Jeff Banister would hate this idea, and he could even dispute it with evidence to some degree. But his fate was sealed before his first Rangers team played its first spring training game when Yu Darvish went down with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery.
Now don't get me wrong, Banister's response to that death blow was great. He convinced a young team that had lost 95 games the prior season it could move on, and it did. All the way to the AL West title and a Manager of the Year award for Banister.
But realistically, if Banister was going to have sustained success here -- the kind of championship success this franchise has never captured -- he needed the Darvish of 2013 to show up and dominate and lead.