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Winter Meetings Day 3: Chris Gimenez and the question of Clubhouse Culture

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Chris Gimenez was Yu Darvish’s personal catcher for parts of two seasons in Texas. Thad Levine was the assistant GM in all but Darvish’s last year with the Rangers. And in an article by Mike Berardino of TwinCities.com, it seems like that tandem might be putting on the full-court press to lure Darvish to Minneapolis.

That the Twins are interested is no surprise. But some of the quotes by Gimenez certainly raised eyebrows:

“In Texas we had a ton of rules, (and) he was not necessarily a fan of some of them,” Gimenez said Tuesday by phone from his home in Nevada.

Those included Kangaroo Court clubhouse fines for not being early enough for daily team stretch on the field, wearing footwear with shoelaces on road trips or wearing anything on the road that failed to meet third baseman Adrian Beltre’s exacting standards.

“I told (Darvish) pretty much the only rule we have (with the Twins) is no dress shoes on the road,” Gimenez said. “He said, ‘What if I want to wear dress shoes on the road?’ I said, ‘You’re Yu Darvish. You can do whatever the hell you want.’ ”

Gimenez, for his part, defended his statements later on Twitter:


He does have a point: the comments about Kangaroo Court and Adrian Beltre, if they did come from Gimenez, were not in quotes.

The biggest irony in all of this: Gimenez isn’t even currently employed by the Twins. He became a free agent on November 6th. The Twins have since signed another of Darvish’s former catchers: Bobby Wilson.

The article hit the internet only about an hour before Jeff Banister took his turn at the microphone at the Winter Meetings; when asked about Darvish’s relationship with the club and his teammates, the Rangers’ manager brushed the idea aside: “Look,” the manager began. “We’ve been commended about our clubhouse culture. I think we have a great group of guys inside that clubhouse who are open to everybody who comes into that clubhouse. I hadn’t gotten any word of that.”

Gosh, it seems like just yesterday we were talking about how the Rangers felt like their relationship with Darvish was–[CUT TO VIDEO] “Relationship-wise, it’s very good. A number of us are still in touch with him, have maintained contact. Dating back beyond the trade– for years, it’s been a really good relationship.” – Jon Daniels.

But despite the rose-colored official responses from the organization about the relationship, this isn’t the first hint of discord between Darvish and the coaching staff. Remember April 18th, when Darvish was perfect through five innings, then taken out of the game after 82 pitches when he went walk-lineout-home run-walk-double in the sixth? Doug Brocail said after that game “I was ready for him to come out.”

Twitter went nuts. But both Darvish and Brocail later insisted that there was no friction between the two, and by two weeks later, their actions seemed to back up their words:

Of course, then there was this moment:

That was June 23rd, just after Darvish had come out of a game in which he struck out 10 Yankees in seven innings, walking none and allowing just two hits on 88 pitches. Afterwards, Jeff Banister told the media that Darvish had experienced some tightness in his tricep. Darvish concurred:

“At this time in the season,” Darvish told media later, through a translator “I don’t want to push it and affect my next outing. I think I’m going to be fine for the next outing,”

But that Jamie Reed eye-roll, man. That was something.

–

Here’s a unique thing about baseball: 25 guys at a time, plus a coaching staff of half-a-dozen or so guys, plus trainers, plus a handful of others all hang out with each other almost every day from mid-February until—if they’re lucky—the first of November. These aren’t guys who grew up in the same neighborhood and share the same views; they’re from all over the map—literally! Very few of these guys chose the others based on compatible personalities, so there’s no telling what any of them even have in common, beyond this: they’re all hyper-competitive.

Now add into this mix: the expectations put on the players and coaches from each other, the front office, the media, and the fans. Now take into consideration how many days out of the year they’re away from their families, from the wives and children that they did choose to spend their lives with.

Frankly, I’m shocked we don’t hear about more physical altercations in clubhouses.

So perhaps the rumors are true. Maybe Darvish and Banister aren’t best friends. Or maybe Darvish finds Beltre’s dress code demands to be over-the-top. Even if all of these rumors are 100% on the nose, none of them would be an indictment on Banister, Beltre, or Darvish. It would just be grown men doing their best to get along in a situation that is pretty stressful. There are people in the press box I get along with better than others. There are people at your job who occasionally irk you, and there are people that you irk. That’s just life.

The question is how we deal with those irksome people (or what steps we take to be less irksome ourselves). Based on the clubhouse I’ve covered the last two years, it seems like the team (and the manager) is doing fine at that. Ernesto Frieri went so far as to tell us how much the league viewed the Rangers as a fun team of guys to play with.

In the end, maybe it’s not the perfect fit for Darvish. If that’s the case, there’s really nothing to be done. You can’t change an entire clubhouse atmosphere for one guy.

………..of course, there is one other option at play here:

Perhaps Darvish is still salty about a basketball ruling:

NOTES:
Texas did make a move earlier today, signing 16-year-old shortstop Keithron Moss from The Bahamas, according to Ben Badler. The signing is not yet official, so—much like Chris Martin—we’ll have to wait for any quotes from the organization.

Fernando Rodney apparently met with the Rangers today, though the team would not confirm. There has been a fair amount of discussion around the team’s need for a veteran closer, and I suppose Rodney fits that description, but he has pitched for six teams in the last five years, and will turn 41 this Spring.

There has been another Japanese pitcher posted. Kazuhisa Makita is a soft-throwing submariner. The team declined to comment on any potential pursuit of Makita other than to say that “he’s on our radar”.

Former Ranger Great Alexi Ogando has signed with Cleveland.

The Rangers’ video presentation to Shohei Ohtani featured video from a few Rangers, but Jon Daniels told us today that the video was all recorded back in September, just-in-case, before anyone was even certain that Ohtani would be posted.

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Comments

  1. Solid and logical points on Darvish’s relationship with the Rangers. Your writing style holds my interest with just enough stats and a good amount of common sense perspective.

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