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