During his managerial interview last year, Jeff Banister wowed Rangers executives when they asked him who he'd like to see on his staff.
"I'll answer that with a question," Banister countered. "Who in your organization deserves to be on the major league staff?"
Banister got the job. And three minor league coaches earned promotions to the big league staff.
A year later and faced with more coaching openings, Banister has a chance to prove his words didn't just set a tone for the interview, but also set a tone for the organization. With news on Thursday that Mike Maddux would not return as Rangers pitching coach for 2016, the Rangers have three openings on staff: pitching coach, hitting instructor and bullpen coach.
And they have an ample number of candidates in the system.
But first: Maddux. The decision came down mostly to business. The Rangers were prepared to keep the status quo at pitching coach and offered Maddux a two-year deal after the season. Maddux, who has overseen the six lowest staff ERAs in the 22 seasons at Globe Life Park, wanted to either further negotiate his situation or have a chance to explore his market value.
Though technically still under contract until Saturday, the Rangers gave Maddux permission to shop around. As the process went on, it became more realistic Maddux would go elsewhere.
The Rangers began their own contingency search and review and decided there was the possibility of improvement.
"Mike is as hard-working and dedicated coach as we've been around," general manager Jon Daniels said Thursday. "I've got nothing but positive things to say. While Mike was looking around, we did the same. As we talked things through, we felt like there was an opportunity for us to get better with a new voice in that role."
The Rangers have a chance to bring in a voice or voices with whom all of their home-grown starters -- Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Chi Chi Gonzalez and Nick Martinez, to name a few -- are familiar. As part of the contingency plan, the Rangers have interviewed minor league pitching coordinator Danny Clark, Triple-A pitching coach Brad Holman and Double-A pitching coach Jeff Andrews.
All three have been with the Rangers at least seven years. They've all handled the home-grown pitchers at some point, with each of the relationships pre-dating the pitcher's relationship with Maddux. While praising Maddux's ability to help him scout and prepare, Holland on Thursday also cited his relationship with Clark as key in his development.
With his background in college coaching, the Rangers may see Clark as more valuable by getting to work with pitchers at a younger age. Holman and Andrews both worked in the Pittsburgh system when Banister was the club's minor league field coordinator and have more recent experience managing the day-to-day needs of the staff. In 2008, Andrews was the Pirates pitching coach and Holman was at Pittsburgh's Double-A club Altoona.
The same principle applies to the hitting instructor's job. Justin Mashore, who was at Triple-A Round Rock in 2015, gets a lot of credit for helping Rougned Odor fix his approach during a one-month minor league demotion. He was also with the major league club for much of September, even while Round Rock was still playing. Mashore and assistant hitting coordinator Dwayne Murphy have both interviewed for the hitting instructor's job.
"Guys in the system spend hour upon hour building and deepening relationships and communication skills with these guys," Banister said. "I want difference makers, and those guys are making a difference and impacting people along the way. When you create that ideal where people are getting promoted to the big leagues, you create a hunger for everybody in the system to get better."
There is one qualifier to all of this, and it's that nothing Banister does will be considered straight "in-the-box" thinking. He's likely to expand the duties for his bullpen coach and ask all of his coaches to better understand analytics. But he will want coaches with big energy.
Need an idea of what that looks like? Think of the one hire Banister made from outside the organization last year: third base coach Tony Beasley. Beasley was a jack of all trades and arguably had the biggest impact of any single coach on the staff.
Impact is what Banister wants. If it comes from within the organization, all the better.
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