Texas Rangers Fire Manager Chris Woodward

Texas Rangers Fire Manager Chris Woodward

The Texas Rangers have fired manager Chris Woodward, Dallas Morning News Rangers beat writer Evan Grant was first to report Monday.

The team later confirmed the report, officially announcing that third-base coach Tony Beasley would take over as the Rangers’ interim manager, effective immediately.

“Chris Young and I had a very difficult task of informing Chris Woodword of our decision today,” Rangers President of Baseball Operations Jon Daniels said, via press release. “In his tenure as Rangers’ manager, Chris worked tirelessly under what was at times some difficult circumstances. He has dedicated and passionate in his efforts to improve the on-field performance of the Texas Rangers, and it is greatly appreciated. He has represented the organization with class and dignity.”

Woodward was in his fourth season with the Rangers, compiling a 211-287 (.424) record without making the postseason.

After having spent nearly $600 million — more than twice as much as any other MLB team — in free agency last offseason, Texas had lofty expectations entering 2022. It signed two of the top bats in free agency — infielders Marcus Semien and Corey Seager — for a combined $500 million; that came in addition to inking Jon Gray for four-years, $56 million as well as Kole Calhoun and Martin Perez on very inexpensive deals.

Nevertheless, they’re clearly underperforming, sitting at 51-63. The Rangers, third in the AL West, are currently 23 games back of the first-place Houston Astros for the division race and 9.5 games back of the Tampa Bay Rays for the third-and-final wild card spot.

Seager has been excellent for Texas over a month, but he and Semien have still combined to slash .244/.313/.438 (112 wRC+) while its pitching staff has been one of the worst all season outside of Perez and Gray, who’s currently hurt but sported a 3.83 ERA and 3.49 FIP across 19 starts. The Rangers’ staff sports the fifth-lowest fWAR (6.8), ninth-worst K-BB ratio (12.3%), 10th-worst ERA (4.09) and 10th-worst FIP (4.12) across MLB.

All that said, Texas only has a minus-2 run differential. But the Rangers are also a dismal 6-24 in one-run games — by far the worst mark in baseball. That’s bound to regress — or progress — to the mean at some point, right? Well, I guess time will tell.

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This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.