Rangers GM Daniels Responds To Astros In Wake Of Series Being Moved To Tampa
DALLAS (105.3 The Fan) - The fallout from the Rangers and Astros series being moved to Tampa Bay has been felt all around the state of Texas.
Astros and Rangers fans have weighed in on the matter on social media. The fans defended their club's position and challenged the opposing team's decision.
The mess all started on Monday when Astros president Reid Ryan (Nolan's son) was critical of the Rangers in a statement to Mark Berman of Fox in Houston.
"You've got a major storm that's disrupted everything. We went to the Rangers and said, 'hey, let's switch series. You guys have our home series. We'll take your home series.' They rejected that and didn't want to do that. The Rangers wanted us to play the next three days at their place, but they did not want to trade series with us. They wanted all six of our games at their park. The fact that the Rangers refused to go home and home with us, we had to look at all of our options that were out there. We had to look at our players best interest and we had to look at the integrity of the schedule."
In fairness to the Rangers, Ryan's statement left out the fact that Texas would have given the Astros all of the money made from the series and didn't include the Rangers proposals.
When joining the Ben and Skin Show on 105.3 The Fan later Monday, Rangers general manager Jon Daniels didn't dispute what Ryan said, but talked about his club's reasons for not wanting to flip series with Houston.
"We talked through all of it. We talked through the first and foremost what's the right thing to do for all parties and what can we do from a charity component."
"It is accurate that we declined to swap series with them. That's really the only scenario that we declined. We were open to just about everything else. We just didn't want to change the rest of the schedule ... (We wanted to be) as accommodating as we can this week and do everything there we can but we didn't want to change the rest of the schedule. We didn't think it was fair to our fans who had bought tickets, 30,000 or so tickets for the last week in September and to give them effectively 24 hours notice that those tickets are no longer good then, they're good tomorrow."
"So from a standpoint of factually what he said. I don't dispute it. I didn't hear what Reid said. I didn't hear the context or how he was asked about it. I know Reid and Reid's a good person, good member of the community and I'm sure there's emotion going on with what's going on in Houston. I don't know if Reid or know how many of their staff has been directly affected, and I think without knowing those things I kind of take it as an emotional time with some real life stuff going on."
The Rangers are currently three games behind the Minnesota Twins for the second wild card spot in the American League with 32 games left to be played and a switch with the Astros would have created a tough end of the season road trip, which Daniels also addressed on The Fan.
"It would have been a four-city road trip before we came home to finish it up. We're already scheduled for a three city west coast deal (at LAA, at Seattle, at Oakland), and that would have made a four-city trip. Listen, some of these things are unavoidable and we get it. We want to be as accommodating as possible. I think the challenge for our fans was as big as any. The weather this week, meaning our forecast isn't great and so if we play here and potentially lose a game and now you've got to make it up on one of only two remaining days for both clubs and then the competitive piece just adding a challenge to our club down the stretch. We were willing to play the games whether it was stay on the west coast or play in Tampa, or I think St. Louis was floated at one point but ultimately that part wasn't our call."
Daniels also noted that a previous precedent was set in 2015 when riots forced a series between the Orioles and Rays to be moved to Tampa Bay due to riots in the city following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died April 19 from a severe spinal cord injury while in the custody of Baltimore Police. In that series, the Orioles remained the home team and the teams didn't switch home games later in the season.
Rangers outfield Delino DeShields, who also happens to be a former Astro, released a statement on social media giving a great perspective on the whole ordeal.
You can listen to Daniels full interview in the podcast above.
