Rangers president of baseball operations Jon Daniels recently joined G-Bag Nation on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM] to talk about the Rangers’ season.
Here’s some of the highlights of that conversation, edited for clarity:
When should managers be publicly critical of players?
Jon Daniels: “I don’t think a manager or a coach should ever say anything publicly that he hasn’t already addressed privately. Repeating something that’s been emphasized already or making clear to the fans that this message has been delivered as we are pushing down this path, I think that’s absolutely appropriate. I don’t ever think it’s healthy to hope that a player is reading the headlines and is getting something from that, that’s our job is to communicate directly with the guys.
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“Until you’ve given the players clear feedback, I wouldn’t want a guy to go public with it. Once a player understands what the goal is, absolutely. I think the fans need to understand that we’re not pleased with how things are going either.”
What are some of the positive things you’ve seen from the Rangers lately?
Daniels: “The things that stand out -- and I want to answer your question but I also don’t want to sugarcoat -- these last few weeks, there have been some positives, they’re there but not consistently enough for us to get over-excited about. Certainly Isiah Kiner-Falefa, his play on both sides of the ball. Adolis García has been a clear positive. Eli White, his quality at-bats, his athleticism, he’s started at three or four different positions since he’s been up and has had better at-bats. Kyle Gibson has been a big positive, our catchers’ defense has been a positive.
“If we’re being totally truthful, there hasn’t been enough. It hasn’t been consistent here over the last really month-plus. When we had that start, there was some optimism. Guys were swinging the bats, we were scoring runs early, that has dissipated. The quality of our bats needs to improve in general, that’s a big focus is that our pitchers are able to attack kind of the same way, kind of having the same results and it’s really on our group to make an adjustment.
How far are the Rangers away from being a strong contender for a playoff spot?
Daniels: “We’ve got a lot of work to do. I‘m not one to put a timeframe on it or a calendar or anything like that but sitting here today I think it’s obvious where we are. Eighteen games back in the standings but we have a lot of work to do before we can talk about that.”
Listen to the full interview here.
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