Ron Washington and His Future at Texas
by Dan_Honolulu on Jun 6, 2009 4:40 AM PDT
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PrintInteresting ESPN profile and story on Ron's future at the Rangers. As the writer portrays it, his job is up in the air despite Texas' success. It seems that Nolan Ryan & Co. are not impressed enough with Wash to offer him an extension right now. Seems like Wash is getting some tough unlove for his tough-love approach to Rangers ball. What do you think? Here's the article. And here are a few extra words to make this meet the 75 minimum; boy, AN has changed since "back in the day."
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Texas
They are stuybborn and think they have a championship team every year but never win. The problem is the team they have now has very little pitching but Ryan thinks they are great. Look for the pitchers burning out in August and the blame falls on Wash even though its Ryan who doesn’t care about pitch counts.
August?
I was hoping they would burn out during sunny July.
These ain't your father's A's.
by ohtobe21likehuston on Jun 6, 2009 8:31 AM PDT up reply actions
What a great read
Ron Washington is exactly the kind of manager our team needs. What a shame he isn’t the manager of the Oakland A’s.
I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but the thought of players complaining to their agents instead of taking it straight to the manager, makes me sick. That has to be one of the most chicken-s*** things I’ve ever read. But, unfortunately, a sign of the times.
Nolan Ryan is a complete idiot if he lets Wash go. But that’s ok by me, because it would only help Oakland — if it just gets Wash out of our division, if nothing else.
Moves (or “non-moves”) like this are why the Rangers are such a horrible organization.
I needed a team so I wouldn’t turn into one of the eighty million pink hat-wearing Bud Light-drinking mulleted idiots at Fenway.
Everyone said Wash should have been hired, then last year, when the Rangers were going
to fire him, everyone said, see, Geren was the right choice. When the Mariners started off fast this year, eveyone on AN, was saying Don Wakamatsu, should have been hired, now that the Mariners are tanking, noone mentions Don anymore. The Rangers are the same team, they are just pitching better. They have better hitters, that is all.
by theblackpearl on Jun 6, 2009 9:18 AM PDT up reply actions
i seem to recall that when wash was vulnerable last year, the consensus of this site was that he should come back here.
i don’t recall anybody ever defending geren.
your memory may be better than mine but i don't recall any don wakamatsu
defenders or any geren defenders.
Wasn't there a 75 word minimum "back in the day"?
I think the A’s would be a much better team with Ron Washington at the helm. He has exactly what I see the team lacking: personality, intensity, high expectations.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
by Nico on Jun 6, 2009 8:45 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Trouble is and was
Beane could not handle Washington because Ron would not take orders like a puppet. That is the rumor why he was not hired.
Here is that little snippet from Yesterday's Chronicle
(06-03) 21:30 PDT — The word on Ron Washington, the former A’s coach who was a favorite among players and fans, was that he wouldn’t buy into the A’s way of running a team or take kindly to every suggestion from general manager Billy Beane.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/04/SPC7180CI7.DTL
The irony
is that he’d make Beane better. Someone who’s going to challenge your views forces you to hone your ideas in and make adjustments to your flaws. Someone who blindly follows your lead makes you weak and allows your fallibility to show through.
CuttheMullet, from "The Thread":
"Whenever I’m about to do something, I think "would an idiot do that?" and if they would, I do not do that thing."
Yep.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
Wash is a warrior...
Geren is just a junior executive…
"Ascending the pop charts in Belgium, everyone loves Quality Jones. He's got a falsetto voice, and pants full of dirty socks"- The Reverend Billy Lard, from '(Get To Know) Quality Jones'
by Gaijin_Suketto on Jun 6, 2009 2:53 PM PDT up reply actions
If that were true,
then he would be nothing more than a bad employee. I think a more accurate statement would be that Ron would not be content to be a “yes man”. That makes him a much more valuable employee in my opinion. But the bottom line is that an organization has the right, even the duty, to expect employees to adopt the organizational philosophy. If Ron can live within those constraints, I would love to see him managing the A’s.
"You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat."--The Boys of Summer
Checked the wayback machine at archive.org, circa October 2004, when he first registered his account
I don’t see any sort of community guidelines or anything that in the archives—definitely nothing explicitly stating minimum content limits like what we’ve got.
Is it possible that there was no limit back in 2004 and 2005? It appears that at least one of Ohad’s diaries had fewer than 75 words. Or were you just mocking the user for saying “back in the day”, having not remembered his username from way back when?
It’s hard to read emotion on the internet. I read “back in the day” as square quote-back in the day-end scare quote.
His point stands—AN has changed a lot in the last 5 years.
m*****f***ing c***s***ing peanut butter and jelly!! f*** f*** f***!!!
No, I wasn't aiming to mock. There's just been a minimum word limit
for as long as I can remember (which, granted, often does not cover yesterday). It just seemed strange to cite that, of all things, as evidence of how much AN has changed, when there has been a minimum word guideline for years. Maybe what he was really saying was, “Boy I haven’t made a fanpost for a long time.”
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
Ah, got it.
Maybe what he was really saying was, "Boy I haven’t made a fanpost for a long time."
That’s basically how I interpreted it.
m*****f***ing c***s***ing peanut butter and jelly!! f*** f*** f***!!!
It's been around nearly since the beginning
but earlier versions of AN I don’t think actually had it enforced programmatically. It was more self-enforced.
CuttheMullet, from "The Thread":
"Whenever I’m about to do something, I think "would an idiot do that?" and if they would, I do not do that thing."
That sounds right.
{adds 72 more words to avoid public outcry}
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
Fire Geren...
Bring back Wash…
I’m sure there won’t be any resistance on this site…
Wade Hines
by Wader on Jun 6, 2009 9:05 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
I love Wash so much.
if you don’t start concentrating and catching the ball, you’re going to have to deal with my black ass. … You keep fucking up, and I guarantee you, you will be a seven-inning player.
Awesome.
I agree with Black Pearl above that the Rangers are just better now and it doesn’t prove Wash is a good manager any more than last year proves he was bad. I don’t think the manager wins that many games for a team no matter how good he is.
But even so, I still say Wash is still awesome, the Rangers would be idiots to let him go, and I would love for the A’s to get him back. I doubt that would ever happen though. I really can’t see Wash managing for the A’s. If the Rangers let him go, we’ll pass on him and he’ll get picked up somewhere else. Sad but true.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
the a's have a lot of wood to chop in turning minor leaguers into good defensive players...
ron washington is worth his weight in gold as a defensive guru. chavez, ellis, hatteberg, etc…are proof enough of that.
the a’s may never make him manager but they should pay him what he wants as defensive guru.
Now that I agree with, he was great at teaching defense, and as a manager, doesn't havw
the time to do that. Even with half the A’s infield playing positions they have never played before, and Ocab, using his gold glove in games, the Rangers aren’t much, if any better than the A’s in the field.
by theblackpearl on Jun 6, 2009 10:12 AM PDT up reply actions
Heck, if Wash were the 3B coach right now, Brett Wallace might be in Midland/Sacramento
Because there would have been more confidence that Wallace could develop into a sustainably good 3Bman.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
Oh, absolutely.
I just assumed Wash would rather be a manager than go back to being a defensive coach. And I think he will have an opportunity to manage somewhere, either continuing in Texas or with another team, so I don’t see him going back.
If it were an option, having Wash back on the A’s coaching staff focusing on defense and not acting as manager would be my first choice. But I don’t think it’s an option. And, although I’m not usually supportive of Billy-Beane’s-big-ego type stories, I do agree that Beane would never hire Washington as manager. He’s just not the profile of what Beane thinks the manager should be. I’d love to be proven wrong on that, though.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
I was in Texas his first year
I’m not sure how much made the national media, but he definitely almost got fired. He was all over the veterans from the day he walked in, all over everybody really. If Teixeira had been in the third year of his contract instead of the fifth, Washington would have never lasted. Teixeira did not take to being challenged/criticized (probably the first time in his life). Washington is an abrasive leader, and he goes his own way. To coin a phrase, he just doesn’t give a fuck.
by AgitationStation on Jun 6, 2009 12:35 PM PDT reply actions
he's the total opposite of Geren...
Neither Wash, nor Geren, should manage any given club for too long, because the abrasive style wears thin after a while, and the preschool teacher cake and naps style wears pretty thin, too.
Maybe Wash and Geren should manage a club together… sort of a good cop bad cop thing… as long as Wash makes all the pitching changes, lineups, and strategy decisions, it might just work!
"Ascending the pop charts in Belgium, everyone loves Quality Jones. He's got a falsetto voice, and pants full of dirty socks"- The Reverend Billy Lard, from '(Get To Know) Quality Jones'
by Gaijin_Suketto on Jun 6, 2009 3:00 PM PDT up reply actions
I don't see Washington as an abrasive leader at all.
He demands accountability from all his players, which is what coaches should do. He is also willing to work with the players one-on-one to improve their game. Players such as Chavez, Ellis and Swisher all benefited from his coaching. I think Teixeira showed disrespect toward Washington, who called him out for lack of patience at the plate.
Managing and rebuilding a last-place team takes patience. Washington compared it to fixing his home in New Orleans that was destroyed by the flood, “We’ll fix it”. The Rangers used to one of the worst team in the AL in terms of defense, and now their DER is the best in AL.
In the battle of the strong, victory goes to the brave.
My favorite Washington's quote:
“You may think I don’t like you. You may think I’m on you because I don’t like you, That’s not it. I’m on you because I love you, because of what you can be.”
In the battle of the strong, victory goes to the brave.
It is possible...
…that Washington The Manager may have alienated the sames players that loved Washington The Coach. Some people change drastically as soon as they take charge.
I could prove God statistically. Take the human body alone - the chances that all the functions of an individual would just happen is a statistical monstrosity.
~George Gallup
Some? Or most?
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
That's the difference in being a manager
and being a coach. When Wash was coaching, he could be as hard as nails on a player, but the player knew beyond any doubt that he was only trying to help. From a player perspective, I imagine it’s a little different when all you see is some guy who sits in an office all day step out to chew your ass on occasion.
"You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat."--The Boys of Summer
The real problem may be
That there is a likelyhood that the Rangers may get sold as Hicks wants to bring in investors. If the team is sold it is likely that management would be replaced. Thus not tying up the management with new contracts would make the team a more attractive purchase for the buyer.
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