It's interesting how we can overlook something when the Rangers win. I almost fell of my couch last night when, after O'Day walked the first two batters in the 9th (as if that wasn't bad enough), Kris Benson started throwing in the bullpen. The Rangers started yesterdays game with four relievers available - O'Day, Guardado, Benson, and Mathis. That's awful. For a team with playoff aspirations, that's just not gonna cut it.

The problem is that the Rangers are going to be very careful with Francisco and Jennings. This sometimes leads to O'Day being the only righty late inning guy available. Seems to me that a logical solution to this situation would be sliding Jennings to the long relief role. The Rangers often stretch him out in outtings anyway and how often does a team use its long reliever in back-to-back games? Once this is done, you get rid of Benson and send Mathis back to OKC. The missing piece is then a high K righty set-up guy. Maybe Feliz is the answer (personally, I'd like to see him stay in OKC with a late August call up) or maybe the Rangers should pursue a trade. On that note, JD needs to shit or get off the pot with the catching surplus.

The Dallas Cowboys have decided on a name for the team’s new stadium, but that’s being kept secret for now.

Officials however are willing to concede that they won’t have a corporate naming rights sponsor in time for the June 6 grand opening concert featuring George Strait. A month ago, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said he wouldn’t speculate about whether a naming rights deal would be secured by the stadium’s opening. On Thursday, the uncertainty was gone.

Any ideas/suggestions for the name?

MLB Network had a feature last night about all the empty seats at Yankee Stadium. We should see something similar with the Cowboys this year as they'll try their best not to aggressively discount tickets. We could see our first local blackout in recent memory.

DMN link

From the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park:

At some point, no doubt, we'll get an official statement. Till then, well, here's what the Wall Street Journal (subscription-only, sorry) has to add to the story of Tom Hicks's refusal to pay off Hicks Sports Group's debt:

Creditors to Texas financier Tom Hicks's Hicks Sports Group have declared the company in default, a measure that could eventually dislodge the Texas Rangers baseball club and Dallas Stars hockey franchise from his control.

To which The New York Times adds, for those without Journal access: "The Rangers baseball team and the Stars hockey team are now unable to pay both their operating expenses and their debt service, the newspaper said."

Sorry, in advance for having the two consecutive fanposts. Not much going on tonight. Thought it would be fun if we did our predictions for the 2009 season. I'll do mine in the comments.

More words:

"Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky"

- Montaigne

Still not enough - xxxx xx xxx xxxx xxx xxxx xxx  xx x xxx xx xx xxxxx  x x x xxxxx xx xxx x x x xxxx xxxx xxx

As most of you know, baseball-reference.com is an invaluable source of statisical info. The site was already great, but they recently reformatted it and it is now off-the-charts great. It's much more visually appealing and user friendly. Check out the Rangers '08 page. For, the pitchers, they now put the h/9, bb/9, so/9, so/bb, and hr/9 in the main statistical entry - here's Matt Harrison, sponsored by baseballismyboyfriend. And here's Kinsler's page, brought to you by LSB. Kudos to baseball-reference for a great upgrade.

Those of you who live in Dallas might already be aware of the recent attendance records set by the Fort Worth Zoo and Six Flags during Spring Break. Seems that, in this economy, families are traveling less, but they don't necessarily hole up in their homes either. Could this be a sign of attendance growth for the 2009 season? Possibly so, although season tickets, suites, and the new premium seats will almost certainly see slow sales.

It would also help if the team played some meaningful summer games. As Adam has noted, the organization has probably had more than one internal discussion about the importance of not tanking to start the year as they have the past two seasons.

      With contract offers being so depressed this offseason, it got me to thinking about how many players currently have over present market value contracts. I made a rough list. I only looked at players with guaranteed money of $2 million per year or more. My main criteria was "Would this player clear waivers?" - if the answer was "yes", then they are on the list. Some of these players are bad and some of them are very good - I'm in no way suggesting that all of these players will be put on waivers with the intention of giving them away. I'm sure you'll find glaring omissions and some guys are a stretch for this list - it's just a rough list.  Also, superstars with huge salaries who are still performing were given a pass and injured players who are in the final year of their contract were ignored.

      My thought is that, as teams start falling out of contention, they'll place these guys on waivers, not with the intention of working out a trade, but just as a plain salary dump. We could also see some trades with substantial money involved. It just seems that teams with financial wherewithal for 2009 and forward could be in a great position to take on some expensive, but good players for the price of the contract only. We could also see more players simply released, like Andruw Jones and Adam Kennedy, as teams just want to move on. It is difficult to gauge both the current financial position and future commitment of all ownership groups - I guess we'll find out more as this season plays out.

     Also, some of the players in the last year of their contract might clear waivers now, but would have positive trade value later in the season when the financial obligation is lower. All the contract info is from Cot's Baseball Contracts.

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