COVID could lead to Texas Rangers creating team culture in a new spot. The parking lot
A constant theme offered by Texas Rangers officials and staff through the offseason and in the days before spring training is the need to establish a culture.
Part of the Rangers’ rebuilding plan is creating a Rangers Way. Manager Chris Woodward knows how he wants the Rangers to play and conduct themselves, which includes being the consummate teammate.
That has sunk in with the players still around from Woodward’s first two seasons, but the roster has turned over significantly. Veterans are hard to find.
Players are spread out over two clubhouses at the Surprise Recreation Campus, and then spread out while eating, lifting weights and working on the field.
Masks, as the country has learned, can muffle some voices.
So, implementing a culture and creating chemistry isn’t easy, especially when the manager has to hold his pre-camp meetings over Zoom and COVID-19 protocols don’t allow for BS-ing in the clubhouse or for trying to establish a rapport by grabbing dinner and a couple of beers off-site.
But getting to know new players is imperative, and it’s especially so for catchers and pitchers. Relationship building is high on the list of Rangers priorities.
“We have video, we have updated analysis stuff that we can look at what they like to do on the field,” catcher Jose Trevino said. “But I just want to get to know the person off the field as well. Not only as a teammate, but as a person. ... If I have to take a dude out in the parking lot, like, ‘Hey, man, what do you like to do?’ we’re going to have to do it.”
Despite all the advances in technology, with cell phones and text messages and, yes, Zoom and the like, the best bonding tool is talking face to face. Trevino isn’t going to be able to text a pitcher who needs his help to get out of an inning.
Trevino stands to be the Rangers’ primary catcher and will have to lead on the field.
Right-hander Kyle Gibson has been identified as one of the veterans who will lead a following of young pitchers who need to learn how to be professionals. He said he’s been the lead-by-example type in the past, but knows he has a platform now and can speak up.
Accountability is a big key for him. He doesn’t want to preach to younger pitchers without making himself a part of the sermon, and he wants them to feel free to point out things they think he needs to do better.
“Because if we’re not actually being held accountable, then what kind of leaders are we really, if we’re just having the standards that we want to have and we’re not following them,” Gibson said.
Woodward wants multiple leaders in the clubhouse. He thinks Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Joey Gallo can take on a more vocal role while setting the right example through their preparation each day.
They are some of the players the Rangers have committed to in recent seasons. It’s their team now — especially with Elvis Andrus and Lance Lynn having been traded — and so a good deal of creating culture will fall to them.
“We have a lot of younger guys in camp, there’s no question,” Woodward said. “But we also have that future group of 25- to 27-year-olds that we’re pouring heavily into that they’re going to carry the torch.
“They’re going to learn everything, take everything they’ve learned from the guys previous, and now it’s going to be their team. So the personality of the team, the foundation and the values of the team, is not going to change, but the personality might change just because different guys are going to now be the leaders on the team.”
