So, it's less than a month away from the Rangers' swing through the Bay Area. They play four against the A's from Monday 06/04 through Thursday 06/07, followed by three against the Giants from Friday 06/08 through Sunday 06/10. Anyone coming into town? I'd love to hang out with some of you guys and see the games surrounded by friendly faces. We could even go back the The American Bull for a game (that is where GoET, BaseballNorth, Alon91 and I saw many of the 2010 playoff games).

Who's in?

First off, I don't need tickets.  I have them.  Lots of them.  More than I want, even.  I've bought three sets of 2 tickets for ALDS Game 1, and will only be using one set.  Using both the Postseason Ticket Reservation system and "winning" the Postseason Ticket Opportunity, I ended up with two sets of ticket on the upper deck.  What I wanted was Lexus Club because I'm sitting with GoET for Game 2 and he is providing tickets there.  So, in order to provide equivalent tickets, I just bought 2 more on StubHub in section 232.  (BTW, I took two of a set of four, so there are two seats left if any LSBers want to join GoET and me: row 10, seats 11, 12 is us).

Does anyone here want to buy my upper deck tickets?  I'd rather sell them directly to an LSBer than sell them on StubHub and get peared with fees.  Two seats are in 312 and the others are in 320.  $75 each, no fees.

Since last year's visit to Texas for the ALDS worked out so well (0-2 against TB, but an awesome time at Tailgate I made up for it), I'm coming back again for this year's ALDS.  

Staying in downtown Ft Worth worked out well last time, even if it was a bit expensive. To defer the costs, I'm looking for a roommate to share a hotel in Ft Worth either Fri/Sat or Mon/Tue.  I've already got reservations at the Worthington on Fri/Sat and the Hilton on Mon/Tue. The reserved rooms have two beds and are non-smoking.  I'm not committed to Ft Worth, either.  If someone wants to share a room and prefers a different location, I'd be fine with that, too.

Speaking of Tailgate I, will there be a Tailgate IV for the playoffs?  I assume it is more likely if the Rangers have HFA and so play on Sat/Sun.

Is anyone else flying in and staying in FTW?  

It took me a while to get to this post, but I had to spend the day with my family after neglecting them from Thursday through Saturday while the Ranger pursued the AL West Championship (Woo!).  The Rangers games I went to on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were the best games that I have ever attended.  There are a few reason for this:

1. The company: I went to these games with LSBers GhostOfErikThompson, BaseballNorth, and alon91.  These are some of the best game day companions I can think of.  I look forward to watching the playoffs with them here on TV for Games 1 & 2, and in person for Games 3 & 4 (if needed) of the ALDS. I hope to meet more LSBers while in Texas.  Best Rangers fans on the planet.
2. This was the first time in a long time that I've been to a game that had real meaning.  I've been to games early in the season when the Rangers were still in the running, and I've been to games later when they were out of it.  This is the first time I've been to games late in the season when the Rangers were playing for something.  It brings an electricity to the game, even when you are in the visitor's stadium.
3. The seats we had.  For Thursday's and Friday's games, we were in the front row, right by the Ranger's bull pen.  Very cool to be that close and chat with the players.
4. The attention that being with a minor celebrity (TagDontTweet) and The Claw and Antlers banner got us was very unreal.   I lost track of how many people have pictures of us on their iPhone and digital cameras.

Some of the other highlights from the games:

• Meeting Jon Daniels, Chuck Greenberg, Jim Sundberg and Thad Levine (and getting them to sign the banner).  I was next to Greenberg and Daniels during the on-field celebration.  At one point he looked over at me and I pointed at him and yelled "You the Man!".  He pointed back at me.  Both he and Daniels were furiously working their Blackberries.  I can't imagine how many texts they were getting.
  
• Bullshitting with Taylor Teagarden and asking him if he knew about The Mantis.  He remembers the the mantis, but said the players didn't know about The Mantis.
  
• The look on Rich Harden's face when, after softening him up by asking him what it was like being on the visitors side of Oakland Coliseum ("really strange"), I asked him if he thought he'd make the 25-man playoff roster.  Insert knife, twist.
  
• The look on Matt Treanor's face when Deep commented a bit too loudly that he'd bang Misty May.
• Chris's (aka GoET, aka TagDontTweet) interview with John Rhadigan. We were on TEE VEEEEEEE!
  
• Chris annoying the A's fans with the vuvuzela.
• Getting my picture in to the DMN website.
• And, of course, WINNING THE AL WEST CHAMPIONSHIP!!

Some photos from the weekend after the jump

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I've got my plane tickets.  I've got my hotel in Ft Worth.  I've got my rental car.  I've got my new red Feliz jersey.  What I don't have are tickets.

Are any of you season ticket holder NOT planning on buying single game tickets to ALDS Game 1 when they go on pre-sale for you tomorrow?  Maybe you bought a full strip a while back...  If you are not planning on buying tickets for yourself tomorrow at 9:00 when your presale begins, would you be willing to pick up three tickets for GhostOfEricThompson, BaseballNorth, and myself?  I am a InsidePitch subscriber so I will be able to buy tickets starting Thursday, but I'm worried that their either wont be any seats left, or they will be crappy.

Some of us Bay Area Rangers faithful will be coming to Arlington for the ALDS home games, presumably on Sat / Sun. Coming in Friday afternoon, and leaving Monday morning.  I'd like to get some input from the locals about where to stay while in the Metroplex (what areas / hotel), where to eat, and what to do during the times when the Rangers are not playing. 


I'm assuming the best airport to fly into is DFW.  Should I stay in downtown Dallas?  What are the areas with good nightlife?  Is traffic from Dallas to Arlington bad on a weekend?  Will I need a rental car?

Update:  Based on feedback below, we'll be staying at the Embassy Suites in downtown FTW.  We got the rental car.  Now just need to figure out restaurants and bars and other stuff to do.  Must include at least one BBQ joint.

If the Rangers make the playoffs, I plan on making a trip to Texas to catch a couple of the home games. This will be my first Rangers home game (and my first trip to Texas).  How do non-season ticket holders get tickets without resorting to some sort of lottery?  I don't want to book a flight/hotel without knowing that I've got guaranteed seats.  And I'd prefer to sit with LSB-ers. Are any of you LSB season ticket holders able to get extra playoff tickets?  Would you be willing to sell them to a fellow LSB-er?  I was at the Oakland game yesterday with BaseballNorth and he said he wants to make the trip also.

Why do most manager only use relievers for a single inning?  Assuming that a reliever is not a LOOGY (and the Rangers have none of those at the moment), why don't all reliever get used for two innings at a time?  Assuming the innings pitched by your starters remains fixed, allowing your relievers to go two innings doesn't increase their load, it just distributes it differently.  Relievers would pitch two innings, then get an extra day of rest.  Has this been shown to adversely affect health or performance?  Most relievers are capable of going more than one inning.  They are not relievers because they don't have the stamina to pitch two innings. They are reliever because they didn't have the repertoire to go through a batting order multiple times. Pitching two innings would mean that they only face each batter one time, unless they are getting smacked around, in which case they would be pulled anyway.  What am I missing?  An obvious answer is related to match ups (LHP vs LHB, etc), but how often do you look at the box scores, most of the time, the relievers are coming in when the starter is done, they go one inning, then the next reliever comes in for an inning.  This is especially true in the AL.  In the NL, relievers tend to come in when the pitcher's slot in the order comes up.

I would have posted this in the LSB User Stats thread, but I couldn't get HTML tables to work in a comment.  Anyone know if that is possible?

I was looking at the profiles of the top 10 posters of 2009 and something jumped out at me. Can you see it?

From The Hardball Times, MLB is looking to hire someone in the DFW market to watch Rangers games and do the data entry for Gameday and other digital media feeds.  I'd be all over this, except I don't live in the DFW area (and don't have the required "pressbox experience").  But someone on this board must be qualified.  Make sure you know how to quickly enter the data for the double steal - I get sick of waiting for slow Gameday updates on the interesting plays.

Or at least we have, on many occasions.  This post has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while and the upcoming draft made me decide to post it now.  Back when we signed Kris Benson, people were talking about how the guy had to be good since he was a former #1 overall draft pick (?!?!).  I know that Josh Hamilton is also a former #1 and that got me wonder how many other #1 overall picks have passed through the Rangers over the years. So, I went back though all the previous drafts through 1965 and checked which players had played for the Rangers at some point during their careers.  I also looked up their WAR for the time they were here to get a rough idea of how much they were worth to the Rangers.

Ten #'1's have played for the Rangers. I'm not sure how that number compares to other teams.  If someone knows of a way to compile that information easily, I'd be very interested to know it.  Of the ten that played in Texas, six of them played at or below replacement level.  The total WAR for all the player in all the years they played for the Rangers is 35.9, but most of that is from A-Rod with his 24.6 Wins.  Josh is still here and we all hope that he will add to his total of 6.5 so far.  The Rangers have had the #1 pick twice, which is about you'd expect without looking at records with 30 teams and 44 drafts so far.  The Rangers have been historically bad, but not bad enough to get more than their share of #1 picks, unlike the Mets and Padres who have had five #1's each.

Notes for the data below.  Baines was aquired mid-season in '89 and traded mid-season '90.  He played 50 and 103 games for the Rangers in those season, respectively.  For Benson and Hamilton, their current WAR numbers come from fangraphs.com  All historical WAR, including Hamilton's '08 season come from baseballprojection.com.  FanGraphs and BaseballProjection have different number for Hamiltons '08 WAR (FG: 4.0, BP: 5.6), so they are calculating WAR differently. That makes Hamilton's total WAR number of 6.5 questionable since its adding apples and something similar, but different, to apples.

Player                  Drafted By      Year    With Rangers    Total WAR
Jeff Burroughs          Senators        1969    '72 - '76             8.1
Dave Roberts            Padres          1972    '79 - '80             0.0 (0.5, -0.5)
David Clyde             Rangers         1973    '73 - '75            -0.5
Floyd Bannister         Astros          1976    '92                  -0.7
Harold Baines           White Sox       1977    '89 - '90             0.9
Phil Nevin              Astros          1992    '05 - '06            -1.0
Alex Rodriguez          Mariners        1993    '01 - '03            24.6
Kris Benson             Pirates         1996    '09 - current        -0.3*
Josh Hamilton           Devil Rays      1999    '08 - current         6.5*
Adrian Gonzales         Marlins         2000    '04 - '05            -1.1

DJCahill wins the McCarthy Community Projection with a 4/60/40/4.2.  This is, of course, predicated on him not pitching in the majors again this year.  I'm expecting the stress fracture the take longer than expected to heal, then he'll have some sort of setback while on rehab (a blister, maybe?).  We can expect the obligatory "It's so frustrating.  Every time I start feeling good and pitching well, something else goes wrong.  I just want to help the team and show them what I'm capable of.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah."

I really wanted to be right with my prediction of 14//160/140/3.95.  I was really expecting him to carry the rotation this year.  As Adam would say: "Bah.".

Just clicking through the channels and got to MLB network and found the they are showing Nolan's 7th no-hitter against Toronto on May 1, 1991.  They just completed the 5th inning.  Note that I am in PST.  I do not know if MLB channel has same programming on at all times across US, so ymmv.

This reminded me of a memory I have from 1989 or 90 where I clearly remember another Nolan Ryan game where he had a no-hitter into the 9th when Julio Franco booted what would have been the last out.  The next batter promptly broke up the no-no.  I have googled around for this game, but I have been unable to find it anywhere.  Did a game like this actually happen, or did I dream it?

Up here in the SF Bay Area, John Madden (yes, that John Madden) has a radio bit every morning on KCBS (740 AM), an all-news station.  Its a pretty free-form 5-10 minutes where they chat about many topics,  but mostly sports or food. When its not football season, they sometimes get into some pretty strange subjects. 

So, this morning, they progressed from the All Star Game to the fact that this was the last year for Yankees Stadium. On many previous occasions, Madden has talked fondly about the smells and the dripping ooze that you find in the bowels of the old stadiums like Yankees Stadium and Fenway park, and that is, of course, where the conversation ended up again: stinky stadiums.  At this point, the KCBS sports reporter popped in and said that the smelliest stadium he's ever been in, including Yankees Stadium and Fenway Park, is... The Ballpark in Arlington!

Now, having grown up in Washington DC and now living in the SF Bay Area, I have never been to any of these stadiums, but I was wondering if that could be true.  Does TBIA smell?  I find it hard to believe since its a fairly new stadium.  When I eventually get to see a game at TBIA, should I stay away from the "bowels of the stadium"?

There is an interesting post on Beyond the Box Score about The Emergence of John Danks.  Its an analysis of his pitching this year and looks at the Pitch F/X data to see what has changed that led to his breakout year.  The things that jumped out at me were that he has added a new pitch (the cutter) and has added a couple of MPH to his fastball.

I still don't question the trade which I think was a good idea at the time.  What I do question is whether he could have put together this year's season in the Rangers' organization.  I don't think he could have for a couple of reasons:

1) I don't think Mark Conner and Co. could have provided the instruction to quickly add an effective fourth pitch, or to add 2 MPH to his fastball.  Ever since Hershiser left, I don't see a lot of improvement in our pitchers once they reach the Major League level.  This presumes that Danks would have been called up to the Majors, which brings me to my second reason...

2) I don't think he would have been given the chance to stay in the rotation after putting up the numbers he put up in Chicago in 2007 (which probably would have been even worse in Arlington). Chicago had the patience to let him learn and are being paid off for their patience.

Jeff Sackmann at Beyond the Boxscore has an article comparing the starting lineups of the SF Giants with the Redhawks, predicting number of runs scored.  The Redhawks and the Giants are each predicted to score ~3.5 runs per game.  For both teams, that assumes going against major league pitching (the reason that the Redhawks were selected is that all of the starters have MLB experience/stats available to predict against).  I

I take slight offense at his closing statement:

For Giants fans who need some consolation, don't worry: The Redhawks pitching staff is downright awful.