Rangers pitching coach Julio Rangel and catching coordinator Hector Ortiz won’t be returning to their positions in 2021, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. Rangel’s contract won’t be renewed, Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram adds, and Ortiz has been offered another role in the organization but it isn’t yet known if he will accept.
During Rangel’s two seasons as pitching coach, Texas hurlers combined for a 5.09 ERA in 2019 (24th of 30 teams) and a 5.02 ERA in 2020 (23rd). While ERA isn’t the sole determining factor in a pitching staff’s effectiveness, and the Rangers hadn’t been getting consistent results from their arms for years prior to Rangel’s arrival, clearly the club felt a change was necessary.
The next pitching coach will likely be charged with developing some younger pitchers, as GM Jon Daniels is on record as saying the 2021 team will look to incorporate more “youth and energy on the field.” With this mindset and a lower payroll in mind, it appears as though the Rangers are viewing at least next season as something of a rebuilding year.
Prior to joining the Rangers, Rangel was a coach in the Indians organization from 2007-17 and then worked as the Giants’ minor league pitching coordinator. His first official big league job was technically with the Reds as their bullpen coach, though Rangel was hired by Cincinnati after the 2018 season but never actually suited up for the team, as the Rangers came calling with the pitching coach offer (Rangel had the blessing of Reds manager David Bell, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal detailed).
Ortiz’s final Major League games came in a Rangers uniform in 2002, and he has spent the last 15 seasons working in a variety of coaching and managerial roles at the major and minor league levels. 2020 was his first season as catching coordinator, after previously working on the big league staff as a first base coach and bullpen coach since 2015.
They just need to stop with the “organizational pitching philosophies” and just treat each pitchers as an individual. However they need to pitch to be effective is how they should be coached.
The hitting has been a much bigger issue, as of late, so I am a little surprised by this.
Expect Econo-owner Ray Davis and Daniels to bring somebody in on the cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised if Edinson Volquez got the job, based on the mentoring he has already been doing while on the IL.
Would Volquez actually be a bad choice?
Sometimes I think our guys lack the mental toughness to compete – and Edison definitely has plenty of that!
Guys like Rick Helling and Colby weren’t tol of the rotation guys but had the mental ability to get past any talent they lacked.
I always thought it would be a fascinating read if a journalist did a deep dive into what a pitching coach and hitting coach use for tactics. In other words, how much is analysis…. how much is being a horse whisperer… and how much is being able to speak from a platform of experiencing success at the highest levels? Helling and Lewis are great examples of grit. Kenny Rogers too.
The mental toughness … that always seemed to be the knock on Martin Perez.
Is it the pitching coach? Or is the gm picking bad arms and scouting reporting for signing and drafting like bad arms?
It kind of sound like they are killing him off lol
I would have figured the offensive troubles would have been addressed, first. Historically bad hitting this year.
I have never disliked Rangel, and I actually thought he was a decent pitching coach. My issue is the hitting coach (Luis Ortiz), and the complete lack of managerial leadership that we have in Woodward. Give me Jeff Mathis as our new coach, I have grown to actually like the guy.
Rangel needs to go, perhaps replaced by C J Wilson or Colby Lewis. Mathis for Ortiz I agree is a good swap. If Woody goes, which I do not think is necessary, I would be fine with a coaching combo of Michael Young as head Coach and Adrian Beltre as bench coach. You could sub Pudge for either or Rusty Greer for either and I would be good with that. If you want to add intensity I think you could get that in Michael or Will Clark.
Magadan was awful too, if we are judging on results and him being in an extreme hitters park, at the time. Ever since Rudy Jaramillo, it has seemed like a revolving door. Remember when we were going to World Series? Everybody gouged our coaching and development staff. I don’t see why the Rangers don’t do the same time. Take an assistant hitting coach from a team that’s thriving offensively and promote him to the head hitting coach … or offer an underpaid successful hitting coach more money to come on board.
same *thing*
Manager next
Jeff Mathis as the catcher and bullpen makes perfect sense. The pitching coach suggestion would be CJ Wilson if he can help the young arms in Allard, Cody, King, or perhaps Colby Lewis or Greg Maddux. Hitting coach has to go. This is where Michael Young,could enter coaching field if he so desired, although I think Michael as head coach and Adrian Beltre as bench coach has nice combo sound to it. From eye test standpoint the offensive struggles seem to boil down to a couple of major issues. First is no prptection for Gallo, so if you dont want to spend lots of FA dollars then work a trade for Grichuk, in Toronto, Bell in Pittsburgh,J.D.Davis or Dom Smith in NY Mets, Andujar, or Frazier in NY Yankees or if you simply want a stop gap in LF how about Duvall from ATL or Dahl from Colorado. Second problem is none of our current hitters are high average guys or high OBP guys so one or more of those needs be acquired. Madrigal from CWS makes a great deal of sense here as he is young and doesn’t truly block anyone close to Major League level. If you are going to trade ODOR for Boston and you can get more than a box of popcorn which is doubtful, ask about JD Martinez, he’s young enough, saves BOS more money than Eovaldi and protection problem for Gallo is solved. the line up I would love to see next year is as follows:
CF Taveras
RF Gallo
LF Grichuk or Duval
1b Josh Bell (0 faith in GUzman)
2b Nick Madrigal
SS Anderson Tejeda or IKF if you can get a 3B somewhere else
3b Kiner-Falefa (unless J.D. Davis or Andujar acquired the IKF to SS as mentioned above.
C Trevino
DH Ozuna preferred, but ok for Andujar if he is acquired
Lynn ( Do not want him traded but to complete line-up above he would have to be
Archer League Minimum plus incentives
Jose Quintana
Losaiga if acquired from NYY in trade (Cody here if trade not made with NYY)
Kluber (no more than 10M and Lynn traded)
Gibson
Not sure the ex-Rangers coaching staff really fits the mold (CJ was pretty hard headed as a reliever before he had to reinvent himself, never heard of Beltre having a passion for coaching, pretty sure MY turned down coaching opportunities in the past, etc.)
As for the rest, Rangers are now in a full rebuild and trying to bridge the gap to a couple years from now when Jung, Wendzel, Huff, Apostel, Tejeda are hopefully on the big league club to stay. So it’s not going to make sense for the Rangers to sacrifice prospects for someone like Bell, who would be a pending FA.
Only way Rangers can shed Odor and Andrus is to trade for another bad contract, but also have to consider that Rangers are slashing payroll too. So, for example, say the Rangers were to attempt to trade Odor for Robinson Cano, whom is more productive. With him having a higher annual contract and longer term deal, Rangers couldn’t afford to do that deal without adding sizeable payroll. Same situation with a guy like Bumgarner or JD. In theory, it makes the team better and gets rid of someone who doesn’t fit the team’s plans, but the $$$ don’t work.
If there is wiggle room both this year and in the future, Daniels should certainly investigate Martinez or Justin Upton, but I’m not holding my breath for either. If you’re Boston, now that you’ve reset your luxury tax, who would you rather bank on … JDM or Odor? Same for LAA … they’re not in a payroll crunch and have a potential hole at 2B/SS … but wouldn’t they rather bet on Upton rebounding as a middle of the order hitter than one of our two guys? No real incentive to do the trade.
So if you’re looking at doing a wash of equal bad contracts who are equally awful, I think you have to look at a deal like Andrus + Odor for Chris Davis, which matches salary commitment and years left. And the Rangers would (and should) cringe at doing that, even for the benefit of opening up an opportunity for 1 more young organizational player.
Their best bet may be to package Andrus/Odor in a Lynn deal … but then you are getting back less prospect capital. The situation sucks all around.
I’d love to have Kluber back, but if you decline his club option, he’s a free agent and the Rangers will either get outbid for his services or Kluber will simply choose to go to a team that’s a contender. Even though the option is expensive, I’m in the minority, but I think the Rangers should go with it if the trainers are confident he will be 100% by spring training. It’s ridiculously hard to acquire a TORP pitcher. If Kluber pitches well, it’s a great 1-2 combo and he either helps make the club competitive or you deal him and Lynn for prospect capital at the deadline.
All that jazz to say … I believe 2021 will be team tank. Rangers will attempt to be what the Astros were when they were drafting Correa and company. So they better get somebody in there who can scout a helluva lot better than the current personnel.
Bell not pending FA until 23, so you get two years and since he is local perhaps can resign to long term deal.Don’t care for Apostel. He Jung Wendtzel all corner IF so all three cannot play.
Wow this is a dream scheme.Here’s some realism: I want to trade Lynn+ on essentially a 1v1 deal for Clint Frazier, or trade Lynn to Toronto for Groshans. Then go sign this new player from the KBO named Ha-Seong Kim who was just posted today. Trade Odor for Eovaldi, or just nothing, but get him off the team. Sign Archer to a minimum deal with incentives, and then re-sign Kluber for a 1 for 10. Bullpen needs no upgrades, I think it’s good already. Send Tejeda down to AAA for now, and do the same with Huff. That leads to signing a backup catcher for Trevino, and I’m fine with literally anybody there. Here’s the team:
Taveras
IKF
Gallo
Frazier
Calhoun
Solak
Kim
Guzman
Trevino
Starters:
Kluber
Gibson
Archer
Cody
Hearn or Lyles
Not a sexy team, but a nice team nonetheless. See how the young guys do, and make 21′ a good re-set.
This organization is such a joke. Why wouldn’t you just have started rebuilding in 2018? Oops, sorry forgot JD refuses to use the “R word”.
I think Adrian has zero interest in coaching!
Not sure M Young would want to either
He doesnt. He said when woodward was hired, that he was happy in his role of asst to gm, and had no interest in coaching or managing bc he retired to spend more time with his kids. But u gotta love the fans that dont follow close enough to know that or think hell abandon his own preference to take a job he doesnt want just bc they want him too.