need to establish some things that we value culture-wise and not deviate from it. Stay with it, stay the course, make sure we prioritize it to the players and enforce it. And our minor-leaguers get the same thing.”
Learning to win
The Rangers of 2010, and the 2011 team that also went to the World Series, understood that the most important thing at the end of the day was to win.
If that meant Guerrero had to cut down on his swing to move a runner over or if Lewis had to throw his slider more than his fastball because no opposing hitter could touch it, that’s what they did.
A lot of that came from Washington, who constantly told his players “do what the game asks you to do.”
“It all worked out because of their attitude,” Washington. “It all worked out because they only thing they cared about was each other. They didn’t care about that individuality stuff. Jon Daniels and them did a good job of putting it together, and we did a good job of letting them go play.
“They made us get of the way. They policed each other.”
Only 10 years have passed, but much about the game has changed. Teams rarely bunt a runner into scoring position. It’s noticeable, because it’s became so rare, when a player hits a grounder to second to advance a runner to third.
Slugging rules the game, and hitters try to drive the ball in all situations. Starting pitchers are on tight leashes and often don’t get the chance to wiggle out of trouble while trying to go through a lineup for a third time.
In the minors, a player is put on an individualized plan where he might focus only on hitting fastballs and isn’t prepared to hit off-speed stuff. A pitcher might be instructed to harness his fastball command to the point where he doesn’t focus on making pitches to get outs.
Those things show up with young players in the majors. A runner might get picked off first base despite being down six runs. A starting pitcher might be done after three innings because he threw 75 pitches against a team that was laying off off-speed pitches that started out of the strike zone.
“I definitely think there’s talent, but it’s how are we going to get these guys developed into winners and not individuals,” Lewis said. “They all have the talent.”
Time
The Rangers started building for the 2010 and 2011 World Series in 2007, when they traded Teixeira to Atlanta and Eric Gagne to Boston for players who would make an impact.
The drafts in 2007 and 2008 helped the Rangers acquire Molina and Lee in 2010.
Players in the minors, and even the young ones in the majors, developed into winning pieces.
So, this rebuild won’t be done after the 2021 season. The Rangers might be closer, as the 2008 team was after a lousy 2007. The 2009 team finished 12 games above .500 before breaking through in 2010.
It might not be pretty at times, and it will take patience, but the Rangers need to make sure they don’t rush anything. They have time to do it right.
“It wasn’t tough at all in this sense: I had an idea what kind of team I wanted, and we got there,” Washington said. “We got there because we played every facet of the game. That was part of my building when we got there.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise to see Huff start 2021 at Triple A even though he had a strong finish to his first taste of the majors. The same goes for Tejeda and Cody.
Jung will likely be in big-league spring training, but he has never played above Low A.
They don’t need to be in the majors to help the Rangers rebuild.
Not yet, at least.
If done right, though, the rebuild project will be worth it just as it was 10 years ago.
“A lot of us had been around for some moments that were hard,” Young said. “We withstood them all. We were still standing in the end. It was pretty special.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 5:55 PM.
