Rangers Restructure Baseball Operations, Promote New Assistant GM

The Texas Rangers announced several moves amongst their front office, restructuring the club's baseball operations department.

Chris Halicke | Sep 10, 2021

ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Jon Daniels and general manager Chris Young announced several changes to the club’s baseball operations structure on Friday.

Most notably, Ross Fenstermaker has been promoted to vice president and assistant general manager for player development and international operations. In that role, Fenstermaker will oversee the player development and minor league operations departments and will also continue to be responsible for the Rangers’ international amateur scouting efforts. Fenstermaker, who has spent the last two years as senior director of international and pro scouting, is already in his 12th year with the organization.

"Ross is someone who has done a great job in the pro scouting department and overseeing international operations," Young said. "His contributions, in terms of the systems and processes that he's set up there and some of the things that we've really benefited from we think will translate to player development. We're excited about his leadership and looking forward to him taking us to the next level and building on the great thing that have already happened within [player development]."

Josh Boyd has been named vice president and assistant general manager for scouting. In his role Boyd oversees the professional, amateur, and Pacific Rim scouting departments. Boyd has been with the Rangers since 2008 and was named assistant general manager in November 2016.

Mike Daly’s responsibilities will be shifted from an assistant GM role, while he continues to serve a meaningful role in the Rangers baseball operations structure. He will provide input into decisions across all departments while working closely with Daniels and Young. Daly has already served in a number of key leadership roles in Major League operations, player development, and scouting in his 15-year tenure with the Rangers beginning in 2006.

"We're still talking internally with Mike about the best way to utilize his skills," Daniels said. "He's obviously got a ton of experience and a lot of equity with all of us here with the Rangers from ownership down throughout various departments.

"We're really proud of a lot of the things that we've got going on on the development side. At the same time, we felt there was an opportunity to take it to another level. We have some other things in mind that we want to ask Mike to get involved with and help us move forward. We're not quite ready to roll those out just yet."

In addition to these moves near the top of the pecking order, the Rangers also announced the following changes:

Napoleon Pichardo has been promoted to Senior Director, Performance. Pichardo assumed oversight of the organization’s minor league performance groups, including medical, strength and conditioning and nutrition in 2020 after 15 years as Texas’ minor league strength and conditioning coordinator.
Joda Parent has been promoted to director of baseball administration and executive assistant. Parent joined the Rangers in 2015 as executive assistant to the president of baseball operations and general manager.
Paul Kruger, who has been director of Minor League operations since 2018, is being promoted to a new role on the Major League side as director of baseball operations. Kruger has been involved in several roles on the player development and international operations side since first joining the organization in 2010.
Ben Baroody has been promoted to director of leadership and development after three years as assistant director of baseball operations. He will oversee the organization’s mental skills group as well as leadership and personal development for players and staff on the Major and Minor League levels. Baroody joined the Rangers as manager of amateur scouting in 2016 after seven years at Major League Baseball.
Mike Parnell has been promoted to director of professional scouting after serving as the department’s assistant director for the last two years. Parnell has been heavily involved in the Rangers’ professional scouting efforts since first joining the organization in 2014.

These moves follow the mutual decision to move on from assistant GM Shiraz Rehman a few weeks ago. Rehman's responsibilities were temporarily split up amongst the baseball operations department. The decision to promote Fenstermaker to assistant GM and put amateur scouting under Boyd's jurisdiction are just a few of the ripple effects from the impactful decision to part ways with Rehman.

While the big league record from this season doesn't reflect much success whatsoever, the rest of the organization has vastly improved. Both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America moved the Rangers up to 11th in their midseason organizational rankings, and more moves this winter — along with eye-popping debuts from players like Glenn Otto and A.J. Alexy — could thrust Texas into the either publication's top 10 by next spring.

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Published Sep 10, 2021

CHRIS HALICKE