you are speaking from a particularly romanticized viewpoint. also, "there's tremendous value in preserving and honoring your franchise's baseball history"?? we are talking about a possible hiring made by the same owner who moved us to the AL and threatened to change our name when he bought the team, right?
fools? why?? i honestly do not understand what's wrong with the way things are going at this exact moment. he'd be a gimmick hiring. luhnow has this under control. if nolan ryan is even the SLIGHTEST bit meddlesome, he is unequivocally a net loss. again, too many cooks spoil the broth.
Pretty sure every team had an interest (otherwise why susbisdize Crane's purchase)? I'm sure the other 3 AL West teams definitely cared. Not sure a few extra central time zone games are worth competing with 4 teams instead of 3 for a division title.
Luhnow has basically zero experience at the major league level. All his great moves have been dealing with prospects and/or blowing up the major league team. He's never negotiated a major free agent deal. He's never dealt with a contentious arbitration. He's never put together a winning MLB team or made the subtle moves to take a team from good to great. He may be a super GM, but let's not get carried away at this point and like Luhnow has proven himself all around and that there's nothing anyone else could provide.
Nolan Ryan's experience with the Rangers suggest otherwise. Their fans are just as old as the Astros fans. People still know who he is and he's brought a lot of value and publicity to their franchise.
The other teams didn't care WHICH team moved. They just cared that a team moved. The 3 other AL West teams probably cared, but in a negative way, because now they have more travel. The Rangers are the biggest beneficiary of the move being the Astros instead of the D-Backs or whomever else. Except if MLB's goal was 5 teams in every division regardless, then it was in the Rangers' best interest for that extra team joining their division to be the Astros. But by this standard, the move was good for the Astros because they only have to compete with 4 other teams instead of 5 for a division title.
better to assume luhnow to be incapable of all that and start taking away power from him immediately?
This seems to be the same issue the Rangers are having. Why the focus on who has power? The braintrust of the Astros will consist of multiple people - wouldn't you want as many of them to be smart as possible? It's weird that adding a successful and smart person to the team would be seen as a bad thing.
A red flag to me is that this is happening at this particular time with the Rangers. If he is forced out in Texas after all their recent success, what does that say about him?
I agree with you 100%, and I know for a fact you and I could work together really well. The problem is that there a whole lot of people out there who are very concerned with who gets the credit for success. I'm with you..that's a stumbling block..."grow up, already"..."get over it".....but it seems to me that sort of stuff is exactly what's driving this.
The A's, Mariners, & LAA average more travel than any other MLB team. They don't have more travel because of us. Rangers had 27 games last year in Seattle/LAA/Oakland. This year they have 28.
Shouldn't that be a red flag? From the outside it hard to tell how much credit to give Ryan for the Rangers recent success. He walked into a great situation. The core of their world series teams predates Ryan's arrival (only one of the starting lineup-Vlad guerrero- from the first ws team was acquired during Ryans tenure). While I don't know how much credit to give to Ryan or Daniels, the people who do know (ownership) just chose Daniels despite a potential PR backlash and hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.
Why are the Yankees and Red Sox the crown jewels of Major League Baseball if not in large part due to their long, storied histories? Every sport trades on its history; baseball just does it better than the others. It’s important to every franchise. You're wildly misinterpreting what happened. No, he did not – ever -"threaten" to change the name. He mentioned it in passing, as a throwaway line that was blown out of proportion. (His own fault, sure - but overblown nonetheless. It was never discussed.) The fact he reinstituted the H/star logo and original color scheme should speak much greater volumes as to his connection to the Astros' heritage.
This now appears to be ownership driven. After all, they forced out Chuck Greenberg after the purchase from Tom Hicks was completed. It smells to me like the two owners have got themselves a severe case of Jerry Jones' fever and want all the credit/glory for themselves. It looks like a classic power push by them to run Nolan off. What they didn't count on was Randy Galloway spilling the beans and the resultant public outcry. Today Jon Daniels has been making the rounds on the talk shows in an effort at PR damage control. It's not working but I have to admit that it's refreshing to watch the Rangersheep practice the same suspension of reality that the Cowsheep have down pat.
"There's tremendous value in preserving and honoring your franchise's baseball history" Nolan Ryan grew up in Houston (Alvin). Played for the 'Stros for a good number of yrs. Gets elected to the HOF and what cap does he choose to be enshrined in? A FREAKIN TEXAS RANGERS cap!!!!! Screw Nolan Ryan. McMullen certainly screwed Nolan by wanting him to take a pay cut. However the HOF is about the fans and the fans of Houston Astros were NOTHING but great to Ryan and his family. Choosing the Rangers over the 'Stros for the HOF was a slap in the face to the entire city of Houston!!!!! So screw Nolan Ryan.
You're reading WAY too much into this. Again, the Astros already have a strong pipeline to their alumni and Lunhow has absolutely utilized it to help him form opinions and make decisions. Biggio was integral in the managerial search, for instance. If Ryan was brought in, it would be a similiar role. They have a president, they have a GM... if Ryan gives any indication that he'll disrupt that equation, they'll go elsewhere. But assuming he's willing to play ball... there's zero downside in bringing him back to the fold. Again, because of the importance of its history, baseball fans remember everything. There are a lot of Astro fans still irked the team let Ryan walk (I would wager, for instance, our own msn is probably among this group; MadMax, too). Bringing him back repairs some wounds at a time when the Astros don't have a lot of leverage or clout with the Houston fan base.
Ryan was the one that forced Greenberg out in 2011. http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/te...aniels-ryan-can-t-coexist-nolan-should-go.ece
This is definitely a red flag - but it doesn't necessarily say much about him if the problem is on the other side (Daniels, etc). We don't really know the full story at this point - but since Nolan Ryan was the one getting all the credit, it would suggest if this is a split happening because of credit, then Ryan wouldn't be the one initiating it. I know people very close to the Ryan family, so I'm trying to see what I can learn.
