Maury Brown has an interesting post over at Forbes saying that Nolan Ryan could move quickly up the Astros' corporate ladder...if he accepts a position in the first place.
A snippet:
Doesn’t Nolan Ryan as President of Baseball Operations/General
Manager get him back to where he wanted to be with the Texas Rangers,
and build credibility on the PR side with fans of the Astros?
It could happen. It could happen and it could be a mistake (given
time, and smarts, the Astros plan in place may actually get the team out
of the cellar and into a competitive position in the AL West)...But
plans can change. Owners can be swayed. And given that Crane and the
Astros haven’t exactly made a lot of fans with their moves—smart or
not—it would be hard to say no to Nolan Ryan if he wanted to do more
than just play consultant.
Now I can certainly understand that Nolan Ryan doesn't just want to be a figurehead of an organization - it's sort of why he left the Rangers. And while the entire column is speculation, I have a very hard time seeing Crane break with Luhnow and the entire front office in order to install Nolan Ryan for PR. Crane hasn't really given two craps about PR to this point, so I don't know why he'd do an about-face.
The other, entirely reasonable possibility is that I simply don't want to believe that Crane would remove The Law Offices of Jeff Luhnow in favor of Nolan Ryan.
I could, however, envision a scenario where Ryan busts in to the offices of DirecTV, UVerse, and Suddenlink or whatever it's called and puts CEOs in a headlock until the Astros get a Dodgers-esque TV deal.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
