It is a Ryan-centric morning, in regards to Rangers stuff out there...
Richard Durrett has an article up on Ryan having interest in the Rangers' team president job.
Ditto Jose de Jesus Ortiz in the Houston Chronicle.
However, not much news there other than Ryan has talked to Hicks, and there appears to be mutual interest.
Jim Reeves is swooning over the idea of coming back, although he also notes the potential problem that occurred to me when I first saw Ryan's comments this morning:
From Jim Lites, to Mike Cramer, to Jeff Cogen, they've basically been marketing guys, charged with selling more tickets and making sure the overall operation ran smoothly.
Baseball operations were handled by the general manager -- Doug Melvin, John Hart, Jon Daniels -- who reported directly to Hicks.
That won't work if Ryan comes in as club president. He'll want autonomy to operate, and Hicks must let him have it. It does no good to have a Nolan Ryan here if Hicks is not willing to let him make decisions or at least have a major say in the decisions being made, especially the baseball decisions.
That will obviously create potential for conflict with Daniels, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Ryan's not a hard guy to work with, and I suspect he'll be very happy with the foundation Daniels is laying at the minor league level.
We'll see. If I'm Daniels, and I've had autonomy as general manager and reported to just the owner, I'd be concerned about there being a new person to report to ahead of me...particularly one who would want to have "a major say" in baseball decisions.
And this sort of layering of responsibility, where there are multiple people who have to sign off on moves, is what has caused so many problems with Baltimore (and, to a lesser extent, New York), where it isn't clear who has authority to act and who doesn't, hindering the ability of the team to make a deal.
Now, all this may be moot...Ryan may not even end up with the Rangers.
But if he does arrive as team president, and if he is promised a significant role on the baseball side, that seems to set up the potential for problems with the current g.m., even before you consider the possibility that Ryan might want to bring his own people into the organization.
And I have to wonder if bringing Ryan in as team president would ultimately spell the end of Jon Daniels' tenure as the Ranger general manager.