Monday Newsletter time: News, anyone? Texas Rangers could have some on World Series off day.
Josh Bonifay will be introduced as the new farm director to finish off the team's shake-up in player development.
Expect some Texas Rangers news Monday, an off day for the World Series.
It could have been the first off day of the offseason, but the Houston Astros erased a 4-0 first-inning deficit to stave off elimination and force a Game 6 on Tuesday against the Atlanta Braves.
Alas, the Braves will have to travel back to Houston.
That travel day is a window for the other 28 MLB teams to announce news if they have it, and the Rangers have. They have hired Josh Bonifay as farm director and were planning to announce it Monday.
Bonifay comes from the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was their farm director the past two seasons before being reassigned to pro scouting. The Rangers are familiar with Bonifay, who was their major-league field coordinator in 2017 but didn’t hang around for another season on Jeff Banister’s staff.
Bonifay has an extensive background in player development, much of it in the Astros organization. It will be interesting to see how he will operate differently than Mike Daly and Paul Kruger, who oversaw the farm system the past few seasons.
Daly has moved on to San Diego after being shuffled out, and Kruger is now the director of baseball operations on the big-league side.
UPDATE: The Rangers will also announce Donnie Ecker as their bench coach and offensive coordinator. He will come from the San Francisco Giants, where he was one of two hitting coaches.
The Rangers still have a hitting coach and an assistant hitting coach to hire.
Fort Worth shocker
This isn’t Rangers news, but it hits pretty close to the Newsletter: Gary Patterson is out as TCU football coach.
The decision was made Sunday, and said to be a mutual agreement. That’s garbage, of course. People weren’t happy with the Horned Frogs’ recent run amid a college football landscape that has changed dramatically with NIL agreements, the transfer portal and the Big 12 losing Texas and Oklahoma.
And, let’s face it, Patterson can be a little prickly.
I ran into that as a TCU beat writer for the 2006 and 2007 football seasons. At the time, Patterson told me he had no plans to coach past age 60. He turned 61 in February.
The assumption is he is getting a tidy settlement after his 20th season. Athletic director Jeremiah Donati gets to put his stamp on the football program by hiring a coach that will make or break his career.
It will be tough to replace the coach who built TCU into what it is now. I wrote a book that ranks him the most important person in TCU football history, ahead of Andy Dalton, Sam Baugh and LaDainian Tomlinson.
Donati said in a statement that TCU asked Patterson to stay through the end of the season and take a different role with the athletic department, but Patterson said it was in the program’s best interest to move on now.
There are recruits to convince to stay, but also current players (hello, Zach Evans) to convince. So, it probably is best that Patterson left immediately, and probably what Donati wanted all along.
It’s a shock that it came to that.
ICYMI …
The Wilsons had a five-game Saturday. Boy’s flag football at 9 a.m., Girl’s soccer at 10:30, Boy’s baseball season finale at 12:30 p.m., and Girl’s softball doubleheader at 1:45. They went 4-1, 3-0 in the stick-and-ball sports. It was busy, so was Halloween, so here’s all that’s new at the Newsletter in case you missed it.
The Sunday Read: Rangers free-agency predictions.
Friday on the Farm: Owen White is movin’ on up.
Texas Rangers Baseball Podcast: guest Justin Foscue (he was great).
One win, one loss for Adolis Garcia.
New videos at the Podcast YouTube channel (subscribe for free).
Doggy video!
I know Halloween was yesterday, but this cracked me up. Enjoy. See you Tuesday.
Thanks, as always, Jeff. The Patterson deal was a bit of a shocker, but we were getting rumblings. It seems like his approach had just worn off. As a TCU alum, I'll always be grateful for his remarkable run. I wish him the very best. Wouldn't be surprised to see him on TV.