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Jon Daniels’ year of contentment: How ex-Rangers GM is thriving one year after firing

Since getting fired, Daniels finally found what he wanted most in life.

For his next act, Jon Daniels decided to court danger.

The calculated and controlled life of a baseball GM behind him, at least for the time being, in the wake of his firing last August, he’s taking big risks. Dodged some snakes and climbed a Mayan temple at one point, but that’s hardly the most hair-raising event of the last 12 months. That came when he climbed into a car, willingly, no less, with a 16-year-old driver-in-training. And then asked him about his feelings.

“What’s the biggest difference about having me being home more?” Daniels asked his son.

“Well,” Lincoln Daniels said, “when I ask you a question now, you answer it.”

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Ouch.

“That was a dagger, right?” Daniels told The Dallas Morning News on the eve of the first anniversary of his firing as Rangers’ president of baseball operations.

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It was also an AHA moment. Daniels knew exactly to what Lincoln was referring. For the sum of his son’s life — for the sum of all three of his children’s lives — Daniels had run the Rangers organization, first as general manager and then as president of baseball operations. Even when he was with the family, his mind was dragged elsewhere.

A GM at 28 in 2005, the youngest in the history of the game, he shepherded the Rangers into the eras of text messaging, smartphones, social media, exponential front office expansion and their first two World Series appearances. The job morphs. It becomes more of a compulsion than merely work.

It wasn’t just Lincoln. It was daughters Harper, now 15, and Charlotte, 11. Or his wife, Robyn. His buddies. The media. Didn’t matter. The commitment to GM-ing an organization overrode virtually any conversation. You can be present but absent at the same time. The phone would ding. Daniels would check it. The job called. Some other crises to attend to. He’d ponder his choices, his face growing blank in the moment.

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More than a year ago, he’d start to ponder something else, too: A life beyond the dream job. He’d realized he was starting to feel the inevitable burnout that accompanied being in the role and was planning not to just create a work-life balance, but more a life-work imbalance.

And then: The Rangers beat him to the punch. Owner Ray Davis fired him on Aug. 17 last year, two days after Daniels and current GM Chris Young had recommended the removal of manager Chris Woodward. In the last year, the Rangers have thrived with pieces Daniels’ front office team and Young helped acquire. Daniels thrives too as a senior advisor to the Tampa Bay Rays, but moreso as husband and parent.

“I don’t ever want to sound anything other than appreciative; it was a dream job,” Daniels said. “It was amazing. In that role, though, you can live it 24/7 and lose touch with reality. You forget what you are missing sometimes. I’m so grateful they stuck it out.

“I never thought I’d be GM of a baseball team. I’ve got a ton of gratitude for that. I am even more aware of how fortunate I was. But after 17 years, I’m glad that I came home to a family that still kind of liked me.”

They must. Two weeks ago, on the spur of the moment, Harper asked if her dad would take her to a Post Malone concert. That night. Daniels thought about it a second.

The only answer he came up with: “Why not?”

Which is how they ended up grooving to “White Iverson” together.

“What I’ve really enjoyed is that I’m not just there to say ‘yes,’ but that I am there for them to ask in the first place,” Daniels said.

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Call it his Year of Contentment.

Almost according to plan

It’s easy to say now: Jon Daniels was going to walk away. Or at least back away.

He intended for 2022 to be his last year at the top of the Rangers organization. A rebuild that began in 2017 had been paused three years in to try to put a winning team on the field as the Rangers entered a new stadium. The pandemic helped crush that idea. And forced the Rangers to start all over again.

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The pandemic had also taken a toll. It forced Rangers employees, many of whom Daniels had personally recruited for baseball operations jobs, to take significant pay cuts. And just like the rest of the country, he was home for months. He kind of liked being around.

Former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023.
Former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023.(Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

“I was more aware of what I was missing,” he said. “Robyn is a rock star and she’s always been extremely supportive, but in a lot of ways, she was a single parent. And I was missing time with her.”

He knew the time was coming. He’d started to form a succession plan, helping to bring Chris Young on board as GM while he moved to president of baseball operations. He wanted to put the organization back in healthy order. Something always came up. After the pandemic, it was the first stage of a restarted rebuild. Then it was the lockout. Then a compressed and stressful draft/trade deadline combo.

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And when that ended, it was clear the Rangers had to make a change at manager, too.

He and Young had recommended the dismissal of Chris Woodward to owner Ray Davis last August. Before they approached Davis, Daniels had told Young “he had some burnout,” and was planning to step aside at the end of the season. He was more than willing to play an advisory role, but his contract was expiring and he wasn’t going to ask for a new one. But Daniels didn’t say anything to Davis about it, even though his buddy, Dallas attorney Ben Pendroff, had urged him to do so for a couple of months. First things first: handling the dismissal of Woodard.

The manager was fired on Aug. 15. Daniels answered all the media questions about the decision. Two days later, Davis scheduled a morning meeting with Young and Daniels. Davis beat him to the punch. When they got to his office, Davis asked Young for a moment alone with Daniels, told him formally that he wasn’t going to extend his contract and that he’d been dismissed.

He’d worked in baseball since 2001, all but one of those seasons for the Rangers. He’d taken the team to back-to-back World Series and four AL West titles. He’d been the longest-tenured GM in the organization’s history. And the most successful, too.

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“There was a lot of emotion, but I told Ray, ‘I’m going to make this the easiest [firing] you’ve ever done,’ ” Daniels said. “I was and am incredibly grateful for everything the organization has done for my family.”

He asked for just one thing: A couple of hours.

He needed to tell Robyn and he desperately wanted his kids to find out from him, not second-hand. He walked out of the office, exchanged tears with Joda Parent, his long-time administrator, and got in the car to call Robyn.

Tried to make a joke about it, too. During the pandemic, when Daniels was home, he’d constantly wander into Robyn’s projects. At one point, she said: “If you ever get fired, I’m going to find a job at Target.”

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So, he sent her a screenshot of a Target job application.

“He was emotional,” Robyn Daniels said. “And I was almost numb. But like he always does, he took charge. He said: ‘We’re going to get the kids. We will do this, this and this.’ ”

In the days that followed, Young and Daniels talked regularly. From Daniels’ perspective, whether he was given a more graceful dismount or fired are more about public messaging than about actual events. He had planned to hand things over to Young in the offseason anyway. The circumstances weren’t going to change things.

“I wanted to continue to be a resource for him,” Daniels said. “It might not have been the way we drew up [exiting the position], but it was still part of our plan.”

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Former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023.
Former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023.(Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

Reversing the work-life balance

Over the next month, there were calls about jobs, but Daniels was more concerned with finding the best meatball sub he could rather than his next professional step. There was a family with which to reconnect.

What he wanted most in another baseball job was the concept of teamwork more than running a team. What he wanted most in life was to reverse the work-life balance to more of a life-work situation.

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He had connected with Tampa Bay’s Erik Neander over the years and took a senior advisory role that allowed for both. When situations arise, like the draft or the trade deadline, he can hunker down in Tampa Bay with officials for a couple of days, but he doesn’t have to live it year-round. He can still live in Southlake and take his younger kids to school on a regular basis.

“They weren’t looking for somebody to come in and pick players,” Daniels said. “There was an element of just wanting a different perspective. They use the term of ‘lived experiences’ a lot, of sharing those. I really liked it. At this point, I like being in the role of being a resource and if it can help somebody grow, that’s great.”

It’s not something Daniels really had before becoming the Rangers GM. John Hart had given Daniels lots of opportunities. But that also meant that he learned how to negotiate a contract, not by observing, but by being tasked with getting extensions for then young core players Michael Young and Hank Blalock.

When the Rays came to Arlington in July, he and Lincoln went to all three games with Rays officials. He looked out at a successful Rangers team in which he had a huge hand in building. The first-place Rangers are a product of prodigious talent, roster finishing and a veteran manager.

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But many of the key players were acquired under Daniels and by departments still staffed by people he hired. Josh Jung came with a late-term tweak in draft philosophy. Adolis García: sharp pro scouting. Jonah Heim: added value in a swap of bad contracts (Elvis Andrus for Khris Davis). Leody Taveras, José Leclerc and Martín Pérez: Latin American investment.

“There were a lot of mixed emotions going back,” he said. “I think those were three or four days of the least sleep I’ve gotten this year. I have such a deep relationship with so many people there. It’s really strong. I root for a large number of people there. But the flip side of that is the thought of not being able to celebrate with those folks. I don’t know how I’m going to react when they do. That’s going to be challenging.”

Then again those challenges will be countered by what he has experienced in the last year: a family trip to Belize that included the Mayan temple scamper, Thanksgiving with his extended family, concerts ranging from Lizzo to Morgan Wallen to Taylor Swift, regular lunches with his fraternity brother and former college housemate Pendroff.

“It used to be the only time we got together was when I’d come out to a game,” Pendroff said. “I’ve got to imagine it’s a mental weight that has been released. He can just be Jon again, the JD that I went to college with. We were just sports nerds who made fun of each other. There is that ease again.”

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“I always tend to look at things through a Jewish life lens,” said Rabbi Ryan Daniels, Jon’s younger brother. “Everybody needs that idea of Sabbath in their life. I think that’s what the past year has given him — the chance to look around, see all the beauty in his life and reflect. He’s lived his dream job. But the last year has given him the chance to consider what’s really important. It’s been beautiful to see how he has really thrived as a dad, husband, family member and friend.”

It’s been a year of contentment.

On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

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