Banister's belief helped Rangers turn season around
— -- ARLINGTON, Texas -- If you've never met Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister, you'd swear he was putting up a front, a corny act created to impress players.
Nobody could possibly be that upbeat and that positive all the time, right?
Take a look at @Bannyrooster28's Twitter timeline -- it's filled with inspirational quotes and uplifting messages. You can find him endorsing books about leadership such as "The Wisdom Lunch Warrior" and authors such as Bob Beaudine.
Ask him a question in person and Banister looks you in the eye for the entirety of the answer. Banister, raised about 30 miles from Houston, is a proud Texan who's never forgotten the lessons instilled in him by his father, a high school football coach, about physical and mental toughness.
All of that gives Banister an authenticity that allowed him to quickly connect with the Rangers' players. He's a man shaped by the adversity he experienced in his youth, which included beating cancer and overcoming a neck injury that briefly left him paralyzed.
The rookie manager, who spent 29 years in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, used all those experiences to transform a team that lost 95 games in 2014 into AL West champs. The Rangers start their five-game ALDS series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday.
"I like pretty much everything about him," third baseman Adrian Beltre said. "In spring training, the attitude that he had made the players believe in him.
"He talked about leading us to the World Series then. It doesn't take long to build trust with a manager. You can tell the way they go about their business and how honest they are when they talk to you."
Banister was the right manager at the right time for this club because the problems it faced didn't faze him. He didn't allow himself or the men on his team to have a pity party.
It hasn't been easy.
Not when ace pitcher Yu Darvish needed Tommy John surgery in spring training and No.2 starter Derek Holland left his first start after one inning with a strained shoulder and didn't return until August.
Not when the Rangers had the American League's worst record in May. Not when their Opening Day closer was designated for assignment in July, or when Banister found himself constantly on the hunt for a left fielder -- the club used 12 this season.
And certainly not in August, when the Rangers were still under .500 and trailed the Houston Astros by eight games.
Those are the times when you can tell whether a man truly lives by his beliefs. It's easy to quote motivational phrases and use #NeverEverQuit after every tweet during the good times, but that attitude is harder to sustain when your team is playing bad baseball.
Banister, though, never changed. He kept playing to win every game whether he needed to pinch-run for Prince Fielder in the eighth inning or drop Shin-Soo Choo in the batting order.
He kept searching for winning combinations when he declared in May that no one in the bullpen was worthy of a defined role and sent second baseman Rougned Odor to Triple-A.
Through it all, Banister's office door remained open.
"I don't take it for granted, and I still work on it every single day," Banister said of the never-ending quest to create the culture he wants to see.
"I will never get complacent in that area because there's always a message to be told. There's always somebody who needs an extra motivational conversation, whether it's critical analysis or telling them how great they are.
"Each individual player needs somebody to speak greatness into their life every single day, and they also need to be told the critical truth when necessary. A person in my position should never get complacent and think everything is OK. When you start thinking everything is OK and we're all good, guess what? It's not."
"He's a great leader," said Choo, who hit .343 after the All-Star break. "He's a really good communicator, especially one-on-one with the players. It's easy to talk to him."
Well, it's unlikely that Banister's conversations with Choo were easy in April, when Banister dropped him from second to seventh or eighth in the batting order as a result of his struggles in the first half of the season.
But nothing is ever forever with Banister.
"When he sent me down, he told me exactly what I needed to do to get back," Odor said. "I wasn't mad. I knew I wasn't hitting."
General manager Jon Daniels began reshaping the club in June when he acquired Josh Hamilton from the Los Angeles Angels, who agreed to pay virtually all of the $80 million remaining on his contract.
In 50 games with the Rangers, Hamilton has hit .253 with eight homers and 25 RBIs. More important, he's shown he can still take over a game with his bat or glove.
"He's a guy you can tell is genuinely invested in you as a player. You can tell he cares by how he focuses on you when you have a conversation," Hamilton said of Banister. "You can usually tell when someone really cares about what you're talking about or whether they want you to hurry up and finish talking."
The biggest moves Daniels made occurred at the trade deadline, when the Rangers acquired left-handed starter Cole Hamels and reliever Jake Diekman in an eight-player trade that sent a package of premium prospects to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Rangers also acquired reliever Sam Dyson for a couple of prospects from the Miami Marlins.
At the trade deadline, the Rangers were 50-52 and trailed Houston by seven games, but Hamels gave the rotation an anchor, and Dyson and Diekman gave the bullpen two power arms.
Martin Perez, who had Tommy John surgery in 2014, returned to the rotation in mid-July, and Holland came back in August. Adding those starters to Yovani Gallardo and Colby Lewis suddenly gave the Rangers one of the American League's best rotations.
Daniels added key role players such Will Venable, Drew Stubbs and Mike Napoli in August deals that required those players to pass through waivers.
With the Rangers struggling against left-handed starters and the season running out, Banister decided to use Napoli, a designated hitter and first baseman, in left field, a position he'd never played. Against left-handers, Napoli has hit .364 with five homers and 10 RBIs.
"A lot goes into that decision: who's pitching for us and whether he's a fly ball or ground ball pitcher and what the other team's lineup looks like," Banister said. "Ultimately, it's based on whether we think we'll get more out of his at-bats than anything that goes wrong in the field."
That's the kind of creative thinking that has the Rangers in the playoffs. They've been among league's best teams since the trade deadline, and they're playing their best baseball heading into the postseason.
Not many give the Texas team a chance to beat the Blue Jays and their powerful offense. No worries. Few outside the Rangers' clubhouse have believed in this team all season.
"This game can make you feel small as a player -- it really can," Banister said. "It's how big you can play when the game makes you feel small. We have a group of guys that have shown up and really played big in those situations."
On Thursday, they get a chance to do it again.
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