Fenstermaker a familiar face as new Rangers GM

This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ARLINGTON -- Ross Fenstermaker has a 3-year-old daughter. He and his wife, Lindsay, have another daughter on the way in January.

In his 16 years with the Rangers, Fenstermaker has worked in both scouting and player development, ultimately leading to his new role as general manager, which the club announced on Monday morning.

So he feels he perhaps has a lot more children than his biological daughters.

“I feel like I've got a ton of baseball sons in the game,” Fenstermaker said from the GM Meetings in San Antonio on Tuesday. “I care so much about them. I want everybody to achieve their dreams. There's just a lot of pride in that. … It's a combination of pride in that moment and just pure joy and elation for them to achieve their dreams.

“Those years and years of experience of not only knowing the player, but knowing the person behind the player, I think makes me feel really comfortable about making those recommendations [to the front office and coaching staff] and trying to get the most out of our players. It's pretty awesome.”

For the last three years, Fenstermaker has worked as an assistant general manager, focusing on player development and international operations. Throughout his time in the organization, he has been a baseball ops intern (2010), a professional scout (2011-16), an international crosschecker (2017), the director of pro scouting (2018-19) and the senior director of pro and international scouting (2020-21).

He now takes on the new challenge as general manager, though he will continue work as a one-two punch atop the organization with president of baseball operations Chris Young. Fenstermaker calls the transition “seamless” after spending so much time in the organization, even throughout a number of general managers and managers.

Fenstermaker said that he doesn’t foresee things changing a whole lot from how things have worked with the Rangers' front office over the last few years anyway, when Young was general manager and Fenstermaker was assistant GM.

Fenstermaker will likely be with the big league club more often than he was before, especially considering his emphasis on player development.

“I think what's so great about this role and setup with CY and I is we've already worked together for several years, so we kind of understand the delineation of duty,” Fenstermaker said. “I largely see my role as complementing and making sure that I fill any gaps in other areas and take some of that stuff off his plate. But ultimately, it's just us setting one another up so that it's really a two-person operation where you can share some responsibility and make sure that we create a better quality of life.”

Fenstermaker notes that he’s been blessed to have worn so many different hats in this organization that nothing really feels like a challenge for him. But he also noted that with a loftier title comes bigger responsibilities.

“Maybe some additional ownership interaction and communication, broadcasting the message out to our fan base on a little bit more of a regular basis,” he said. “Making sure we crafted the proper narrative that conveys the things that we value as an organization, and making people feel inspired to come to the ballpark and watch the product. I think that it's more of a public-facing, forward-facing job. I'm excited for that opportunity, because that gets to be positive about our organization.”

It’s notable that Fenstermaker has been part of the organization longer than Young, who has led baseball operations since Jon Daniels was relieved of his duties in August 2022.

Young led the club to its first World Series championship. Fenstermaker has seen the highs and lows of the club throughout his tenure in many positions. Now, in a more official way, they’ll make the next push for a World Series together.

“Ross’ fingerprints are all over the organization,” Young said. “Ross is someone who complements my skill set extremely well. He pushes me in ways that make me better. He's so bright. He embodies our values and understands our culture. I couldn't be happier to welcome Ross into this role and align with him and our shared vision of pushing forward to compete and win more championships as we look to the future of our organization.”