Texas Rangers fandom has had a huge sports crush on the Rangers' front office for the past two or three years. Jon Daniels is the best GM ever. Nolan Ryan is the best president/owner ever. Thad Levine and A.J. Preller are basically the second- and third-best GMs ever and they're Daniels' assistants. You're getting the picture.
So while that all might be a bit extreme, there's no doubt that the Rangers have set things up very nicely for themselves with the way the organization has been run from the top down.
ESPN had a panel of its foremost baseball experts, Buster Olney, Keith Law and former MLB GM Jim Bowden break down the league in regards to the teams' potential over the next five years. The criteria that was considered was the strength at the major-league and minor-league levels, finances, management and mobility, meaning how many young, cheap players a team has as opposed to a lot of highly paid, older players who are not really tradeable.
Coming in first was your Texas Rangers, and it wasn't even close.
The Rangers had an overall score of 91.1 out of 100 points, while the second-place New York Yankees were all the way down at 83.4 and third-place Tampa Bay was at 74.1. So as you can tell, the voting wasn't even close.
The Rangers are loaded at the major-league level, which is clear considering the fact they've won two straight AL pennants and are a favorite to win a third. They're also loaded in their farm system with guys like Martin Perez and Jurickson Profar on the horizon. They have cheap, controllable players like Derek Holland, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz and Matt Harrison. They really have it all.
Here's what Bowden had to say about the Rangers over the next five years:
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"Perhaps the biggest issue facing the Rangers will be to figure out on which fingers their World Series rings will go. With a surplus of pitching and one of the best offenses and defenses in baseball, the Rangers just need to maintain the team. This includes replacing Josh Hamilton or signing him to a long-term contract. After coming close twice, they will finally get their World Series title very soon."
So there you go, Rangers fans. Buckle up, it's going to be a fun half-decade.
