AL Wednesday (Joey Almars)

One of my favorite teams in the American League is the Texas Rangers. For the past five years they have been a team that has had notable losses in their lineup and for some reason they keep producing solid seasons that are worth any fans time. Looking a little closer at who they have lost in the past 5 years we start in 2007, when Texas decided to clear some cap room by trading All-Stars, Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne. In return for these studs the Texas Rangers received a handful of unproven talent and not much else. Then we go to a temporary pickup in the middle of the 2010 season, which was the acquisition of Cliff Lee. This was a deal designed to help them make a stronger push into the postseason, and despite going to the World Series, they could not bring him back the following season. After that season they made it back to the World Series again with the help of their star pitcher C.J. Wilson. After losing the World Series for the second straight year, C.J. Wilson followed the money and took his talents to L.A. And if this isn’t a bad enough list already they lost their big bats on the team in Mike Napoli and Josh Hamilton, their MVP.

Looking at where they are at today, it follows the same story for this franchise since the year of 2009. They maintained respectable record in 2009 and in the year of 2010 and 2011, established themselves as a competitive threat in baseball. And even with the losses of this offseason they still remain a competitive threat and currently sit at the top of the West Division.

So how do they keep producing? My answer is their Manager Ron Washington. With all the losses that he has had to deal with as a Manager since signing on in 2007, he continues to make do with what he has and produces a competitive ball club each year. Ron Washington is no stranger to the whole situation of losing players and having to rebuild each year. He was the infield coach for the Oakland Athletics from 1997-2006 (and from there he took the Manager role in Texas). Michael Lewis, the author of the book Moneyball, told of how important Washington was in Billy Beane’s push to make a winning team. Billy Beane describes Washington as having the gift of making players want to be better than they were (Lewis 165). So each year when Beane got rid of a star player in exchange for a bunch of unproven prospects, he knew that Washington had a very good chance at helping them improve and making Beane’s trade a good one. And in the most important time of the year, the MLB Draft where they can get talent for cheap, Washington helps these players develop into the players that Oakland hopes to see them become.

With this background, Ron Washington is perfect for Texas. He is still dealing with rebuilding but he is also dealing with a team that has more money to spread around than Oakland does, which can help slow down the turnover ratio of players leaving. Even with Napoli and Hamilton gone, Washington has made his squad competitive and continues to bring out the best in his players no matter who the General Managers bring in or gets rid of.