A few times each year, when the spirit moves them, StrongSide editor Mike Piellucci and StrongSide Rangers writer Jamey Newberg huddle up to talk a little Texas Rangers baseball.
Suffice to say, recent circumstances demand a chat—and not just because the season was spiralling out of control the last time they did one of these.
A lot has changed in the past three months with this team, none more than this: the Rangers are no longer on the list of franchises without a World Series championship.
So, let’s talk about it. And let’s start by letting Jamey get into his feelings.
Mike Piellucci: Jamey, we could begin in so many places, focusing on so many people, but I’m going to pick someone close to home—you.
You, in this moment.
You wrote so eloquently the following morning about everything this game meant to you, but I know that took time to marinate. I—and I daresay your loyal readers, too—want to know everything that washed over you when something you wanted so badly for so long finally became real.
Jamey Newberg: That would have been difficult to say had my college roommate Todd Davis not secretly filmed it.
Did I let out a victory roar?
Did I crumple in relief?
Did I start chest-bumping strangers?
I truly would have no idea how I reacted had Todd not captured it. Watching the video brings it all back, though. I thought about the team that has occupied increasingly large plots of real estate in my soul for about 47 of my 54 years, dealing different pockets of joy and plenty of sports heartbreak, too. I thought about how everything changed, in that instant, for the architects and stewards of that team, the players who were on the field and those who were looking on in retirement. I thought about Dad.
It all added up to a moment of silence, basically. I was overcome.
Mike Piellucci: I’d expect nothing less. I am biased, of course, but when I think of people I am happiest for that this finally happened, you are near the top of the list.
Perhaps at the absolute top, in no small part because this was a very different emotional experience than the last North Texas championship team. When the Mavericks won in 2011, Dirk Nowitzki was the first person everyone was happy for, because of how long we’d seen him toil. He already meant so much to this place and, for a long stretch, so little to people outside of it—no NBA player caught more flak than Dirk from 2006 through 2010—that the Mavericks getting over the hump was something like collective catharsis on behalf of a man who had weathered so much here.
We didn’t get that sort of prolonged story this time. Two years ago, the Rangers were horrendous. Last year, they were merely awful. Now they’re the best team in the world. Only a handful of players were here for even those three seasons, and while they certainly endured some tough days, they didn’t suffer in the way that bedrocks of a championship team usually do when they stack a postseason failure or three up before finally breaking through.
That’s a pretty disorienting swing. We’ve never seen a championship team quite like that in North Texas.
Jamey: And we never will again, at least for the baseball team. That’s part of what makes this so difficult to come to terms with. My emotions about it have changed daily.
A conversation I had with a club official at the parade on Friday introduced an emotion that hadn’t occurred to me. He said he was a little sad it was over, and as soon as he explained, I understood. There are no baseball games for almost four months, and when we get them again, so much will be different. The roster will change. Expectations will change.
It was a magical month, and now the page turns. Still, there is etched history now, and it’s amazing. I was even able to watch my football team spit up once again on Sunday and laugh it off.
Mike: That’s what we call “emotional maturity.” Or Cowboys nihilism.
But, agreed. And here’s the fun part of the equation: on paper, there’s every reason to believe this group’s best days could be in front of it. Evan Carter and Josh Jung will be a year wiser. Wyatt Langford will join them in short order. I cannot imagine this team enduring more injuries to the rotation or employing this few relievers you could depend on.
That’s exciting! At the same time, take a gander at Atlanta, where the Braves won it all two years ago without Ronald Acuna but with 23-year-old rookie Ian Anderson positioning himself as the next great Atlanta ace. Everything was in front of them. Things have hardly gone badly since then, but the Braves haven’t even returned to the NLCS since, and Anderson’s career fell apart.
The point is, you never know what’s coming. That was true in the best way this season, but it could be going forward in less fun ways, too. That’s all the more reason not to turn the page on this any faster than necessary.
And, with that in mind, which player did this run most change your perception about?
Jamey: If we’re defining “this run” as the postseason march, it’s got to be Josh Sborz. He went from a 4-A pitcher on the Round Rock shuttle to an inconsistent, oft-dinged-up afterthought who gave up 13 earned runs in a six-game, five-inning stretch from mid-August through the start of September.
Now he’s known as the Rangers’ best reliever in The Championship Run, giving up one run on four hits and four walks in 12 innings, striking out 13—including one that he punctuated with a glove-spike that will live forever.
But if “this run” is meant to encompass the 2023 season, give me two guys, one who was here all year and another in town for less than half of it.
I viewed Leody Taveras as something between a stopgap and a fourth outfielder coming into the season, a player whose defensive efficiency didn’t always measure up to his plus-plus tools and who could be pitched to. But he got better with the glove, and for long stretches, markedly better as a tough out at the plate. When the bottom of the Rangers lineup was cooking, it set a lot of very good things up, and Taveras was a large part of that. I don’t know what becomes of him; it’s hard to imagine Carter or Adolis Garcia being moved to make room for Langford (who will likely arrive in 2024), and it’s too soon to think about moving Garcia to DH after he just took home a Gold Glove. I think Taveras did enough this summer and fall to build legitimate trade value … but that’s getting too far ahead of things.
The other answer is, of course, Jordan Montgomery. He joins Colby Lewis in that pantheon of burly, poised, playoff beasts whose guile in the biggest moments lapped his measurables. That’s a dude. Best wishes to Thomas Saggese and Tekoah Roby on what I hope is a pair of Cooperstown careers with St. Louis. No matter what happens this offseason, that deal was worth it; the Rangers don’t get to the World Series if not for Montgomery.
Mike: Well, if we’re going to peek ahead to one thing this offseason, with respect to a certain two-way Japanese superstar, it should be Montgomery. Because while this is a strong pitching market, it’s hard to imagine a more ideal combination of age, fit, skill, and, most importantly, durability, than him.
Keeping him around will cost a pretty penny—four years at $72 million?—but with Max Scherzer and Andrew Heaney due to come off the books next winter, and Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray the year after, Ray Davis and Co. can more than afford to keep Montgomery around. Given Jacob deGrom’s return being a long way off plus a once-promising pipeline of minor league arms being disrupted due to injury (Kumar Rocker) or ineffectiveness (Jack Leiter and Cole Winn), I’d argue they can’t afford not to.
Jamey: Agreed, unless they have a different pitcher in mind whom they believe they can get more affordably and who would allow them to spend more on the bullpen (or at DH if they don’t bring Mitch Garver back). The scouting and analytics groups have been so good at unearthing mid-level arms who turned into more: Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, Kyle Gibson, the 2022 version of Martin Perez, even Montgomery and Gray. They’ve earned some trust.
But, no, the Rangers are not in a position to hold a rotation spot for Leiter, Winn, Rocker, or Owen White with designs on a repeat. They will bring Montgomery back or find someone they feel good enough about to envision as a playoff starter.
It’s just hard to imagine finding one who could be as nails in October as Montgomery was in this one.
Mike: And that’s one of the lasting impacts of an October like this. Two and a half months ago, Jordan Montgomery was a nice piece to have around. Now he’s indispensable. That started before the postseason, but we don’t feel the way we do about him if this petered out against, say, Baltimore.
For that matter, we feel differently about Jose Leclerc now, too, don’t we? That’s the top name on my list. Because everyone here knew the drill after half a decade with him on the roster: the moment things were going well was also when they were most liable to go badly. And, to be fair, that’s exactly what happened in Game 5 against Houston. The rest of the postseason? Three runs allowed in 12.1 innings with 13 strikeouts to five walks.
Speculation already points toward Texas shopping at the top of the bullpen market, so perhaps this is where Leclerc’s run as the ninth-inning guy ends. Or perhaps Bad Leclerc shows more of his face in 2024 than anyone wants to see. But whatever comes to pass, we have indelible proof that Jose Leclerc’s best is good enough to be the most important reliever on the best team in baseball. That’s pretty cool for a guy who has ridden out a whole lot in this organization.
Jamey: 100 percent. He’s as worthy a candidate for the honor I bestowed on Sborz; I just had far less confidence two months ago that Sborz had this in him.
Which, again, is part of the bigger point. There were a whole lot of players and moments that fell into place. No championship season is ever short on those.
Mike: This one just happened to have more than most. That will only make it even easier to remember.
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