The Omen...

Posted by: Ben at 08:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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No, really...who?

Can anyone tell me why the Rangers have a non-waiveable career AAA third catcher on the 25 man roster rather than another pitcher or corner infielder?  I can argue any name on this roster except Gimenez.

Posted by: Ben at 06:48 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Seattle...

It is not unusual that a player who is out of options who is DFA'd (designated for assignment, also called an 'outright' assignment or being 'outrighted') because the team that owns their contract doesn't want/need them on their 25-man 'starting' roster, will refuse the assignment if they have the prerequisite service time (five years) and elect to pursue free agency.  These players, more often than not, will sign a contract with another AAA club.  The free agent contract can be argued to be better than working under the players existing contract, but it's usually an extremely marginal or even intangible difference.

That being said, it seems that Seattle is suffering from a huge number of players who really want to get the hell away from the Mariners organization.  It doesn't help that Seattle has been reputed to be a highly-dysfunctional and poorly run organization for years.

Just a thought.  Comments and insight welcome.

Posted by: Ben at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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They can't all be winners...

Editor's Note:  The Rangers have made some highly publicized trades over the past decade or so.  Generally speaking, they provided the Yankees 1B, 3B and one of their outfielders (sort of).  Texas got a significant portion of it's World Series teams, and current team, from the Braves.  Most significantly, Texas has provided so many players to the Baltimore Orioles over the past twenty years that Rangers fans have taken to calling the Orioles the "Rangers East" club.

However, in recent years Texas has acquired another trading "partner", although as this guest post by Wonderduck illustrates, the relationship isn't exactly bilateral.

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Earlier today, I was at work when, from out of nowhere, our charming and delightful host here at the Wrigleyville South Baseball Blog popped up and asked if I'd like to write a little bit about the Arlington-Chicago pipeline. After asking "who are you and how did you get in here?" and calling security, I stepped into my office and locked the door behind me. After the weird person with the Rangers cap was escorted away by Virgil and Ron, I thought about his request and thought "eh, why not?"

It would be wrong to say that the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers have been trading partners over the past couple of years, because that would suggest that there has been equanimity between the two teams. In truth, the Cubs have been stealing the Rangers blind the entire time. For example, the Matt Garza deal. Or, as it should really be called, "13 mediocre starts by Matt Garza for Mike Olt, CJ Edwards, Justin Grimm, and Neil Ramirez."

Edwards could grow up to be a #3 starter. Grimm looked good until he hit Triple-A, at which point he discovered that baseball can be difficult, and the big leagues, at which point he discovered that perhaps selling cars isn't such a bad career after all. Ramirez is probably what is termed "organizational depth," as in "you need 25 players on a team, and they can't all be Mike Trout."

And then there's Mike Olt. Mike "I'll be starting for the Cubs this year" Olt. In Wrigley Field. When the trade first happened, the general consensus on sports-talk radio up here was that he was their third sacker for the rest of the decade at least. Me, I was some small amount less excited; the Cubs seem to have an institutional inability to create third-basemen out of can't-miss minor leaguers (Kevin Orie, anyone? How about Gary Scott? Heck, even the best Cubs trade of all time involved a third baseman that failed at the position... turned out Ryne Sandberg was okay at second, though). Despite this, I still thought Olt had a good chance to take over the hot corner at Sheffield and Addison. Turns out the Cubs agreed with me and put him on the major league roster today.

Meanwhile, Matt Garza will be pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2014. Well, heck, that's okay, the Rangers still have that other Cubs pitcher you got a few years ago, Ryan Dempster, right? Oh, wait. Well, the Northsiders still have Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva from that deal. Hendricks will be down in Triple-A to start the year, but it wouldn't have been a huge surprise if he had made the team out of Spring Training. Villanueva, on the other hand, suddenly has his path to the big leagues blocked by... Mike Olt. Whoopsie. Okay, you say, but Geovany Soto will be our starting catcher again, and he was a Cubs player! Yep, and as soon as his knee heals in twelve weeks, he'll be back to being Geo (Metro) Soto again.

It's been brought to my attention that the Rangers picked up ex-Cub Donnie Murphy off waivers today. My first reaction to this bit of news: "who?" My second reaction: "he was still on the Cubs?" Murphy is a 31-year old... let's be charitable and call him a "journeyman"... third-baseman that hit 11 homers last season (while striking out 48 times and walking eight). He'd hit 18 home runs in his previous six seasons combined. There's no question that he's better than not having a player at third base at all, so you've got that going for you, Ranger fans!

Once upon a time, the Cubs used to steal the Pittsburgh Pirates blind regularly. Now it looks like their attentions have turned to Arlington. At times like this, it's best just not to answer the phone if the caller ID shows an area code of "312." Trust me, you'll be better off.
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Wonderduck blogs about F1 Racing, anime, ducks, military history, baseball, the Chicago Cubs and ducks at Wonderduck's Pond.

Posted by: Ben at 11:41 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Who?

UPDATE:  I had written that the Rangers were playing the Mexican National Team in an exhibition game.  That is incorrect, they played the Quintana Roo Tigers, a AAA team in Cancun who are the Mexican National Champions.

The Texas Rangers have announced their starting rotation, at least for the first week or two of the year.  As a reminder, here's the starting rotation that was projected before spring training began, a rotation that many analysts concluded would be one of the best in baseball:  Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Matt Harrison, Martin Perez, Alexi Ogando/Colby Lewis.

more...

Posted by: Ben at 08:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ranger rotation update, or perhaps ragnorok...

Today Rangers fans learned that Yu Darvish has been pulled from the opening day start and will see a back specialist Wednesday.  The Rangers are claiming the check-up is a precaution, but no one believes them.

Texas also optioned former closer and Bobby McFerrin disciple Neftali Feliz to AAA Round Rock.  Officially, the move is to allow Feliz to recover his strength and velocity (again), but rumors still persist that the reassignment is the second move in an escalating game of trying to light a fire under Feliz's butt and get him to drop the "What, me worry?" act.

Two bits of good news; Robbie Ross was told to go out and earn a starting rotation spot against the Cleveland Indians.

Robbie Ross pitched seven shutout innings, giving himself a 1.27 ERA on the spring, and seemingly locking up a spot in the rotation to start the season. His final line for today: 7 IP, 4 hits, 3 walks, 8 Ks, no runs.

The three best pitchers in Rangers Camp this year have been the guys who pitched the sixth, seventh and eighth innings last year.

Also, Mitch Moreland, after delivering two hits yesterday, walked twice today.  The reason this is impressive is because the great tragedy with Moreland has always been his inability to hit after getting injured, which led to his unwillingness to take a walk.

Posted by: Ben at 05:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Rangers news and other disasters...

UPDATE:  I mentioned Mitch Moreland would probably be out until opening day.  He was back in the lineup last night against the A's and contributed positively on both offense and defense, playing in left field.  So that's good.

Real-life has kept me away from blogging duties both here and at my personal blog, but the Rangers news has reached a bursting point.

I've been told by Cubs fans that there comes a point in every season where the sense of inevitability comes to full fruition, and you realize that the team can't do worse than it is *right then*, and then you can figure out how the Cubbies will end up in October.  Rangers fans probably feel that way right now.

more...

Posted by: Ben at 08:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Do players have a problem with Rangers management?

I was surprised, for the most part, when most Rangers fans dismissed Ian Kinsler's slam of the Texas Rangers and the organization's front office.  Jon Daniels, the Rangers GM, has been the target of vitriol ever since Nolan Ryan was stripped of the Team President title and Daniels was promoted.  However, the few people who have commented in support of Kinsler have generally expressed a similar opinion to that espoused in this Shutdown Inning piece.

Even worse than that is if the players do really hate his guts for various reasons and Washington isn’t able to keep the fence up between his dugout and the front office. It’s a fun bit to pretend that Jon Daniels is a ninja or has Jedi-like abilities, but the reality for all general managers is that the shelf life for success is usually very inconsistent and often fleeting. Another fun twitter exercise is to bag on Nolan for his age, his old-school mentality and his overall disdain for anything metric related, but what if his presence WAS that valuable to the players as Kinsler alluded to? If Nolan in fact was the glue that kept the bridge between the front office, Washington, and the players’ together things could unravel quickly in 2014 and beyond. Nolan choosing to go back to Houston and join an organization that embraces advanced metrics and that new paradigm in baseball management more than most orgs out there may speak more to the personality issues rather than the baseball philosophy differences here in Arlington. What if Jon Daniels has become so incorrigible that he has become blinded by his own ego and desire to prove Nolan and other doubters wrong that rash decisions are quickly approaching? Acting on ego and emotion is typically not a good policy.

I tried to comment to the article but couldn't ever get a comment through; if my multiple submissions ever actually show up I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for causing problems.  I have instead provided my response below:

I thought on this a bit after the Kinsler comments came out. In the end, like everything else, you have to look at the evidence. The players who have expressed dissatisfaction are all players that Daniels got closer to than he should have when he first joined the club; a mistake that he has admitted to. Doesn't make it right, but it is valid context.

There is no evidence that Nolan Ryan ever served as the "glue" for the team, as repeatedly big-name free agent pitchers refused to sign with Texas, sometimes even despite better contractual offers. That certainly could have been because of Jon Daniels' presence, but it shows that *if* that were the case, then Nolan wasn't powerful enough to overcome dislike for Daniels.

But even then, since Ryan left Daniels traded for Fielder (who could have blocked the trade), Choo rejected a contract with New York to sign with Texas, and Michael Young turned down multiple contracts to come back to Texas and retire as a Ranger. Martin Perez signed an incredibly team-friendly contract for several years. Colby Lewis signed on for another year despite seeking a major-league contract. None of these things seem to indicate players want to stay away from Daniels.

So, I don't really see any sign of Daniels being a problem. In fact, it would seem that having Ryan around was more detrimental to contracts than Daniels. The point being, three players have generally trashed the Rangers front office, while complementing Nolan Ryan; yet it doesn't seem to actually mean anything to anyone beyond these three players. Which indicates to me that the problem was isolated and isn't a general issue with the organization.

Time will tell, of course.

Posted by: Ben at 10:36 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Calling the Rangers starting rotation:

I, of course, retain the right to change my mind at any time before the announcement is made.  This is what makes sense to me right now, and it includes two big assumptions.

1. Darvish.  No brainer.
2. Harrison.  However, this spot will be skipped the first week.
   
3. Perez.  He'll have his act together by his next outing.  Also, this location my be wrong; he may swap places with the #4 starter.
4. Lewis.  All the news out of Surprise so far is that Lewis isn't just doing ok, he's doing great.  Good enough that he can hold done the middle of the rotation.
5. Hanson.  He's started out better than the best he ever did last year.

The Rangers are probably going with an extra reliever early on so they can keep Harrison and Lewis on low pitch counts.  So far, Kirkman is probably going to be this year's Scott Feldman.  Feliz may be one of the odd-men-out; while he performed well in winter ball, his spring performance has been terrible.  The rumors of "lack of effort" are starting to fly again.  Meanwhile, former KC closer Joakim Soria has worked effectively and efficiently, much in the mold of Joe Nathan.  Nothing overpowering, but everything done well.

Posted by: Ben at 10:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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First week of Spring Training notes and news...

First, some general baseball news:

Three minor league players are suing MLB for unfair compensation.  The claim is that minor league contracts haven't kept up with other salaries or the cost of living in general, and minor league players earn less than the current minimum wage.  Noted baseball author and former player Dirk Hayhurst writes in support of the lawsuit.

Fangraphs analyzes how much of their salary all of the teams devote to the starting lineup and the starting rotation.  Biggest non-surprises:  The Phillies devote the largest percentage of their payroll AND the largest payroll overall to their starting pitchers, $80 million.  However, the dollar amount is only a few million more than the Dodgers; The Yankees and Tigers both spend around $60 million and are near the top of the list in percentages.  The Giants are the second-highest percentage and the fifth highest amount at $57 million.  The Marlins are dead last by significant margins, at $3 million and 7%.

more...

Posted by: Ben at 11:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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