Cowardly Texas Rangers had no choice but to fire Jeff Banister
In the history of cowardly moves, firing Jeff Banister is impressive. Once word leaked that one of the worst teams in baseball was considering firing the manager, which the Rangers are, it was over.
And it is over. The Texas Rangers have fired manager Jeff Banister before the season is even over.
The manager who led the team to consecutive American League West titles in 2015 and ‘16, and was named the AL Manager of the Year in ‘15, is now suddenly the dumbest/worst guy in the room.
The players checked out on Banister; seldom to never does a player ever want to admit the real problem is the mirror. This roster has always played for third baseman Adrian Beltre, which means Banister finally lost the one guy he could not lose.
No manager was going to win with this team. Of course the players hate the manager; all players hate their manager when the team is 31 games out of first place, and was all but eliminated from the playoffs on May 1.
Banister had one season remaining on his contract; the club exercised the 2019 season option shortly after the 2017 season ended.
Don’t ask where GM/President Jon Daniels is in the mess he created; he sits in his balloon made of money, floating above the new ballpark that will open in 2020, secure in the knowledge he’s not responsible for any of the disaster that is the actual team itself. Even if he is.
Banister was JD’s personal choice to replace Ron Washington after the ‘14 season; JD doesn’t have Nolan Ryan down the hall to defray some of the blame.
But JD does have his own contract, which he agreed to back in June, through 2020.
Speaking of blame, Banister deserves his share for a team that is currently 64-88. He was handed an impossible situation by a GM and his assistants who gave him an inferior roster, specifically a pitching staff that can’t pitch.
JD is the one who thought it was a good idea to part with the most successful pitching coach in the history of this franchise when they let Mike Maddux walk to Washington.
Of course, JD’s hands were somewhat tied to his bosses, co-owners Ray Davis and Bob Simpson, who didn’t want to pay Maddux. They will pay the players, and the GM, but everyone else in the organization they don’t.
Don’t buy the insulting JD line of “transitioning” to describe his team’s position; they are in a full rebuild, and despite the presence of a few, nice young bats, this team’s problem remains the same one since they moved here from Washington, D.C., an inability to scout and develop their own pitchers.
And yet the front office remains largely intact, while the coaching staff is vulnerable.
Banister has a share of the blame, but to think he’s the only one accountable for this disaster is insulting, and cowardly.
This story was originally published September 21, 2018 at 1:33 PM.