SB Nation User Blog: NorCalRangersFan

Rangers MLB Stat Stringer wanted

NorCalRangersFan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:53:32 -0000

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.

BBA ROY Awards

NorCalRangersFan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:22:58 -0000

BBA ROY Awards

Filed under the category "Does anyone care?"

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance is doing its own awards. Noted baseball bloggers (Adam, are you one of them?) are voting on the same awards as the BBWAA. Bill Baer of CrashBurnAlley.com (Phillies) tells us who he is voting for. And, yep, you guessed it, it's Elvis. If it wasn't would I have wasted time putting up this FanShot that no one will read?

BDD's ASTRO Scores

NorCalRangersFan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:22:11 -0000

BDD's ASTRO Scores

Baseball Digest Daily has created a new stat/ranking called ASTRO (Adjusted STrength of Remaining Opponents). It ranks teams by difficulty of remaining schedule.

Of the three teams we currently care about (Rangers, Red Sox, Angels), the Angels have the most difficult schedule remaining. They actually have the seconds most difficult schedule after the poor Royals. The Rangers schedule is pretty tough too, as they just break into the top 10. The Red Sox check in at number 18.

Angels: .557
Rangers: .516
Red Sox: .490

OT: San Jose Sharks sign the Darin Erstad of the NHL

NorCalRangersFan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:25:49 -0000

OT: San Jose Sharks sign the Darin Erstad of the NHL

He short. He's scrappy. He's got grit. He's white (but its hockey, so that goes without saying). He "brings a clear ingredient to our team" (whatever that means). And he's not very good. I wonder if he was a punter in college.

We've got #1!

NorCalRangersFan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:33:52 -0000

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

I'm calling a winner

NorCalRangersFan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:42:18 -0000

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.".

Props from BtB for one of our own.

NorCalRangersFan — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:34:37 -0000

Props from BtB for one of our own.

Sky Kalkman has a nice shout out for our own philkid3 on his work on the Top 25 Rangers list.

Rangers Team Report on Yahoo!Sports

NorCalRangersFan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:40:40 -0000

Rangers Team Report on Yahoo!Sports

Nothing real interesting there except that this quote jumped out at me.

"Kevin Millwood, who was challenged last fall by club president Nolan Ryan to have a full spring training or lose his rotation spot, had a solid first outing of the spring"

Was this ever mentioned anywhere in the local media? I don't ever remember reading a quote from NR like that.

On MLB Network NOW!

NorCalRangersFan — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:45:08 -0000

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?

LAAA Outfield

NorCalRangersFan — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:37:52 -0000

LAAA Outfield

BTB's R.J. Anderson is not all that impressed with the Angels in the Outfield.