Texas Rangers: Sam Dyson wouldn’t be the same here

After the Texas Rangers traded Sam Dyson to the San Francisco Giants, he’s been incredible. But that doesn’t mean he should have stayed.

The Texas Rangers have experienced an all-too-familiar scenario after trading away reliever Sam Dyson. Now that he’s in a San Francisco Giants uniform, he’s looked like a completely different pitcher. But don’t let his current success fool you. What we’re seeing in San Francisco isn’t necessarily what we would have seen here.

Surroundings matter

Professional athletes change teams all the time. Once free agency hit the sporting world, loyalty went out the window. But believe it or not, these athletes are just like everyday people. Climate, environment and a myriad of other things make a difference.

Some people like cooler climates in the mountain while another person’s idea of relaxation involves sunny beaches. Many athletes are the same way. One guy may like to play for a city that encourages building families and offering fun for all ages. Still, the next guy may want a vibrant party scene where there’s plenty of social opportunities on nights off.

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These things do matter to players. It matters to their wives/girlfriends as well. Just look at how disappointed Yu Darvish‘s wife, Seiko was to leave Dallas. She loves it here. In fact, don’t expect to be finished with that storyline in the offseason. But this article isn’t about Darvish, so let’s get back to Dyson.

Let’s not forget that Dyson is a Florida guy. He was born in Tampa and grew up there. In college, he played for the University of South Carolina. What do those places have in common? They’re both not far from the beach.

He now plays in beautiful San Francisco. It’s significantly cooler there and there are beaches aplenty. It was also pretty well-known amongst Rangers insiders that Dyson didn’t like the Texas heat much. But climate isn’t all of the story.

Starting over helps

Within just a few days of opening day, the pressure got hot very quickly for Dyson. Within his first two appearances of the season, he’d already allowed more earned runs (eight) than he did in all of July, August and September in 2016 (seven).

The guy that had been hailed our next great closer in the offseason couldn’t even get two games in without everyone yelling for his head. Major league relievers are already a pretty mentally rough group. Once their psyche is messed up, sometimes nothing other than a “hard reset” will do.

The Rangers tried putting him “on the disabled list” to get him some time in the minors without exposing him to waivers. But that had little effect for him. The only course of action was to trade him. The Giants still liked what they saw in him and offered “a player to be named later.” We likely won’t know much about that until this winter.

But to make a long story short, he got a clean slate with the Giants, who hadn’t watched him trudge through April and May. They also didn’t see much of what he did last season, because he moved to a National League city. Even his stat sheet got to reset thanks to that move. Now he has a fresh approach with a new clubhouse new faces around him.

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Squads makeup is important

Finally, rosters are an interesting thing. Team chemistry is a major thing and sometimes the best baseball players just don’t fit the right way with certain squads. Look back at Alex Rodriguez and his stint with the Texas Rangers.

Nobody will argue that he was a terrible baseball player. But nobody will argue, either that he “fit” here. The roster just wasn’t right for him. That’s really what was so great about those 2010-2011 Rangers teams. Almost everyone got along perfectly.

Some good players performed very well here and then went off and didn’t do so well in other places. That alone really illustrates what this entire debate is about.

So many things factor into a player or team’s success. Just ask the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They went through a stretch where they simply focused on grabbing the best guys available and cramming them into the clubhouse. But just because two guys are awesome ballplayers, it doesn’t mean they’ll play well together.

It’s not a knock on Dyson or any of the current Rangers to say this, either. At the end of the day, certain types of guys work well together and certain types do not. As the old saying goes, “opposites attract.” Two “leader” types won’t work very well together, just like two “followers” won’t, either. But you put one of each together and the sum will end up greater than the parts. Why is that? It’s because of chemistry.

Next: The Rangers are far from done right now

The summary

What it boils down to is that Dyson needed a change and Texas needed him out. Looking at the moment, and both sides of the deal have come out well. Dyson’s sporting a 2.13 ERA in 24 games with the Giants while the Rangers sit two games out of the playoffs. Like ending a bad relationship, each side just needed to go their separate ways. Both were better off without each other and the sooner we as fans can come to grips with that, the easier it will be to move on.