So last night when I went to bed we were still discussing the plane and the Phillies name had only begun to surface as possible contenders for Lee. So much to my surprise this morning when I woke up I saw all the hoopla about Lee signing with Philly. I immediately went into depression, anger, frustration, and other emotions that have since passed. I applaud our front office and ownership for putting the best possible deal out there they felt comfortable with and can't fault them for Lee choosing other factors in his decision.

But now where do we go. Looking at the FA landscape there isn't anyone out there who is either feasible (Adrian Beltre) or worthy IMO of a long term, three years or longer, deal (Carl Pavano, Vlad, etc). We obviously have money to spend and previous ownership groups may have simply thrown money away at the firts available person they saw which as we've seen can destroy a franchise for a long time. I don't think this current group will make those mistakes. Heres what I would do now that Lee has signed elsewhere.

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Wanted to wait until after the rangers were eliminated before posting this. At the beginning of the season a lot of people were concerned about the upcoming 40-pocolypse where we had several tough decisions to make regarding prospects who were going to need to be added to the 40 man roster this winter but not many spot available.

As the season has progressed, some prospects have been traded away, some have failed to keep their prospect momentum from last season, while others who were on the fringe of the radar have leaped directly onto the map. So heres a quick look at offseason roster and some of the tough decisions facing the front office in the next few weeks.

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OK so about 6 weeks ago I took a look at the upcoming roster crunch this coming winter. Its been dubbed the "40-pocolypse" due to the sheer volume of prospects that will need to be added or risk being exposed to the rule 5 draft.

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We are now 6 weeks into the 2010 season. As many of you know this upcoming offseason has been dubbed the 40-pocolypse due to the large amount of prospects that will need to be added to the 40 man roster or risk being exposed to the rule 5 draft. I figured now would be a good time to take a quick peak and see how some of the candidates are doing.

First lets look at the current roster and who will and wont be here next year.

Pitchers:

The Locks: Beltre, Feldman, Feliz, Harrison, Holland, Hunter, Kirkman, Lewis, ODay, Ogando, Phillips, Ray, Strop, Wilson (14)

These guys are pretty much locks for next year

Free agents or contract options: Frankie, Harden, Oliver (1)

Frankie is gone. Harden has a mutual option which basically means hes gone but could resign. Oliver has a club option only $250,000 more than hes making this year so he may be brought back if he shows hes still got it after this season. For the purpose of this discussion I am counting him toward the end of year total.

Uncertains: Hurley, Madrigal, Mathis, McCarthy, Moscoso, Nippert, Poveda (5)

Hurley and Poveda are both coming off serious injury and how they heal and do this season, in Hurleys case, could go a long way to determine if they lose their 40 spot. McCarthy is out of options after this season so while he may not lose his 40 spot until spring training if they need a spot he may get the ax early. Mathis, Madrigal, Moscoso and Nippert may get DFAd due to the influx of talent for and the less of a need of multiple long men. For this exercise, I am going to count Hurley, Moscoso, McCarthy, Nippert, and Poveda on the roster with the others getting dropped.

Position players:

The Locks: Salty, Teagarden, Andrus, Davis, Kinsler, Smoak, Young, Borbon, Cruz, Hamilton, Murphy (11)

Only question could be on the catchers depending on their situations.

Gone: Treanor, Vlad (0)

Dont see either back although I wouldn't mind keeping Vlad around but I don't think the mutual option will get it done so he won't count for this exercise

Unknowns: Max, Arias, Boggs, Blanco, Gentry (3)

Max, Boggs and Arias are both out of options either now or after this season so both will have to make the 25 in 2011 or be DFAd. Blanco falls under team control but I doubt we keep him around. Gentry could be a 40 casualty if we need a spot. For this exercise I will keep Max, Boggs and Gentry.

Thats 34 players who I believe will be on the 40 after this season leaving only 6 spots for prospects to protect them from the rule 5 draft.

Now lets take a look at some of the contenders for those spots (in no particular order)

Scheppers: Doesn't have to be put on till after 2012 but few, if any, here think theres a chance he doesn't get added at some point this season

Engel Beltre: His recent surge in baseball skills and plate discipline are a wonderful sign from this toolsy kid. Still crazy young and if he continues this for the rest of the season I don't see anyway he doesn't end up in Frisco at some point.

Wilfredo Boscan (possibly): Currently holding his own in Bakersfield. Barring several injuries or promotions I don't see him hitting Frisco this season. Less than 3 BB/9 and about 2.5 K-BB is pretty nice.

Wilmer Font (possibly): A little wild this season and has been hittable but that arm is still electric. Pitching in Low A he could see Bakersfield this season.

Danny Gutierrez: Should be coming of his suspension in a few weeks and then looks to be in AA most of the season. Considered before the season as a possible bullpen piece late in the season in the majors his curveball is a really nice pitch.

Kasey Kiker: My boy. I really want him to succeed but god he can't throw strikes right now. Hes always been a little wild but this season has been epically bad. Part of me wishes theres an injury to give some sort of excuse but I don't know.

Marcus Lemon: The ultimate do it all guy. Probably not a ML regular anywhere but should have a nice ML career as a utility man.

Mitch Moreland. Burst onto the scene last year and after a slow start this season has been strong lately.

Beau Jones: Just came back from injury and was great in his first appearance. Pitches in AA currently and could see AAA by years end. Possibly LOOGY.

David Paisano: The Latin Wind. Should be seeing Frisco real soon. Has been hitting well this season to go along with his great defense.

There are other fringe guys but these are the main ones IMO. Scheppers is a lock most likely before the season ends. The other 5 slots will be difficult to decide. If I had to choose right now I would say Gutierrez, Moreland, Lemon, Beltre, and Font.

Rule 5 list was from Scott Lucas' site.

As a note, Miguel Velazquez was not on Lucas' site and I don't believe he would need to be protected due to his time lost to legal issues he may be coming up soon. If he is then he needs to be protected IMO.

Well no one has started a Winter Olympics thread yet and with the Opening Ceremonies starting up in a few minutes I figured it would be a good idea to get one started.

Click here for the Olympic Schedule

Also a sad start to the games as a luger on a practice run died earlier today. Link to CNN story

Hopefully we can get a few recs and keep this at the top of the recommended section for the next couple weeks while the Games are ongoing.

Go USA!!!!!

So according to ESPN Pedro felt so good pitching during the playoffs and World Series he wants to pitch all season in 2010. Last year he signed a 1 million dollar deal with Philly to pitch half the season. With all the talk of signing Sheets I think I would rather give Pedro a shot and it would probably cost the same if not less than what Sheets would. So who here would be interested in Pedro on a one year deal?

Im wanting to plan a ski trip for me and the girlfriend for this winter. Wanted to get any good recs from the LSB community. Im leaning toward Lake Tahoe and the Heavenly area. Anyone have any insight or experience there?

I haven't skied in probably 15 years and she never has so somewhere thats pretty newbie friendly would be nice. Also want somewhere where we can go do stuff at night. Also had looked into Park City in Utah. Any help would be much appreciated

Got this through the facebook feed just now:

The Rangers have let go three long-time employees: veteran scouts Mel Didier and Jay Robertson and equipment manager Zack Minasian.

Minasian has been with the Rangers for 21 years as the visiting clubhouse manager and the Rangers equipment manager. He moved from the visiting clubhouse to equipment manager in 1995.

Didier has been in baseball for over 60 years including the last six with the Rangers. He helped build World Championship teams with the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks.

Robertson has been with the Rangers in 2001 and came over with general manager John Hart from the Indians.

I wonder how much this is budget related. Didier was old so maybe he was just done with baseball. I imagine they are going with a younger (ie lower salary) for Minasians job.

As I sit here and watch a little bit of the Dodgers/Cardinals game, after catching up on some TIVOd shows, it gets me thinking. Everybody here is all up in arms over what to do with Feliz next year and the majority feel he needs to be in the rotation. My stance on the whole issue has been well known. I feel and felt from the time he got moved to the pen in OKC that was the signal he was going to be transitioned into a reliever full time. I have softened somewhat on that. I don't feel as strongly that he is going to be a permanent reliever but what if he is a reliever all of next year? Would that be the worst thing in the world? What if he did what Adam Wainwright did?

This idea came from watching Wainwright pitch. So I went to B-R and looked at his career numbers. Very impressive. But he spent his first full season in the majors at age 24 in the bullpen. St Louis won the World Series that year. Now im not saying Feliz in the pen would guarantee us a WS next year but look at that Cardinals team, and staff in particular and it wasn't like they had 5 Cy Youngs in the rotation ahead of him.

They had Chris Carpenter at the top who had a great year. They had a solid #2 in Suppan who threw 190 innings with a 4.12 ERA but not great peripherals. A K/9 under 5 and over 3 BB/9 while giving up over a hit per inning. Then its a grab bag of Jason Marquis who gave them 33 starts and over 194 innings but had an ERA north of 6. And the back of their rotation was pieced together between Mark Mulder (93 IP, 7.14 ERA), 24 year old Anthony Reyes (85 IP, 5.06 ERA), Jeff Weaver (83 IP, 5.18 ERA), and Sidney Ponson (68 IP, 5.24 ERA). 

Their bullpen was really good however with Wainwright playing a key role as a setup man for Jason Ishringhausen.

So while right now we look to go into 2010 with a rotation of Millwood, Feldman, Holland, Hunter, McCarthy I am thinking its more and more logical to keep Feliz in the pen next year at age 22 and roll with those 5 along with guys like Harrison and Nippert, etc.

I fully realize the NL Central is not the ALWest and that the Cards won their division with only 83 wins but I think with a resurgence from Hamilton and Davis, more consistency from Cruz and Kins, along with continued development for Elvis and Borbon and other guys Feliz may be better for us next year out of the pen late in games and then transition him back to a starter in 2011.

Let the flaming begin

Martin Perez, the Rangers 18 year old phenom, has just been promoted from Low A Hickory to their AA affiliate Frisco Roughriders. On the season Perez is sporting a 5-5 record with a sparkling 2.31 ERA in 93.2 IP with 105 strikeouts and only 33 walks.

Perez won't turn 19 until the start of next season. Look for him to be on a very strict innings/pitch count and either come out of the bullpen or start and only go 3 or 4 innings much like Neftali Feliz did last year.

Jason Cole's twitter page with the update

LSB's thread and reaction

Rosters

BA has the Futures Game rosters up. Only Ranger on the list is Feliz which is weird since we have the 31 farm system but only one representative while Houston and their pathetic farm have 2 players.

Since feliz looks to be in the bigs before the Futures Game I imagine he will be replaced. Don't know if it will be someone from our organization or not. If it is I would love to see Mr Martin Perez take his spot.

Coming off a season that was MVP quality up until he got injured, again, Ian Kinsler looks to have another breakout season. Last year he put up a line of 319/375/519 and I look for him to put up a similar line in 2009. I have him projected at 308/370/530. But the key is I have that in 660 plate appearances. Kinsler has never played over 130 games in a season as a major leaguer and never eclipsed 583 plate appearances which he achieved last year while hitting leadoff.

I look for him to continue hitting leadoff and have to err on the side of caution and expect a DL stint somewhere along the way. Hopefully not a long one this time but enough to not allow him to reach 700 PAs.

So what are your thoughts on Ian Kinsler in the 2009 season?

Anyone going to The Ticket's "Behind the Scenes" studio thing at House of Blues tonight? I can't but if you are please please report back here tonight. I am hearing some pretty unbelievable rumors from some pretty reliable sources that are telling me a serious announcement is forthcoming. Supposedly it will be talked about tonight. If true I would hate it. I worked at The Ticket for a couple years in the promotions department and can honestly say it was a great job and everyone up there are great people. I would hate to see it go where it may be going.

And for those who want to know what rumor I am talking about i don't feel it is right to discuss it on here. You are more than welcome to email me and I will give it to you how it was given to me.

Im sure this won't be as thourough as one that Adam or spursdynasty could do but I figured we could get a look at what, as of now, next years payroll looks like.

All figures from cots

Tom Hicks has stated that next years payroll won't increase significantly but could if the right situation presented itself. Presumably that would mean one of the top FA starting pitchers signed for below market value here (hello Mr Sheets)

Guaranteed contracts

Kevin Millwood: 11M

Vicente Padilla: 12M

Hank Blalock: 6.2M

Michael Young: 16M

Frank Catalanotto: 4M

Joaquin Benoit: 3.5M

Ian Kinsler: 3M

Total: 55.7 Million

As you can see Youngs contract is a big piece. I think we all pretty much agree he is overpaid but theres nothing we can do about that now. Kinslers extension may prove to be an unbelievable bargain. As of now only Young and Kinsler out of this group are signed past next year.

Arbitration eligibles (2009 projected salary listed, 2008 salary in parenthesis)

Gerald Laird: 2.5M (1.6M) Laird had a solid season for a catcher. I imagine he will ask for somewhere in the 3M neighborhood and they will settle for 2.5

Marlon Byrd: 3M (1.8M) Byrd put together another strong season. I actually think this        one could go to arbitrator with Byrd asking for somewhere in the 5M range and the Rangers only offering 3M

Frank Francisco: 1.25M (0.775M) Frankie could get more than this due to his late season role as closer. His second arbitration season.

CJ Wilson: 1M (0.42M) His injury probably cost him a bit more but he should break the million dollar mark. His first arbitration season.

Brandon McCarthy: 0.6M (0.4M) All his time on the 60 day DL caused this. He won’t get much of a raise but hes a lot closer to FA than hoped for after this past season. His first arbitration season.

Kam Loe: 0.5M (0.41M) Wasted season but his time up put him over the three year mark. His first arbitration season.

Total (projected): 8.85M

Total team (projected): 64.55M

Loe could get DFAd and Laird could get traded so that would affect this category. Overall that’s 13 players so far with 12 being guaranteed a spot on the roster if they are still here. The only one I see not being on the 25 man is McCarthy because he has options left and we may be squeezed for rotation spots

Pre-arbitration players (2009 salary projected but will all be similar to 2008 most likely)

Nelson Cruz: 0.42M

Wes Littleton: 0.4M

Scott Feldman: 0.5M

Josh Hamilton: 0.75M

Jarrod Saltalamacchia: 0.42M

Dustin Nippert: 0.4M

David Murphy: 0.425M

Travis Metcalf: 0.4M

Josh Rupe: 0.4M

Brandon Boggs: 0.4M

Chris Davis: 0.4M

German Duran: 0.4M

Matt Harrison: 0.4M

Eric Hurley: 0.4M

Warner Madrigal: 0.4M

Taylor Teagarden: 0.4M

Total (projected): 6.915M

Total (team projected): 74.465M

Kason Gabbard, John Rheinecker, Joaquin Arias, Luis Mendoza, Julio Borbon, Thomas Diamond, Tommy Hunter, Doug Mathis, Max Ramirez. All these players are currently on the 40 man who I project to start the season in the minors (if they are still in the organization) and who will make the minimum if called up. Now that list is 16 players which combined with the 13 above makes 29. Four too many for the active roster. I listed 3 catchers so one will most likely either be in the minors or have been traded. Also a couple of the young starters will probably start the season in OKC.

This doesn’t include a possible extension for Hamilton. If its like Kinslers was it wo’t take affect until 2010 anyway. Also this doesn’t have any free agent signings. If we did go out and sign say Ben Sheets we would be looking at a payroll in the upper 80s to close to 90 million. Not necessarily out of the realm of possibilities but highly unlikely.

Well hope this can create some discussion and helo people when they are considering who we can and can’t sign. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

Didn't see anything posted yet. Maybe most people are actually at the games. Anyway looks like Holland got the start in game 1 for Frisco instead of Feliz. Maybe someone knows the reason. I would assume Feliz pitches game 2 but I don't know.

OKC vs Iowa

Lizard 3 IP/ 1ER/ 1K so far. Down 1-0 top 4

Frisco vs San Antonio

Holland  1.2 IP/ 0 ER/ 1K so far. Tied at 0

Clinton vs Cedar Rapids

Beavan 2 IP/ 0 ER/ 1K so far. Tied at 0

Spokane goes at 8:30 vs Boise

Shroomers site has Nam going.

Tommy Hunter made a meteoric rise through the minor leagues this season. He even defied odds and was called up to the majors barely a year removed from being drafted. At the time we were decimated with injuries and he was on a roll. The only problem was his 40 status. He wasn't due to be added to the 40 man roster for another 2 years and as we have seen first hand when it comes to having to make decisions on players who are out of options I don't want to run into that problem with Hunter in a few years.

On August 16th he was optioned back to OKC. Under MLB rules as long as he spends less than 20 days in the minors he will retain his option for this year. The deadline to call him up and save his option is quickly approaching. By my count we have until Friday to do so.

Alot has been made of JDs roster management in his tenure here and I have defended him on most counts. The Galarraga DFA being the only major mistake I can remember. But if we allow one of our most promising young pitchers to burn an option a full two years before it is necessary when we have plenty of room on the roster for that person, that would be a terrible mistake. The rosters expanded on the 1st so that you can conceivably carry all 40 players on your 40 man roster in Arlington. I don't care if they want to shut him down and not have him pitch anymore he better be shut down in Arlington so we have 3 option years on him going into next year. Some people may think that is a trivial thing but with the amount of talent we have on the horizon it could become a big issue if it is not handled correctly. I hadn't heard any plans to bring him up like we did with Teagarden, Duran, and White which is why I broach this subject. Hopefully we do the right thing and not potentially hurt a guys future by a simple error such as this.

What are we? Does being in the DFW area make us a large market club? With the recent discussion about FA pitching and who we should and shouldn't go after this winter and the size of our payroll it got me wondering.

I think we are a mid level club who thinks they are a large market club. Our location means we should be a large market in the same tier as New York, Boston, LA and Chicago. Which is why in the winter we seem to have our name attached to the top names on the market. But we always seem to come up short. We as fans get upset but should we be? I don't think we should.

I believe we should be targeting the mid level guys. We should be the biggest of that level and should get those guys. Go back two winters. There was a good amount of pitchers available. At the top of the list was Zito and Dice-K with Padilla (coming off his 15 win season) as the tail end of the top group of FA pitchers. Then the second tier of guys included Lilly, Meche, and Suppan. We went hard after Zito and made an aggressive bid for Dice-K but came up empty handed and had to resort to Padilla. hes been good but what it also did was pretty much take us out of the market for those mid level guys.

Now look at this winter upcoming. With CC and Sheets arguably being the top of the heap with AJ Burnett as the tail end of the top group. The 2nd tier of pitchers includes guys like Oliver Perez, Jon Garland and Derek Lowe.

As Hindmans blog entry yesterday showed those high priced guys don't always end up giving the best results. Yet because we are in the DFW area most fans expect us to go after the top talent. I believe we should drop the notion that we are a large market club and settle in our minds as the biggest mid level franchise there is and use that to acquire talent based on that premise. With our offense we don't necessarily need shut down, ERA leading pitchers to be a winning ballclub. But we do need consistency and guys who we can depend on. Ive advocated signing Jon Garland for a long time. I think he would be the perfect fit in this rotation. he would slide into the 3rd or 4th slot and be asked to just go out every 5 days and give us the 6 or 7 innings he has his whole career. A 5 ERA will still be a 10 win pitcher most likely. We aren't Florida or tampa by any means but we also aren't the Cubs or Yankees. I don't think its a bad thing if we were just considered the biggest of the mid level teams.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3481747

Wow their season is truly headed down the drain and fast. I wonder if this ends the Bedard trade speculation or if he will be able to come back in enough time for them to drum up some interest in him.

Well as TAG would say, see ya ya 6'7" formerly good player. And if you are going to hit someone we would have hit one of their good players.

Well someone in the gameday thread asked for a transcript of Josh and Toms commentaryduring the melee at Safeco and since I couldn't sleep I figured what the hell. It starts when Sexson comes to the plate and ends when Gabbard starts pitching again. Tom got a couple more good quips in a little afterwards but frankly I was too tired to go on. Hope yall enjoy

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Looks like its not Hank that is going to the DL but Marlong Byrd. And we are going to get some German Duran action now.

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/i-hope-hes-hungry-to-face-brian-wolfe.html

Personally I am worried about what move they made to clear room for Duran. And I don't think he is ready for the big leagues. He had a breakthrough season last year at AA but then started this year slow. Now he is coming off an injury and will be sitting on the bench for 2 weeks basically. Personally I think he would be better served to play everyday in OKC then to play once or twice in the next couple weeks up here. Also we just lost a full year of evaluation time by putting him on the 40 man. Had we waited until September and brought him up we would have still had 3 options left going into next year. Now we will only have two and with Kinsler and Young/Andrus entrenched at his primary positions the more options we have the better.

I know after his first outing everyone wanted to get rid of the guy but I am glad he had a solid outing tonight. I think there were alot of factors that played into that bad outing. For one, he hadn't pitched in over a week. He had been traded during that time and had his first child born if I recall correctly. Thats alot to have happen to a guy in such a short amount of time. Add in the fact that he came in a game with an 8 run lead or something big like that and there wasn't any sense of urgency. He was just going through the motions it seemed.

Well tonight he looked really good. Arizona was in the same position we were in with Tejeda. A young guy with alot of potential but was out of options. They decided to trade him off. Hopefully he can get under contol here and be another young bullpen arm we can rely on. In any case I think tonight shut down any attempt to DL him to make room for Feldman on Monday.