Passan: Ownership pressure led to Garza deal

Jeff Passan's Latest 10 Degrees column is out, and it starts and ends with the Rangers and their September struggles.  However, this is the most interesting item to me:

Here's the thing: It's not just the offense. Derek Holland has been a mess this month. Over his last 10 starts, Matt Garza has allowed four or more earned runs seven times. The biggest fears of the Rangers' front office that was pressured by ownership to deal for Garza are proving true: He's nothing close to a frontline starter, and because they can't get draft-pick compensation for him, they're going to rue trading starter C.J. Edwards, whom evaluators absolutely love.

So.  This is fascinating, and comes across as Jon Daniels, or his people, getting word out that the disastrous Matt Garza trade...well, that wasn't JD's fault.  It was ownership that wanted Garza, and JD was just following orders.

Randy Galloway has hinted before that some of the money men have wanted to be more involved in the baseball side than they've should, and I've heard there was some pressure on Daniels to take local product Josh Bell in the 2011 draft (Bell slid because of bonus demands, and ended up being picked by the Pirates in the 2nd round and signing a $5 million bonus).

I have no idea how involved ownership was in the Garza trade, and if they were pushing the front office to make a move, I can certainly understand why they'd be doing that...they've got a payroll north of $100 million, and they want to see the team make the postseason.  Its understandable.

Who knows how much of this is true, how much of the push to get Garza was the result of ownership pressure and how much was the baseball people making a move they would have made anyway.

But between this and last night's Nightengale story that had info about the purported Justin Upton trade offer, there's suddenly a surprising amount of information leaking about the Rangers' summer trade situations right now.