SURPRISE, Ariz. – There are three stages to building a winning culture.
The chalk: Drawing it all up.
The talk: Laying it all out.
The walk: Actually winning.
The last four years, the Rangers spent an awful lot of time on the second step. Maybe, it could be argued, too much. They talked of process. They talked of being relentless. At times, it simply sounded like a relentless process. They opened a new state-of-the-art stadium with infrastructure that included big meeting rooms. On the field, though, mostly they just kept losing.
Now, it’s time to start actually taking steps. It’s time to add the next phase, to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be done talking about it,” general manager Chris Young said as spring training in Arizona started to draw to a close. “It’s a foundation. Building a culture doesn’t happen overnight. Winning doesn’t happen overnight. If you really value something, you want to reinforce it and be consistent. We’re not going to run away from what we’re about as an organization.
“But, yes, living it is the most important part.”
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A foreign concept
To live a winning culture means eventually winning. That may seem like a foreign, or at least fuzzy concept to Rangers fans these days. The club has gone through six consecutive losing seasons, the longest stretch of losing since the team moved to Texas. Over those six years, the Rangers rank 26th of 30 teams in the majors in win percentage at .423. Over the last three years, it’s gotten worse: A .391 win percentage, good for 28th.
The remedies have gotten more dramatic. Last August, separated by just two days, the Rangers fired manager Chris Woodward and president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, who oversaw the organization for 16 years. He took the Rangers to their only two World Series, but his last attempt at rebuilding never took root. The Rangers sputtered and regressed. Young, who joined the organization to work aside Daniels, was thrust into the void.
He has set a vision for the organization, one that is clear and direct. It relies on three central planks: Dominate the fundamentals, compete with passion and be a good teammate.
But there is one element central to a winning culture that is paramount to any others: Winning talent. Here is where the Rangers have stepped up their action the last two years.
Ownership invested $500 million in free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien to anchor the infield ahead of 2022. When that wasn’t enough, it focused on adding more winners: Bruce Bochy, a manager with three World Series trophies, and Mike Maddux, a pitching guru with 20 seasons of experience as a pitching coach, half of them culminating with playoff runs.
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And finally another injection of on-field talent with a $300 million redo of the pitching staff that starts with two-time Cy Young award-winner Jacob deGrom, followed by former World Series winner Nathan Eovaldi.
“I think we have been living it; I don’t think talking about the culture and living it are mutually exclusive,” Young said of the culture. “But I think there’s been a talent gap; there’s no way to deny that. The growing pains we’ve gone through have certainly been painful, but also motivational. It’s laid the groundwork for the next step.”
Which is?
“Exceeding expectations,” Young said. “That’s the way I define winning cultures and winning organizations. They exceed expectations.”
About expectations: According to Fangraphs, which projects season records, the Rangers will win 83 games, just two games shy of the last AL playoff spot, projected to go to Seattle.
But, as Young said, the idea is to exceed expectations.
Less talk, more action
Those who have been around the team awhile, which is almost nobody in the clubhouse, sense a difference. Who couldn’t? You don’t make changes at the top for continuity’s purpose.
It’s an ever-swinging pendulum. When Ron Washington, who oversaw a loose clubhouse, resigned, there was thought things had gotten sloppy and the successor needed to tighten things up. The search produced Jeff Banister, straight out of central casting, talking with Texas grit and offering up blood-and-guts analogies.
When, four years later, it was deemed things got oppressive under Banister, Chris Woodward was brought in to bring positive vibes to the clubhouse. He is a big believer in the mental aspect of the game and that led to lots of talking in meetings.
In Bochy, the first veteran manager the Rangers have hired since Buck Showalter in 2003, the Rangers haven’t sought so much to swing the pendulum to the other extreme as much as they have to bring it back to the middle.
He is direct and can be blunt but is also warm and self-effacing. But mostly he’s about the game, not talking about the game. The Rangers have spent more time on the field this spring than in meeting rooms.
“We do stuff that’s conducive to stuff,” is the way Nathaniel Lowe, whose two seasons of full-time play in Texas make him the guy on the roster with the deepest Rangers perspective, put it. More simply: Less talk, more action.
“We don’t talk about it, we just do it,” Lowe said. “I think sometimes when you talk about it and fixate on it, you are trying to convince yourself that you believe it. We are going out and playing baseball. We’ve got a good baseball team and we know it. We don’t have to talk about it.”
Third base coach Tony Beasley, the longest-tenured member of the staff with eight seasons under the previous two managers, notes the difference, too. It starts with the talent — “household names,” is how Beasley puts it. Everything starts there. But it also extends past that.
“I don’t see a group trying to convince themselves they can win,” Beasley said. “I see a group that already believes that. It’s genuine. There’s no trying to create a persona.”
Bochy turns 68 in April. He walks with a pronounced limp from a knee surgery. There are moments when he can, to the casual observer, look old. To think that suggests he is “old” or out of touch would be a mistake.
He has the chops to grab attention immediately. Not with anything he says or how he says it, but merely with what he’s done. He’s managed two teams, both for more than a decade and took both to the World Series.
The last full season before Bochy took over in San Diego, the Padres lost 101 games. Three seasons into his time there, they went to the World Series. He took over a Giants team coming off consecutive losing seasons; over the course of 13 seasons, he went to and won three World Series. He’s won 2,003 games as a manager. He is going to the Hall of Fame when he retires for good.
He didn’t have to grab the Rangers’ attention, his résumé did.
“These guys are smart; they get the game,” Bochy said of his approach. “They understand how difficult it is when they are facing a good pitcher and they understand how good [of a] rotation our rotation is. Some things don’t need to be said. I don’t think this team needs to be convinced. They believe in each other. They believe they are good. We are good.”
Now, all that’s left is to prove it. The time for talk is finished. It’s time for the Rangers to walk.
On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
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