Some Rangers stuff this morning...
Evan Grant has a piece up, that is probably the most detailed explanation of the program Nolan Ryan wants to implement to improve the pitching, and it makes me feel a little better about things. Rick Adair has some very positive quotes about Ryan's influence, and it sounds like it isn't really going to be that dramatic a departure, all in all.
A couple of things of note...first of all, Grant talks about how Ryan is still a rancher. One of the things that the folks who insist that Ryan is the real g.m., that Jon Daniels can't make any moves except whatever Ryan tells him to do, seem to be overlooking is that Ryan has other business interests he's involved in besides the Rangers, he's overseeing the business side of the Rangers, he's taken on the revamping of the pitching as his personal project, and he's also apparently down there working individually with a few pitchers. I have to wonder...how much time do folks think Ryan really has available to him to be the "real g.m." with all those other commitments he has?
And the other thing, that this article reminds me of...there was a mention in one of the diaries about Daniels saying that he thought the phrase "coddling the pitchers" was a product of the media. However, Tom Hicks used that exact phrase recently, so either Hicks picked it up from the media, or else the media has been running with it because Hicks (or others in the organization) have been using it.
Gil LeBreton has a column up about Tom Hicks, and it is somewhat of a defense of him (or at least, he says Hicks isn't as bad as people seem to think he is), while focusing on his ownership of the Liverpool club.