He didn’t say many words in the news conference Monday to officially announce the hiring of Chris Young as his new general manager. But Ray Davis’s words said a lot.
“When you have four straight years of losing, it doesn’t make sense to keep doing the same thing.”
Maybe there is some level of accountability in the front office after all. Maybe this hiring of Chris Young wasn’t Jon Daniels’s idea, as Daniels suggested the day Young was hired.
Daniels made it sound like he had an idea that he would like to work with Chris Young and then, presto, he made it happen.
Maybe when a guy as accomplished as Theo Epstein came available it got Ray Davis’s attention. Maybe Ray Davis started calling around to see what his options were. Maybe he called the commissioner’s office for advice and they mentioned Chris Young. And maybe things were set in motion to stop “doing the same thing.”
One has no way of knowing what happened. Or why it happened now. But it does seem curious.
Maybe Ray Davis looked at the upcoming draft, where the Rangers have their most advantageous pick perhaps ever and realized this is too important to mess up. And he was painfully aware of the track record his current general manager had and realized he didn’t trust him to do the kind of rebuild his team needs.
Maybe this all is reading between the lines. But the truth can often be read there.
And the truth is, Jon Daniels wasn’t getting it done. Reputation and past accomplishments can get you only so far.
It was time for fresh thinking. But mainly, it was time to quit committing the same errors.
If you don’t want business as usual, quit doing business as usual.