Calvin Watkins, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Rebuilding not an option for the Rangers

Rangers GM Jon Daniels is pretty direct in his expectations for his club in 2015: Win. Rebuilding isn’t an option.

In four consecutive seasons, the Rangers won at least 90 games. In that span, they also made it to the World Series twice.

In 2012, Josh Hamilton losing that fly ball in the California sun was symbolic of the Rangers' late season swoon.

The next season, a mid-September slump cost the the Rangers first-place and they tried to play catchup, but it was too late.

In 2014, after revamping the roster, injuries decimated the club.

What happens now?

The Rangers have a new manager and changes are likely coming to the starting rotation. They hope injured players, such as Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo, recover and play a majority of the games in 2015. Daniels lost Ron Washington as his manager suddenly. He didn’t want to seek a new manager, but when it happened, the GM said there was some excitement in the front office because someone new was joining the team.

“Somebody that can help us and re-establish a winning culture,” Daniels said. “We had a rough year here, but this is a winning organization, a championship organization, and we want somebody that feels that passion for winning and can re-establish that after a rough year.”

The Rangers’ owners are not meddlers, they will offer opinions but usually let the experts, in this case Daniels and his staff, implement the plan.

When Banister was hired, Daniels talked about partnerships being key to why he got the gig. These two are on the same page and have to be moving forward.

The Rangers can’t tell the fans another 90-loss season will be acceptable because it can't be.

Yu Darvish is a legit ace, Adrian Beltre is a future Hall of Famer and Elvis Andrus is a good shortstop. There are young kids, such as Rougned Odor at second base and Leonys Martin in center. Add those together with Fielder and Choo playing well and we could be talking about something here.

Daniels wants to add another pitcher or two in free agency and possibly a corner outfielder. Choo could move from left to right and there is good talent in Double-A that will eventually move to Triple-A.

“It had a nice mix of star players that had done some tremendous things in the game so far,” Banister said of the roster. “There’s some power there and there’s some speed there and some guys who can play some great defense and some guys on the mound that can be pretty dynamic. So it has the opportunity to be a terrific ball club.”

Rebuilding isn’t an option anymore. It’s about winning now and you can credit Washington with that.

It's up to Banister to maintain it.

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