Texas Rangers Mailbag

TR Sullivan’s weekly mailbag for the official Rangers site is up. Normally I don’t point those out, because I figure if you’re reading my site, you’re reading the official site, too, and don’t need me to tell you that. This time, however I want to point it out for two reasons.
First is the fact that there are no stupid trade scenario emails. TR Sullivan (Rangers/mlb.com) & Evan Grant (Dallas Morning News) handle the two biggest weekly Rangers related email newsletters. And the one thing that’s bugged me about both of them have been the persistent inclusion of totally stupid non thought out trade proposals. Now I’m not beyond my own goofy trade ideas, but these guys are pros. They know these things are dumb or unrealistic. What I want to know is why they keep publishing them? Are they that short on submissions that they need to publish those? Anyway, I’m glad this one didn’t have any, TR, let’s try and keep it that way, eh?
Second, there was a good question asking about the organization of the Rangers’ minor leagues. Now to someone like Jamey, that was a “skip” when reading I’m sure, but I thought it was good information, so I’m going to replicate it here. Thanks for that one, TR..

The Rangers have six farm teams. Let’s go from bottom to top with general but not necessarily strict guidelines:
Arizona Rookie League Rangers — This team starts in June right after the First-Year Player Draft. It consists of high school players from the Draft and young Latin players in the United States for the first time. Almost all players are 20 and under.
Short-season Class A Spokane Indians — This is another league that starts right after the Draft. Most college-drafted players start here, plus players up from the Rookie League.
Low Class A Clinton Lumberkings — Each team has two full-season Class A teams in one of five leagues. The Midwest (14 teams) and South Atlantic (16 teams) leagues are considered the low Class A, which simply means the players are younger and less experienced. Clinton (Iowa) is in the Midwest League.
High Class A Bakersfield Blaze — The California, Florida and Carolina Leagues are the high Class A. Bakersfield, of course, is in the California League. The competition is a little tougher.
Double-A Frisco RoughRiders — The jump from Class A to Double-A is the biggest jump in the Minors. This is where you really can tell if a player is a serious prospect.
Triple-A Oklahoma RedHawks — This is the last stop on the Minor League ladder and some players skip this level (Ivan Rodriguez) and some (Young) only stay for a limited time. Many teams stock their Triple-A team with former Major League players to provide depth in case of injury.

One last thing on the trade proposal thing. If you guys are putting them in there for mocking the request, that’s fine, but you don’t seem to be harsh enough. I absolutely loved Steve Busby on the old KRLD call in show, as he’d mercilessly mock callers who spouted off stupid stuff – and there were a lot of them. If you’re not going to mock a stupid user submission email, then don’t publish them. :)