Galloway has a column this morning, with some rather damning things to say about Buck's relationship with the players:
No player was asked by me last week to speak on the record, nor will there be any quotes this morning from anonymous players on the subject of Showalter.
But if Buck wants to check it out, and he should check it out, the discord is brewing.
There are players who see a lack of personal communication between themselves and the manager.
If true, then Showalter has no excuse.
But the festering problem here has to do with frustration over the franchise's direction.
The players want to win now. It's murky over exactly when Hicks and Hart want to win, and also the commitment of the franchise to making that happen.
Showalter is caught in the middle here. He has to be loyal to Hicks and Hart, and he is. But at the same time, there has to be a clubhouse belief that the manager is on their side on the issue of building a winning team.
With this particular Rangers team, that's a huge divide.
Players know. They know the everyday talent is there to win a division, and more. But there's that thing called pitching.
Pitching can't happen overnight. But at the same time, it's silly for management to pinpoint three kids at Frisco and preach the constant sermon of "when [John] Danks, [Thomas] Diamond and [Edison] Volquez get here, everything is gonna be good."
At the moment, all three are going through the typical Double-A struggles.
In Arlington, the rotation has never been in worse shape, and management's answer is to blow smoke about three kids in Frisco who may or may not ever make it.
On the major league level, the players deal with Buck every day. They rarely see Hicks, and Hart basically never.
As the frustration builds, it's logical that some of it will be aimed at Showalter, particularly after the bottom fell out in late July.
But for a manager who deals personally with everything, it's a surprise to hear that many of those players believe Showalter hasn't been paying proper attention to the most important detail. The mood in his own clubhouse.
Evan Grant in the DMN has a piece on the offseason Soriano dilemma. I've covered this territory ad nauseum, so I'm not going to belabor my opinions again here...
And down in the minors, the Rangers have signed Aaron Sele to a minor league deal, assigning him to AAA, and have put John Hudgins on the d.l. Also, in a surprising move (to me, anyway), Chad Allen, who seemed to be one of Buck's guys, was released for, reportedly, "disciplinary reasons"...