This news has only started breaking the last couple of days, and I didn't want to cover it until I had a feel for what Astros fans were thinking.  Surprisingly, a majority of bloggers seem to be encouraging caution, which is probably smart.  Obviously none of us know for sure what happened to the Ranger's front office the last couple of years, but one thing is very clear:  Rangers ownership stripped Nolan Ryan of all direct management responsibilities after the 2012 off season and made Jon Daniels team president as well as general manager.  The owners allegedly wanted to do this at some point *before* the 2012 off season but Daniels refused the promotion.  And now Ryan has opened up the possibility of working for the Astros.  Let's work through some points posted by Idrees Tily at Crawfish Boxes:

• The Astros have a rebuilding plan that's slowly working; would bringing in Nolan Ryan derail that plan?  It was repeatedly alleged in the last few years that Ryan and Jon Daniels had differing views on the "reloading" strategy to enable a return to the playoffs.  He supposedly wasn't too thrilled with the Adrian Beltre signing and was, according to Josh Hamilton, upset that the Rangers hadn't met Hamilton's demands to stay with the team.  Ryan was opposed to signing Yu Darvish, and was allegedly the driving force behind the Berkman signing.  For what it's worth, Daniels' ongoing plan seems to be A)  Keep the farm system stocked; promote from within B)  Give big money ONLY to elite-level durable skills  C)  Trade excess for prospects.  Now, what Daniels does at the trade deadline is debatable, because everybody has blamed each other for the bad signings and everybody has taken credit for the good signings.  The bottom line is, there is plenty of evidence that Ryan has strong opinions on how to build a team, and if he is given a position with authority over hirings and firings he will definitely exercise it.
• This basically answers the second question as well:  Will a power struggle happen?  If Nolan has a position in the chain of command he will use it.  He is a strong-willed individual with a ton of baseball experience, and he's not going to just sit around and "be Nolan Ryan" for the fans.  That's why he left Texas in the first place.
• Will fans be unhappy that he argued for the Astros' move to the AL?  I can't really comment on that.  I can't *imagine* this being that big of a deal, but the fact that the author brought it up indicates that it is.
• Ryan would provide a face to the Astros franchise and bring excellent PR.  Yeah, until the power struggle happened.
• Ryan would bring credibility to the front office.  No.  *Winning* and making smart trades and buys brings credibility to a front office.  Putting a celebrity in charge brings credibility to the sports writers, and that's all.
• Nolan would be available to help the pitching staff.  Everybody says this, but I never saw any evidence that Ryan ever did anything in Texas except give a couple of talks and demand pitchers go longer in games.  It became pretty clear in 2013 that Jon Daniels believes pretty strongly in keeping pitch counts low and preserving arms on the starters, so one can assume that was a point of contention between the two.  When Yu Darvish pitched an extra inning in a blowout despite being well over 100 pitches, Daniels called Manager Ron Washington into his office immediately after the game, something that never happened before Ryan was stripped of the "President" title.
  
• Ryan's presence would lead to Round Rock returning to the Astros system.  Not until the contract is out, and Houston would have to buy the team outright even then.
• All of that baseball experience and experience running teams MUST mean he would help the Astros.  1)  He didn't run any of those teams, other people did  2)  He didn't manage or run any of the teams he pitched for, plus Nolan Ryan is a unique pitcher unto himself, and from a different era on top of that.  Do you really want 40-year-old pitching knowledge running your rotation and bullpen?
• UPDATE:  Something I forgot to talk about when I first posted this article.  Several commenters to the Crawfish Boxes discussion mentioned another old saw the Rangers have dealt with.  The presence of Nolan Ryan in the front office will influence the signings of high-level pitchers in favor of the Rangers.  To which I respond:  Cliff Lee.  Zack Greinke.  C.J. Wilson.  All good pitchers who had comparable or even better offers with the Rangers than with the teams where they eventually signed.  So much for Ryan-magnetism.  Ok, Wilson didn't.  The Rangers seemed to telegraph that they didn't really want C.J. to stay.  But part of the point still stands:  Wilson wasn't knocking down the door to stay in Nolan Ryan's presence.
  

The bottom line is, if you like what the Astros are doing right now, then you don't want Nolan on your team.  If he was just a figurehead, sure, but Ryan has made it clear that's not what he's after.  He wants to be a GM.  He wouldn't be president with the Astros, his son Reid has that job sewn up.  So, you can't get Nolan Ryan without giving your team to him and his son to run.  He will definitely run the team *his* way, and I've seen no evidence that *his* way coincides with Jeff Luhnow's way.

Posted by: Ben at 07:25 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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