The news that the red sox are in the market for a stopgap shortstop til Jed Lowrie is back got me wondering if at some point this season, the rangers aren't faced with an offer for vizquel. Assuming we are still in the playoff hunt, do you flip omar if the deal is right (e.g. Lofton for MaxRam) regardless of where you stand knowing that this still should be used as a building year and you want to get one of the AAA infielders some MLB experience, or is he too valuable of a mentor to elvis and good clubhouse presence that you hang on to him? Would love to get the LSB consensus on this.

So the Natinals made a decision this year to stop having vendors hawking hot dogs in the stands during games. You can only buy a hot dog from one of the food court vendors. They still have 100s of people running around selling beer, peanuts, even little pizzas, but no dogs.

Word I received was that this is deliberate effort to get people to have to leave their seats so that they would be tempted to buy more food. This seems completely wrong, why are they messing with the fabric of the game?!!

I'm all for capitolism, but capitolistic efforts that endanger the American way of life are the tools of communists and cowards. The Natinals are communists, that is why they removed the 'o' from those jerseys, just like they have removed the 'o' pportunity for me to enjoy a dog and a beer without having to leave my f'in seat.

This is why the nats are losers (that and their record).

Anybody else seeing this at other parks? Trying to decide if I'm being irrational or if i should continue my plan to sell black market dogs at the stadium ..."hey you, kid... want a weenie?"

I'm not a lawyer, but I know we have plenty of them here. How about we start a collective, pool up some cash and buy a stake. I've got 30k I'm looking to invest to start us off ... any takers?

Anyone have any thoughts on what a small investor or group would need to buy in at a reasonable level? Would Hick's sell to a collective of fans?

I may have had too much to drink already.

Some speculation in a few places (ESPN) about the Reds possibly interested in moving Arroyo. His salary is scheduled to more than double the next two years, topping out at $11m in 2010. Seems like a pretty reasonable contract for a guy you could control for the next two years and could give you 200+ innings a year as a 2nd/3rd starter to help stabalize the rotation and save the bullpen. Especially if you trade Padilla and somehow manage to dump Millwood. I wouldn't mind a rotation next year of some combination of: Free Agent Signee or Padillia, Arroyo, McCarthy, Hurley, and filling out the 5th spot btwn: Mendoza, Harrison, Hunter, Gabbard, etc.

I haven't been able to discover what Cincy is really looking for in return on any trades, but I could see Cincy being intererested in some of our position player prospects and maybe an A-ball arm in return. What about a 4A, Duran or Vallejo, and an arm like K. Gomez for Arroyo? Interested in him at all? Different package?

Really great report up from Mike Hindman that takes a deeper look at the precocious kiddie corp pitching for Spokane:

"The Northwest League is largely populated by recent college draftees and second year high school draftees -- most players are between 20 and 22 years old.

The pitchers Spokane is running out there include 17 year old lefty Martin Perez,  18 year old righty Carlos Pimentel (pictured, courtesy of Scott Lucas), and 18 year old righty Wilfredo Boscan. They're good.  Really good.  And it hasn't taken them long to start to prove it."

http://rangersfarmreport.mlblogs.com/

Tonight will be my first visit to the new National's Stadium. It should be a great night for a Rangers' win. Nationals have scored the fewest runs in all of baseball which means even our bullben should hold up. Throw in the 5th most runs allowed in all of baseball and that leaves me calling for the weekend sweep. I also think FOTF will have the best weekend of any of our hitters (7 for 12; 3 dbls, 1 HR, 5 rbi).

Any other calls for top weekend performances?