The Rangers officially announced the hiring of Chris Woodward as their manager for the 2019 season. He signs a three-year deal with a club option for 2022 to become the 19th full-time manager in club history.
He will be introduced by the team at a press conference on Monday, November 5th at 10am CT at Globe Life Park in Arlington.
Woodward’s hiring brings an end to an exhaustive process to identify a successor to recently dismissed skipper Jeff Banister. He was replaced late in the season on an interim basis by Don Wakamatsu, who was considered a candidate for the full-time gig but evidently has not landed it. The hiring was initially reported last night by Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). Woodward, who has most recently served as the Dodgers third base coach, was called a “frontrunner” earlier in the day by Jon Morosi of MLB.com (via Twitter).
The Rangers undertook an extensive search, but the initial effort failed to yield a clear candidate. Woodward, who just finished up his duties with the Dodgers in the World Series, was part of a second wave of names under consideration. Evidently, he aced the interview.
Woodward, 42, built a 12-year MLB career after originally being taken in the 54th round of the 1994 draft. He last saw major-league action in 2011 and hung up his spikes for good after the 2012 campaign, so he isn’t that far removed from his playing days.
Since that time, Woodward has worked in both the Mariners and Dodgers organizations. With Seattle, he served as minor league infield coordinator before moving up to the MLB staff for two campaigns. He ended up joining the staff of Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts. Over the past three seasons, he has high-fived many a homer-trotting Dodger and helped guide the organization to consecutive World Series appearances.
Said the Rangers, via a press release:
“We are excited to welcome Chris Woodward and his family to the Texas Rangers,” said Rangers President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Jon Daniels. “Chris brings high energy, outstanding leadership and communication skills, a strong knowledge of the game and its evolving strategies, and great integrity—attributes that we feel are vital for our next manager. We believe these traits will resonate with our players, our staff, and our fans. He has also been a big part of a very successful stretch in Los Angeles.
“We interviewed a number of strong candidates during an extensive interview process for our managerial role and believe we have found the right fit in Chris Woodward. We look forward to working with him and everyone on the baseball staff to develop and grow a culture that will lead to success for many years to come.”
I remember him when he played for the Sox… GL CW!
I remember when he was a no stick shortstop with the jays. Seemed like a good dude
Those kinds of guys seem to make good managers.
Prime example: Tony LaRussa.
Twice!!
Bobby V ain’t gonna like this!
ey approves this message
okEY dokEY!
I don’t know much about the guy. Guess he’s just a solid young baseball mind. He managed New Zealand in the 2017 WBC qualifiers, and lost. That’s about it.
Would it be too much at MLBTR HQ to leave hyperlinks to ex MLB players like Chris Woodward instead of making me open baseballreference.com by myself?
You didn’t hurt yourself doing such a difficult maneuver, did you MetsYankeesRedSox? If so there may be grounds for a lawsuit.
Well they link every single current player in every single article they post. No reason not to link to the retired ones as well as many people would find it interesting.
With the amount of of info they compile 24(almost)/7/365 they should charge a fee too, but they don’t. The occasional copy/paste or typing a little in BB Ref is acceptable to most.
They should link to Scott Boras’ minor league stats every time they mention him, too
You’re a douche bag! Do your homework!
You’re a douchebag for calling him a douchebag, douchebag! – douchebag
What is this, 1997? Who calls them hyperlinks anymore?
Anyone have a spare AOL CD-ROM with 100 free hours on it? Running out of time on my end and I want to take advantage of my 56K modem.
Wake up man!! AOL is robbing you blind!! Switch to Netzero and you will save a ton of cash.
Dudes, Juno Mail is by far the best way to go. I use it on my Netscape internet browser (sarcasm aside, I loved Netscape).
Proud! Great coach! Congratulations ✅
How he aced the interview:
Jon: “will you be my puppet manager”
Chris: “yeah sure whatever”
Jon: “you’re hired. Say I accept.”
Chris: “I accept.”
Always such a positive ray of sunshine you are.
It smells like agenda up in here
Hahaha, yea in 3 years he’ll be unceremoniously fired which will end a poor tenure and hopefully bounce around the league for another 15-20 years as a bench coach. Same old story
All I know about Chris Woodward is
In 2004, he appeared in season three, episode 18 of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
He’s a 68 ovr rating in 2k8 and 2k9 also
With that on his resume, it’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten a managerial job before!
Is that the show where Picard took over Enterprise?
Dodgers gm has just said the entire staff would be back and should be finalized in the next few days, yesterday in a press conference. So I wonder if everyone else still will be. I hope so.
I had no idea it had been that long since he played
This is kind of out of nowhere. Woody has been pretty good and aggressive forna 3rd base coach, and except for his weak beard game, a great team player! Happy for him if true, sad to lose his insight
Cool now Lasorda can coach third again
There’s an opening on the Dodgers’ coaching staff.
I hear Chase Utley is available.
Like The idea, but I don’t think his wife does.
Any 54th round draft choice that makes the Show must have a LOT of drive…..they don’t even have that many rounds any more…..
I’ve heard his name mentioned quite a bit through the years….seems like a pretty good choice….a “baseball guy”…..of course so was Bannister…..
My question to Ranger fans….who are they? Are they building? Reconstructing? Putting band-aids everywhere? Their system is decidedly “meh”, and the MLB product isn’t much better….many seem to underperform expectations….Profar seems to be the paradigm for the franchise…..”If he ever gets it together….” yada, yada, yada….
I’d guess they’re going for a bit of a re-build, but moreso, in the sense, they are going to add quite a few new players through free agency and minor league deals.
I could see the Rangers in on several buy-low and bounce back candidates, and a couple of one and two year deals here and there sprinkled throughout.
It’s just hard to really rebuild, when they don’t have enough tradeable assets to really re-stock their farm system. They’re definitely in a bit of a tough situation, so regardless it’s going to be about a three year process before they’re really labeled as contenders once again.
It isn’t like their line-up is all THAT bad, it’s mainly just their lack of pitching that’s really holding them back. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how they fill in those holes. I just hope they don’t go the way of the Orioles and mishandle and rush their prospects, make ignorant financial decisions/mistakes, and solely grab off the scrap heap filling out their rotation..
Really though, you’d be hard-pressed to truly run your franchise in the ground the way the Orioles have…
Rebuilding. System has improved a ton just in the last 2 years. Over half our top 20 guys joined in that window.
It should be a 2 year retooling more than a rebuild. Upper minors the cabinets are pretty bare but the lowers minors are stacked. Obviously that makes it where some of the guys just won’t make it but there are some exciting prospects. The Rangers tried to shoot for one last post season run and gave away too many prospects as it was obvious the Astros were about to be good for a long time. It set us back but even if we had kept those prospects we still would not have been in the same class as the stros these last couple of years. Next year will probably suck and then start seeing these young guys when we open the new park in 2020.
I remember a game in Toronto the guy hit 3 homers… good luck chris!!!
Know nothing about this guy, so I assume he’s just the rebuild manager who’ll be gone in 3-5 years when the rebuild is complete.
I think I read that JD wanted someone that could make it through next year knowing it would be rough and be able to learn the job so that they were a really good manager by the time the younger guys start coming up in 2020.
Follow the minor league stats. He played with Michael Young in the minor leagues.
A great hire by the Rangers!! A very astute baseball mind!
How much wood could a Woodward ward if a Woodward… ah, screw it.
You B–tard….now that is stuck in my head..lol.
Really does not matter who the skipper is if you don’t have quality starting pitching!!!
I hope this guy make convince Daniels to acquire GOOD PITCHERS.
I wanted to read the comments. There are 38 with names attached but no comments. Totally blank.
Now I see my name in the commenters but my comment is not showing (at least on my screen). Its like its muted or something.
Good luck Chris, you will be missed
Probably a good manager but cannot make AA players pitch at MLB level. He will learn more than the Rangers will in his 3 years.
The Rangers should have been much better than their record the last two years indicated.
Another yes man hiring. As we all know teams are moving towards cheaper/analytical first managers. I wonder what will happen with guys like Maddon/Girardi/Bochy/Francona (if/when the giants and Indians look to go in another direction, etc. these guys will demand a lot of money that teams aren’t willing to pay a manager anymore
Clearly no one Daniels really wanted had any interest in this position or this organization. The dynamic Daniels has created in Arlington has labeled them as a place no manager wants to get involved in due to Daniels constant involvement and interfering with on field decision making.