Former Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels reveals his favorite trade he ever made
Former Texas Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels recently went on the SportsDay Rangers podcast with Evan Grant this week and discussed he discussed some of his favorite and least-favorite trade deadline moves as GM.
Daniels became the youngest general manager in MLB history at 28 years old when the Rangers gave him the position, which he held from 2005 to 2022.
Here’s what he had to say about some of the trades that went down during his time as GM.
The Cliff Lee trade
Daniels named the Cliff Lee trade, in which the Rangers traded Justin Smoak, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke and Matthew Lawson, as his favorite.
“I think going out and getting this number one starter that can match us up with just about anybody, along with Colby [Lewis] and C.J. [Wilson] and that group. Just the energy that that injected into the clubhouse,” Daniels said. “I remember being downstairs in [general manager Ron Washington’s] office. We’re talking through the dynamics of the trade, and you could literally hear down the hallway, Michael [Young] and [Ian] Kinsler and the guys like, ‘Holy crap! We got Cliff Lee!’
“The energy flowing through the place, it just felt it took us to a little bit of a different level organizationally. Obviously he performed at just a tip-top level there in the playoffs, and pitched us through the first two rounds. His Game 3 against the Yankees, against Andy Pettitte at Yankee Stadium, was just unbelievable.”
Lee pitched for the Rangers during the 2010 season, going 4-6 with a 3.98 ERA while helping the franchise reach the 2010 World Series, where they would fall to Bruce Bochy’s San Francisco Giants.
The Kyle Hendricks trade
For his least favorite, Daniels cited trading Kyle Hendricks to the Chicago Cubs as part of acquiring Ryan Dempster during the 2012 season. Hendricks would spend 11 of his 12 seasons with the Cubs, going 97-81 with a 3.68 ERA while winning a World Series and an ERA title during his career.
“One of the ones that I regret, 2012 ... we ended up acquiring Ryan Dempster. Famously, or infamously I guess, we put Kyle Hendricks in the deal. He’s had a great career. I don’t know if it’s funny, but the irony of that is that’s not who the Cubs wanted initially,” Daniels said. “I remember talking to [Cubs executive Theo Epstein]. We agreed on Christian Villanueva at the time. We wouldn’t put Mike Olt in the deal. We put Villanueva in the deal. We had the two upper-level third basemen and then it was another pitcher.
“They asked for Justin Grimm. We said no. They asked for Neil Ramirez. We said no. They asked for Luke Jackson. We said no. They asked for Cody Buckel. We said no. With maybe 10 minutes to go before the deadline, he asked for Kyle Hendricks and we kind of reluctantly said yes. We felt like there was other guys that had better stuff than him, and obviously Kyle’s just had an unbelievable career. He ends up, a couple years later, is pitching the Cubs to a World Series. For a host of reasons, that one stings.”
Daniels was fired as GM in 2022 and was replaced in his role by Chris Young, who would help lead the team to its first World Series championship in 2023 and had a busy 2025 trade deadline, acquiring three new pitchers to bolster both the bullpen and the starting rotation.
