SB Nation - Texas Rangers

Saturday morning Rangers stuff

Adam J. Morris — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:57:40 -0000

Nothing much out there right now.

Jeff Wilson says that Mike Lowell will be in Arlington today for a physical, which should allow resolution to the much-discussed Lowell for Max Ramirez trade by Sunday, one way or the other.

Ranger medical staff to examine Mike Lowell this weekend

Adam J. Morris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:00:55 -0000

More photos » by Charles Krupa - AP

9 days ago: FILE - In this April 25, 2009, file photo, Boston Red Sox Mike Lowell pumps his fist as he runs down the first-base line after hitting a three-run home against the New York Yankees in a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox are discussing a trade that would send 2007 World Series MVP Mike Lowell to the Texas Rangers. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

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T.R. Sullivan reports that the Ranger medical staff will be examining Mike Lowell this weekend, with the focus on Lowell's right thumb, which may require surgery.

Of particular interest is that Sullivan says that the Rangers apparently plan on having David Murphy be their primary DH, with Lowell thus being sort of a platoon partner for Murphy and a backup first baseman and third baseman.

M's trade Carlos Silva for Milton Bradley

Adam J. Morris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:56:56 -0000

More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

7 months ago: Chicago Cubs' Milton Bradley, right, argues with home plate umpire Larry Vanover after being called out on strikes during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Thursday, April 16, 2009. The Cardinals won 7-4. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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The Mariners have reportedly made a deal with the Chicago Cubs to send Carlos Silva to the Cubs for Milton Bradley.

The money here is similar. The difference is that Silva is not a good pitcher, and Bradley is a good hitter.

By adding Cliff Lee, Chone Figgins, and Bradley, the M's have pretty well established themselves as the primary contender to the Angels in the A.L. West.

The Rangers, as things stand right now, are the third best team in the A.L. West. It continues to be distressing to see the Rangers' competitors make moves to improve their teams, in the year that was supposed to be the Rangers' year to compete for a playoff spot, while the Rangers seem to be treading water.

Friday morning Rangers things

Adam J. Morris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:28:46 -0000

More photos » by Mike Fuentes - AP

8 days ago: New Texas Rangers baseball player Rich Harden, left, talks with team president Nolan Ryan during a news conference in Arlington, Texas, on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

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Quiet day in Rangerland today.

Richard Durrett has blog entries up about Clint Hurdle working with the Ranger hitters and Michael Young's thoughts on the Rich Harden acquisition.

Evan Grant says that Chuck Greenberg is saying all the right things at this point.

T.R. Sullivan is a fan of the Newberg Report.

And David Brown offers six Rangers prospects he thinks are the most likely to surprise next year and put themselves on the prospect map.

Davidoff: Nick Johnson heading to New York

Adam J. Morris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:46:55 -0000

Ken Davidoff is reporting that Nick Johnson is about to sign a one year, $5.5 million deal with the Yankees.

This bothers me.

Johnson, of course, started his career with the Yankees, and I would wager that, money being equal, Johnson would prefer to play there, for the defending World Series champs, rather than for the Rangers, the defending second place A.L. West team.

That being said...would Johnson have signed with Texas instead of New York if Texas had offered, say, $6.5 million? $7 million?

The difference between Mike Lowell and Nick Johnson is not insignificant, and an extra $3.5-4 million for Johnson would have been money well spent. He's actually a DH who is a really good hitter, as compared to a DH who is a decent hitter for a third baseman.

This frustrates me. And I'm not sure if this is a situation where the Rangers just simply couldn't afford him, in which case my frustration is with Tom Hicks (which, of course, is just a drop in the bucket overall), or a situation where the Rangers just decided that Lowell at $3 million was a better deal than Johnson at $6.5 million (for example), in which case my frustration is with Jon Daniels and the rest of the front office.

Would you like to see an "Ignore" option on LSB?

Adam J. Morris — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:04:49 -0000

Would you like to have an "ignore" option on LSB, so that you could put certain commenters on "ignore" and not see their posts?

Cast your vote...

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Would you like to have an "ignore" option on LSB, so that you could put certain commenters on "ignore" and not see their posts?

Thursday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:09:33 -0000

More photos » by David J. Phillip - AP

LaTroy Hawkins and Glenn Robinson faced each other in high school. This is the kind of thing that passes for news in December.

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Some things to read while trying not to dance.

LaTroy Hawkins was in Milwaukee yesterday for his physical, making his deal official (FanShot). As mentioned previously, he's due $3.5 million in 2010 and $4 million in 2011, plus $550k available if he maximizes his incentives. One thing I didn't know until reading it afterwards: Hawkins grew up in Gary, Indiana and played basketball against former Buck Glenn Robinson.

I've mentioned previously that the bullpen situation is starting to fill up, but realized yesterday that I've been leaving Carlos Villanueva out of all of my projections. As Adam McCalvy noted in his story on Hawkins, the bullpen now has Trevor Hoffman, Hawkins, Todd Coffey, Mitch Stetter, Claudio Vargas, Carlos Villanueva and David Riske, and barring a trade or injury, it looks like Chris Smith, Chris Narveson, Chuck Lofgren and Zack Braddock, among others, are on the outside looking in.

While there may not be much competition for a spot in the bullpen, there will be an interesting race to see who opens the season as the backup catcher. View From Bernie's Chalet handicaps the candidates, and is hoping for George Kottoras to open the season in the majors, with Jonathan Lucroy in AAA and Angel Salome on the trading block. Two quick thoughts on that:

Kottoras is out of options, so unless one of the prospects blows him out of the water this spring, he'll likely make the team.
You can never have too many catchers, so don't be surprised if the Brewers hang onto both Lucroy and Salome and try to work out some kind of rotation in Nashville.

Speaking of competitions involving backup catchers, we need your vote to help select a backup catcher for the BCB All Decade Team. As of this writing, Mike Rivera leads Jason Kendall by 15 votes.

At Mike Cameron's press conference in Boston yesterday, we heard some insight for the first time into Ken Macha's feeling toward the running game last season. 2009 was the first time in Cameron's career he's had single-digit stolen bases, and he said he "ran into a little situation where I had to abide by the rules of the manager, even though I’ve been pretty successful, I mean, 80 percent of the time that I’ve ran." Macha has admitted he'll have to open up the running game a little more this season, but this is the first time I can recall hearing a player talk about restraints last season.

Every now and then the Mug provides me an "Ask and you shall receive" moment. Yesterday I asked about differences in attendance at Miller Park based on the starting pitcher, and Wisconsin Sports Tap did the research, discovering no correlation. Many, if not most, Brewer tickets are probably purchased too far in advance to predict starting pitching assignments, so that's likely what I should have expected.

In the minors: FanGraphs unveiled their Top Ten Brewer Prospects yesterday. Alcides Escobar sits atop the list, as he likely will in just about every set of rankings coming out this winter, but Brett Lawrie climbed in front of Mat Gamel for the #2 spot. We'll be doing our Community Prospect Rankings in January, and I'm curious to see where Lawrie will rank there.

Around baseball:

D-Backs: Signed pitcher Rodrigo Lopez to a minor league deal.
Dodgers: Signed infielder Jamey Carroll to a two year deal worth $3.85 million and signed reliever Luis Ayala to a minor league deal.
Orioles: Signed reliever Mike Gonzalez to a two year deal worth $12 million, and third baseman Garrett Atkins to a one year deal.
Rangers: Signed pitcher Geoff Geary and infielder Ray Olmedo to minor league deals.
Tigers: Re-signed infielder Ramon Santiago to a two year deal.

The Blue Jays, Phillies, Mariners and A's also finalized their four way deal involving Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. It's been a time for change in Toronto over the last few months: Jordan Bastian noted that the Rogers Centre features three-story images of Alex Rios, Scott Rolen, B.J. Ryan and Roy Halladay. All four will now need to be removed.

In the interest of keeping conversation going and providing fresh content on the site each day, I occasionally post things that wouldn't be front page-worthy during the season, but keep things lively in December. Occasionally when I do that, someone stops by the comments to make sure I know I'm wasting their time, or ask why we're voting for bench players on the All Decade Team. Yes, I know those posts aren't hard-hitting news, but they beat spending a day ranking and discussing your favorite Pixar movies, like Keith Law and Rob Neyer did yesterday.

Earlier this week he celebrated a birthday, and today former Brewer Matt Kinney is the subject of Lookout Landing's Faces series.

Happy birthday today to 1986 and 1989 Brewer Bryan Clutterbuck, who turns 50.

Drink up.

Thursday a.m. Rangers things

Adam J. Morris — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:17:46 -0000

More photos » by LM Otero - AP

4 days ago: FILE - This is an April 8, 2008, file photo showing Texas Ranger owner Tom Hicks in his box during a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Arlington, Texas. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig called Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009, a "hard and fast deadline" for Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks to submit a prospective buyer for the team to the commissioner's officer. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

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The stories this morning are still largely about the ownership issue...

T.R. Sullivan writes that the best-case scenario is that the new ownership group is in place by Opening Day, but that nothing is going to happen in time to change what the Rangers are able to do this offseason. Sullivan also writes that the Rangers expect to have Mike Lowell in for a physical this week, and that their interest in a front-line catcher has waned, with the team being more inclined to bring in a someone to compete for a job, rather than a John Buck type established major leaguer.

Richard Durrett offers highlights from Chuck Greenberg's comments to the media yesterday. He's saying all the right things, including that there will be more money in the budget for payroll that there is right now, and that he's going to let the baseball people run the baseball side of things.

Sullivan has a story up with quotes from Nolan Ryan about the change in ownership, with Ryan saying that he does not expect significant changes.

Jeff Wilson writes that, at one time, Chuck Greenberg had David McDavid, not Nolan Ryan, has his primary local partner.

Randy Galloway has a column up on Ryan has team president, talking about the Matt Purke situation and Ryan's efforts to install his own people in the baseball side, saying that some in Ryan's camp think he's been too slow in removing the "other element" from the baseball side of things.

Esteban German and Clay Rapada have each cleared waivers and been outrighted, reducing the 40 man roster to 38. In addition Geoff Geary and Ray Olmedo have signed minor league deals.

An Attempt to Quantify the Division, beta edition

Matthew — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:25:14 -0000

It's great to know how the Mariners' projected team is stacking up, but ultimately we do not play in a vacuum but in a four-team division. In order to establish some relativity to our discussions, I went about compiling a version of the sheet that Jeff posted below for the other three teams.

First the caveats. This is a gross estimation. I am nowhere near as knowledgeable about those teams as I am about the Mariners and thus projecting depth charts was a lot tougher. That being said, most of the fringey decisions (is Macier Izturis or Brandon Wood the starter at 3B for the Angels?) do not represent much variance in terms of projected production. When I wasn't sure, I defaulted to the player with the better projection.

As for the following, they are a combination of CHONE and me glancing at past history in WAR, tRA, UZR and the like in order to determine what I thought felt about right. These are not precise, but I am pretty comfortable thinking that I overshot as much as I undershot. I am also including my own version for the Mariners, which I did independently of Jeff's.

If you have any corrections to offer, please do so in the comments. If you do it politely, you'll be listened to.

THE ANGELS

POS	Player	WAR	POS	Player	WAR
C	Napoli	3.5	SP	Santana	2.5
1B	Morales	3	SP	Weaver	3.5
2B	Kendrick	2.5	SP	Saunders	2
3B	Izturis	2	SP	Kazmir	2.5
SS	Aybar	2.5	SP	Palmer	1
LF	Rivera	2	CL	Fuentes	0.5
CF	Hunter	3.25	Pen	Assorted	1.5
RF	Abreu	2	TOTAL	-	13.5
DH	Matsui	2
Bench	Assorted	1
TOTAL	-	23.75

THE ATHLETICS

POS	Player	WAR	POS	Player	WAR
C	Suzuki	3	SP	Braden	2.25
1B	Barton	1	SP	Anderson	3.5
2B	Ellis	2	SP	Gonzalez	1.5
3B	Chavez	1	SP	Mazzaro	1
SS	Pennington	1	SP	Outman	1.25
LF	Buck	1	CL	Bailey	1
CF	Davis	2	Pen	Assorted	3
RF	Sweeney	2.5	TOTAL	-	13.5
DH	Fox	1
Bench	Assorted	0.5
TOTAL	-	15

THE MARINERS

POS	Player	WAR	POS	Player	WAR
C	Johnson	0.5	SP	Felix	5
1B	Hannahan	1	SP	Lee	5.5
2B	Lopez	2	SP	RRS	2
3B	Figgins	3	SP	Snell	1
SS	Wilson	2	SP	Morrow	1
LF	Saunders	1.5	CL	Aardsma	1
CF	Gutierrez	4	Pen	Assorted	1
RF	Ichiro!	4	TOTAL	-	16.5
DH	Carp	1
Bench	Assorted	1
TOTAL	-	20

THE RANGERS

POS	Player	WAR	POS	Player	WAR
C	Teagarden	0.5	SP	Harden	3
1B	Davis	0	SP	Feldman	2.5
2B	Kinsler	4	SP	Feliz/Holland	3.5
3B	Young	3	SP	Hunter	1.5
SS	Andrus	3	SP	McCarthy	1
LF	Murphy	1.5	CL	Francisco	1
CF	Hamilton	3	Pen	Assorted	2
RF	Cruz	3.5	TOTAL	-	14.5
DH	Borbon	1
Bench	Assorted	1
TOTAL	-	20.5

THE STANDINGS

	hWAR	pWAR	Proj. Wins
ANAHEIM	23.75	13.5	85.25
SEATTLE	20	16.5	84.5
TEXAS	20.5	14.5	83
OAKLAND	15	13.5	76.5

Some notes:

-The Athletics project to spread a lot of innings around 7-8 starters, hence the higher WAR in their assorted pen.
-I combined Feliz and Holland into one slot since I figure they'll total out to about 200 innings.

Obviously, the offseason is nowhere near complete and teams are still filling holes. That is why the WAR totals here are lower than you'd expect. The Angels are 9 wins below their 2009 total, the A's 8 wins, the Mariners 1 win and the Rangers 5 wins. It's unlikely that all four teams (though not impossible since all four were above average in 2009) take a step backward in 2010. Still, hopefully this can provide a starting point for us to figure out a better estimate for the division as the winter progresses.

Fantasy Baseball: Raygu's MDC Mock Draft Results

raygu — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:00:28 -0000

by Mark J. Terrill - AP

25 days ago: FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2009, file photo, St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols hits a single during the sixth inning of Game 2 of the National League division baseball series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, in Los Angeles. Pujols was unanimously voted National League MVP on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009, becoming the baseball first player to repeat since Barry Bonds won four in a row from 2001-04. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

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I participated, I use that term loosely, in a 12 Team Mixed League mock draft over at Mock Draft Central on Monday night. I missed alot of my picks because I was busy following the Roy Halladay trade rumors. But I made sure I made my fist three picks, as I was picking from the first position.

Here is how the first two rounds went:

R1 P1 Albert Pujols

R1 P2 Hanley Ramirez

R1 P3 Chase Utley

R1 P4 Alex Rodriguez

R1 P5 Ryan Braun

R1 P6 Mark Teixeira

R1 P7 Tim Lincecum

R1 P8 Matt Kemp

R1 P9 Prince Fielder

R1 P10 Miguel Cabrera

R1 P11 Evan Longoria