Major League Baseball

Rangers' Washington gets new contract

Published Nov. 4, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Manager Ron Washington agreed Thursday to a new two-year contract with the AL champion Texas Rangers.

The deal through the 2012 season was completed three days after the end of the Rangers' first World Series.

Washington didn't have a contract past 2010, but team president Nolan Ryan and general manager Jon Daniels had made it clear during the season they wanted him back. They sat down and got it done before the manager planned to go home to New Orleans.

When hired to replace the fired Buck Showalter in November 2006, Washington got a two-year contract with two one-year options that were both exercised by the team. But Washington never got an extension, even as the Rangers improved their win total each season.

Washington has a 331-317 record in his first managerial job. After a 75-87 mark in 2007, his first season, Texas followed by winning 79 games, then 87 and 90 this season.

Late in the 2009 season, Washington thought he had cost himself his first managerial job when he admitted to using cocaine once and failed a drug test.

Washington offered to resign, but Ryan and Daniels stuck by their manager then, and again last spring when the story became public and he told his players what happened.

The Rangers had never won a postseason series, or even a home playoff game, before this year. This was only the 17th winning record in 39 seasons since moving to Texas after the franchise started as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961.

After beating the defending World Series champion New York Yankees in six games in the AL championship series, Texas lost the World Series in five games to the San Francisco Giants. The final game was a 3-1 loss at home Monday night.

Ryan also plans a contract extension for Daniels, who still has a year left on his deal.

Daniels hired Washington exactly a year after he had been named the youngest GM in major league history.

Washington had been an assistant coach for 11 seasons in Oakland, where he had been credited for developing the organization's top infielders. Third baseman Eric Chavez gave one of his six Gold Gloves to Washington.

When Washington was hired, the Rangers still had the reputation as a slugging high-scoring team with never enough pitching to take advantage of all the runs.

Things have changed under the influence of Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher who is now a part-owner, and Washington. The Rangers can still slug, but they also run and pitch.

Texas led the majors with a .276 average and while 162 homers were their lowest total since 1992, they had fewer than 1,000 strikeouts for the first time since 2000. The Rangers had an American League-high 53 sacrifice bunts, stole 123 bases and had runners advance from first to third on singles 122 times, 22 more than the majors' next-best team.

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