Texas Rangers President of Business Operations Rick George Resigns

Rick George, who was promoted to be the Texas Rangers' President of Business Operations earlier this year, has resigned from his post with the Rangers to become the new athletic director at the University of Colorado.

The link above includes the press release with quotes from George and from CEO Nolan Ryan.

A few thoughts on this...

George was promoted as part of the series of moves that resulted in Nolan Ryan being booted upstairs earlier this year. Nolan Ryan had been the team president before this all happened, as well as CEO. Under the current structure, Jon Daniels is the president of baseball operations, and George had been the president of business operations.

Randy Galloway wrote, back when all this went down, that Jon Daniels could have had both titles:

Ownership, meaning Bob Simpson and Ray Davis, wanted Daniels to become the CEO in charge of both baseball and business. Isn’t that what Nolan Ryan once was around here?

Daniels, however, wanted to stay strictly with the baseball side, and declined the business-side promotion, which led to his new title of president of baseball operations/GM.

Rick George, an original Chuck Greenberg hire, and already in the front office, was given the title of president of business operations.

Jon Daniels said later that all scenarios that were presented to him involved him answering to Nolan Ryan, though it still isn't entirely clear whether, if he wanted, ownership would have given him both president titles, or if ownership wanted him to have both.

If, in fact, ownership was open earlier this year to Jon Daniels being the president of both baseball and business operations, then it would stand to reason that they could well make another run at him taking the reins now that George has stepped down.

Alternatively, ownership could ask Ryan to fill the role of president of business operations. However, if they were inclined to do that, it seems like they would have left him in that role in the first place, rather than promoting George. In addition, I'm not sure that Ryan would want to stay in that role if he also didn't have final say on baseball decisions, a power he supposedly lost last November.

The timing of this is also interesting in that Reid Ryan just took the job of president of the Houston Astros a couple of months ago. I wonder if, had the Rangers known George was leaving, they would have been inclined to have Reid Ryan stay and take over that position.

I'm also curious to see who has the strongest voice in hiring the new president, assuming it isn't Daniels or Ryan taking over the job. Is this someone Ryan will have the most say in hiring? Daniels? Or will Ray and Bob pick their own person?