Well, the Rangers season is over, and we took a step backwards in 2005. Generally teams that overperform one year tend to slide backwards the next year, and we followed that. We were 10 games lower in the standings than last year. We ended up in third place again, which I suppose is better than the four years we spent in last. However, I’m tired of all the losing. I’m ready to win something again. Next year will be the 10 year anniversary of our first division championship. I know we won twice more in the following three years, but 10 years. That’s a long time. I know we need pitching, I know we need that, but I’m starting to feel frustrated. Perhaps it’s because the playoffs are going on, and the Rangers are at home again. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the offseason. I’m working on another article where I talk about every player that was on the field this season which will go into player specifics.
That leads me into the next part of the story. John Hart is gone as general manager. I think it’s a fair statement to say that you’d have a hard time finding many fans who said they liked him. Hart was extremely inaccessible when he was GM. You never saw him for the most part. Whenever there was a signing or whatnot, there was very frequently a “conference call” so he didn’t have to actually show up. He was there from time to time, but it was the exception, not the rule as far as this fan can tell. On Hart’s watch we signed probably the single worst free agent signing in club history, that being Chan Ho Park. How much of that was really Hart’s doing, and how much of it was Hicks in his “Let’s be Steinbrenner” period, we probably will never know. But there were several other not great signings during Hart’s era. Those were Todd Van Poppel, Jay Powell, Juan Gonzalez. There were also some really dumb moves too, like letting Travis Hafner go for beans. Letting Doug Davis get away. Both dumb moves. There’s plenty others. It wasn’t all bad, though. Some of the positive things were basically stealing Chris Young from the Expos for Einar Diaz (which ends up being Travis Hafner for Chris Young, essentially). John Thompson was great when he was here, that was a good move at the time. Frank Francisco (chair aside) was a great move – if he regains his health, it will be good for us again. But I suppose the best moves made during Hart’s run was signing Mike Young and Hank Blalock to long term contracts. That will definitely save us some money for a few years. That’s the one thing I thought Hart did well in Cleveland that he used here and it worked, the signing of players long term. Thought it was shrewd move in Cleveland. I wish they could have gotten that done with Kevin Mench, though. Overall I have to give John Hart’s run a C. He isn’t the devil like people like Randy Galloway make him out to be. He’s by no stretch the greatest we’ve had. Yes, there were a lot of dumb and bonehead moves, but what GM doesn’t have a handful of those under his belt? But he’s gone, which will make a lot of sports radio announcers and a lot of fans happy.
We replaced him with Jon Daniels, John Hart’s 28 year old assistant GM. Personally, I was hoping that would happen. Now I’m not foolish enough to say I know Daniels personally. I’ve only ever met him once, and that was in a group setting anyway. But in the little time I’ve got to hear him speak in person, he’s nothing like Hart, even though he was Hart’s assistant. From what I can tell, Daniels handled most of the contract negotiations anyway. Daniels will talk to fans and to the press. Obviously his job dictates that he can’t tell you everything, but I get the impression that Daniels wants to tell you what he can, and doesn’t put off an aura of “No, you’re not supposed to know that” or “Why are you asking me that?” – those things I felt from Hart. Daniels is pretty much a clean slate in terms of I don’t know if anyone really knows what will happen with him in terms of moves he’ll make – how he handle this and that. I won’t go into a lot of speculation on that, as there isn’t a lot to put out there, I think. We’ll just have to take it as it comes, and I think I speak for a lot of fans that I feel good about that. Hopefully his first order of business is signing Teixeira to a long term contract (and I mean more than 3 years – something like 7).
I’ll have more soon regarding individual players and what I’d like to do. But in the meantime, I have to say I really am enjoying the fact that the Yankees get to go home.
“From what I can tell, Hart handled most of the contract negotiations anyway.”
Did you mean to say Daniels there?