Maybe Rudy wasn't getting the results he once was. In the stock market we call this selling high, right? Maybe they didn't want to buy high.
Rangers were 11th of 14 AL teams in BA at .260.
They were 12th in OBP, just .06 out of last place.
They were 1st of 14 in SO with 1253, more than 1 of every 5 ABs was a K.
They were 12th in BB, 1st place had 40% more walks than Rangers.
Yeah, they were 2nd in HRs, but 10th in total hits and middle of the road in runs.
The AL playoff teams all had more hits, more walks, higher BA, higher OBP, fewer strikeouts, more ABs. 2 had more HRs, 2 had fewer HRs than the Rangers.
Maybe Wash thinks he can get better run production by not focusing on the dingers at the expense of these things. It's pretty clear Rudy thinks dingers are the way to success, but that hasn't worked out so well.