One would expect Texas Rangers interim manager Tony Beasley to have good things to say about his new direct report, general manager Chris Young, who just took over for the departed Jon Daniels.
But Beasley’s praise for Young comes from a place of experience.
The pair go back to their time in Hickory, N.C., 20 years ago, as detailed by The Dallas Morning News.
Back then, Young was in his second year in Pittsburgh’s minor-league system after being taken in the third round of the 2000 MLB Draft out of Princeton. Beasley, meanwhile, was in his first year as the manager of the South Atlantic League’s Hickory Crawdads.
Back then, Beasley was Young’s boss. Now the roles are reversed.
Beasley said he doesn’t see much difference.
“He was what you see now,” Beasley said. “There was attention to detail, there was focus and grit. He’s straight with people. He’s firm. He’s whatever he needs to be. That’s who he was as a player. He was a great teammate, but he was he was all about business. He was a fierce competitor. That’s the characteristic that he wants to see in his ballclub. Because that’s who he was. And is.”
Young and Beasley spent just one season together. Young went 11–9 with a 3.11 ERA in 26 starts for the Crawdads. Beasley led Hickory — now the Rangers’ High Class-A affiliate — to the 2002 South Atlantic League crown, the fifth-best season in all of the minor leagues and earned Baseball America’s Low Class-A Manager of the Year award.
After the season, Young was included in a trade to the Montreal Expos. The Expos eventually traded Young to the Texas Rangers and he made his MLB debut with Texas in 2005, which started a 13-season career.
Beasley, meanwhile, managed eight years in the minors, winning more than 600 games and earning another Baseball America Manager of the Year award. He spent part of that time in the Washington organization and eventually reached Texas in 2015 as a part of manager Jeff Banister’s staff.
He’s now the interim manager in the wake of the firing of Chris Woodward.
Young will now determine if Beasley will get the full-time managing job with the Rangers. Both he and Daniels — who was fired on Wednesday — said that Beasley’s prospects of keeping the job weren’t entirely contingent on his win-loss record.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard
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