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The base of the Nolan admiration is that it was Nolan Ryan who made the personnel decision to bring in Mike Maddux, as well as a significant part of the Rangers scouting armada. Mike Maddux is the tangible manifestation of Nolan Ryan's ideas, visions, theories, whatever you want to call them of how the pitching staff would be coached and developed.

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Except that if you asked 100 casual Rangers fans, maybe 10 of them would even know who Mike Maddux is and what his position is in the organization.

The base of the Nolan admiration is that he's Nolan Ryan.




As for the organizational philosophy, it really isn't that different. Contrary to many people's beliefs it not "old school Nolan" and "computer geek Daniels", no matter how often Galloway tries to make it out like that. Daniels is far from a heavy sabermetric guy, and while he looks at all of the data out there (as any competent GM should), he's said many times he leans far more towards trusting the scouts than the projection statistics.

The rift certainly exists though -- reading between the lines on front office organizational moves made in the last 2 years certainly shows that.

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Except that if you asked 100 casual Rangers fans, maybe 10 of them would even know who Mike Maddux is and what his position is in the organization.

The base of the Nolan admiration is that he's Nolan Ryan.

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Good for those 90 fans. They may be doing it accidentally, but they're giving credit to one of the guys that deserves the credit, and that's Nolan Ryan. Ryan has been very important to the pitching developments in Arlington.


I don't think its necessarily "old school" v. "new school", either. What I hear is that its certainly clique v. clique, in some way or another.

Don't read Galloway, so I don't know about that.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 10/21/2013 7:56p).]

Well hell, if we're giving Nolan Ryan credit for the pitching (because he hired Mike Maddux), then I guess we may as well give Tom Hicks credit for it as well since he hired Nolan Ryan.

Getting ahold of Jon Daniels and Nolan Ryan were two of Hicks' better moments, for sure.

Of course, the nature of the Ryan hire and the nature of Maddux hire were quite different.

The former was a desperate, bankrupt man and stumbling upon a bit of good luck, the latter was a successful "baseball guy" with a long established and well developed theory about pitching hiring a guy capable of implementing that theory (under Nolan's watchful eye).

Consider Tom Hicks one of those 90 fans, and Nolan Ryan one of the other 10.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/10/18/5259140/rangers-notes-pitchers-weigh-in.html

A good article about Nolan, from the pitcher's standpoint...

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Matt Harrison fondly recalled what it meant as a rookie to have a guy like Nolan Ryan take him to lunch. They spent about an hour talking about all aspects of the game, a conversation that still resonates with the Texas Rangers’ left-hander.

Harrison proudly retold the story of going to a Pappadeaux restaurant in Arlington with baseball’s strikeout king. Ryan gave Harrison advice on having mound presence and the importance of never showing an opponent a “defeated look.”

He also discussed little things with Harrison, such as how to throw certain pitches and how to set hitters up in different situations.

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Derek Holland also took advantage of that luxury, meeting with Ryan after the 2012 season on ways he can improve his game and then turned in his best season yet last year.

Holland told ESPN.com that Ryan “was a mentor and a friend.... He helped me on and off the field. I’m devastated to hear the news that he’s retiring. I’m going to miss him.”

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Closer Joe Nathan cited Ryan as one of the reasons he signed with the Rangers two years ago.

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Along with crediting Tom Hicks for the Rangers pitching flourishing, we should also give credit to Cliff Lee -- who Harrison, Holland and CJ Wilson all had fairly similar quotes regarding how they picked his brain.

But then Ryan was the main voice against re-signing Cliff Lee...

And didn't this Yu Darvish was worth it...

And was the driving force behind Roy Oswalt...

So... yeah. I'm not sure the organization is going to miss him from a player decision standpoint, and I'll put my money that great scouting and Maddux -- the guy that worked with these pitchers everyday, not just had a few dinners at Pappadeaux with them -- has been the driving force behind most of the player development.

I'm not sure what kind of GM Nolan would have made, I don't think he's much of one for economics. Of course, some folks on here have been spending quite a bit of time lately detailing all the mistakes John Daniels has made, and now some of the same folks are pumping the guy up a bit.

So maybe you just have to say Nolan is like everyone else- you can't get everything right all the time.

I'm afraid your post and mine here are off topic though.

We were talking about development of the (primarily younger) guys that were on the roster. And I still think Nolan's infusion of his philosophy into the franchise has been quite beneficial.

I doubt many would argue his insight has been beneficial -- I think that is assumed from a hall of famer with his resume.

Far too many think that Nolan Ryan is the reason the Rangers finally have good pitching.

BTW, I don't recall Nolan being against Cliff Lee.

But that may not have been a bad decision, had he been against it.

2011- Absolutely brilliant.

2012- 128 ERA+ and $21 million for Lee. Harrison was at 133 and Lewis at 128. (Feliz at 139 in his few starts)

2013- 133 ERA+ and $25 million for Lee. 145 ERA+ for Darvish and 133 for Ogando (18 starts). (120 for Holland)

I think the Lee thing may be looking borderline with $70something million still owed to Lee.

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Far too many think that Nolan Ryan is the reason the Rangers finally have good pitching.

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Maddux deserves plenty of credit, and I probably should have intimated that earlier in the discussion.

However, I'm not seeing anything that suggests Nolan does not deserve just about all the credit he gets.

At least, I don't think its baseless that Nolan gets a good amount of credit. Its not such a mutually exclusive situation as that.

Of course, I'm not Maddux's child. I'm not looking to go brag at school about him, so I really don't give a damn if he gets the right amount of pub from the casual fan.

I'm out. Good night.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 10/21/2013 9:49p).]

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Can we get Lewin back now?

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Blue parachute of appreciation.

Lewin won't be returning as long as Grieve is here -- Nolan wasn't the only one on the dump-Lewin ship.

If you ditch Tom then you lose birthday and cookie talk

Lewin likely wouldn't have a chance unless he gave up broadcasting Chargers games.

That's been a big issue since before Nolan joined the organization.