If Rangers Win World Series, Bruce Bochy Will Waltz Into Cooperstown

Bruce Bochy was a good bet for the Baseball Hall of Fame before winning the 2023 American League pennant as manager of the Texas Rangers. With one more win in the best-of-seven World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, he can lock the door and throw away the key.

The Rangers had never won the Fall Classic before Bochy came out of retirement to resume his 25-year career as a manager.

But the former catcher took the team, which finished fourth with a 68-94 mark in 2022, into the playoffs after a 92-70 regular season that matched the Houston Astros for best in the American League West.

Although the Astros were awarded the AL West crown because of a better regular-season record against the Rangers, Texas parlayed a plethora of new players plus a hefty free-agent spending spree into the team’s first pennant since 2011, the last time it reached the World Series.

To be sure, money helped. Over a 13-month span, the Rangers spent a combined $823 million on seven free agents, including slugging infielders Marcus Semien and Corey Seager, and added starting pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer in deals at the trade deadline.

The team’s payroll, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, ranked eighth in the majors at $241,931,896.

Texas also imported highly-respected pitching coach Mike Maddux, who previously served in the same capacity for the Cardinals, Nationals, and Brewers.

But the main man who made the difference was Bochy, who once won three world championships within a five-year span as manager of the San Francisco Giants.

A World Series win tonight would be the first for Texas and the fourth for Bochy – placing his name in elite company, all of whom are already enshrined in Cooperstown.

Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel won a record seven world championships each, Connie Mack won five, and both Walt Alston and Joe Torre won four apiece.

If Bochy joins that elite fraternity, he’ll top Cooperstown denizens Tony La Russa, Sparky Anderson, John McGraw, and Miller Huggins, all of whom won three.

A former catcher, Bochy ranks as the oldest active pilot following the retirement of 74-year-old Houston field boss Dusty Baker. He’s just six months older than Atlanta manager Brian Snitker.

A French native but Nashville resident, Bochy was lured out of retirement by a three-year contract from Texas executive vice president and general manager Chris Young, plus promises that the team would spend liberally in an effort to reach the post-season.

At the time of Bochy’s hiring, Young, who once pitched for him, cited his experience, his ability to handle a pitching staff, plus his patience.

Bochy is the 20th manager in the history of the Rangers, who began life as the second-edition Washington Senators, a 1961 American League expansion team that relocated to Dallas-Fort Worth in 1972.

Since the Arizona Diamondbacks also joined the majors as an expansion team (in 1998), the 2023 World Series is the third pitting a pair of expansion entries (2015, 2019 and 2023) and also the third matching wild-card winners (along with 2002 and 2014 before this year).

Under Bochy, the Rangers spent 139 days in first place before fading as the Astros caught fire late in the season. Texas then won seven straight post-season games, one short of Kansas City’s 2014 record for most in the playoffs, and leaped into the League Championship Series by sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles in preliminary rounds.

In the ALCS, however, Texas won the hard way, by winning every road game – the first time that happened since 2019.

Despite five pennants and three world championships prior to this year, Bochy is still trying to boost his career record as manager over .500. It stands at 2,093-2,101, giving him a winning percentage of .499. That could change over the final two years of his contract, assuming the Rangers remain a formidable force in the American League West.

Bochy previously managed the San Diego Padres (1995-2006) and San Francisco Giants (2007-2019).