Brandon McCarthy is back with the Texas Rangers

Brandon McCarthy announced his retirement from baseball a few months ago, but the retirement is apparently just from playing, as Andy McCullough tweets that McCarthy has joined the Texas Rangers baseball operations.

McCarthy was acquired by Jon Daniels in one of his first moves as general manager, coming to Texas in a deal that sent John Danks and Nick Masset to the Chicago White Sox. McCarthy struggled to stay healthy with Texas, however, dealing with stress fractures in his shoulder blade among other issues. McCarthy got his career back on track in 2011 after signing with the Oakland A’s as a free agent, and spent time with the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees before inking a 4 year, $48 million deal with the Dodgers prior to the 2015 season. He struggled to stay on the mound, however, and ended up being sent to Atlanta this past offseason in the deal that saw Matt Kemp go to the Dodgers.

McCarthy is one of the really bright guys in baseball, and was written up in ESPN the Magazine a while back, talking about how he learned about advanced stats and incorporated that into what he was doing to improve. He also, of course, long ago used to post on some random Rangers site.

McCarthy was with the Dodgers in 2016 and 2017 with new manager Chris Woodward, and is another example of the Rangers bringing in smart guys with major league experience into the organization, as they have done with Michael Young and Darren Oliver. We shall have to wait and see what his role etn the team is, but the Rangers with BMac back in the fold are better than they were without him.

UPDATE — John Blake just tweeted that BMac is a special assistant to the g.m. Blake also tweeted that the Rangers traded Drew Robinson for Patrick Wisdom, so I will be doing a trade post shortly.

The teams press release on McCarthy says he will be primarily involved in all aspects of pitching development in the major leagues and minor leagues.