The 2008 Rangers TV schedule has been released. No huge surprises about it, although I have a few things to say.
It appears that more of the games are being shown on Fox Sports Southwest than before. The schedule shows 110 of them there. 48 are on “free TV” on KDFI-27, and two are on Fox 4 (home opener & July 13th). That totals 160 games. Up until a couple of years ago it was pretty much guaranteed there’d be 162 games televised. The last few years it seems it’s 160. Does anyone know (for real) why there are two that aren’t? Is this a tradeoff for the two we get televised during spring training? It seems with all the money (there’s that word again) going around baseball and TV, they’d do all of them. You would THINK they’d jump at the chance to sell more commercial time. I don’t understand that.
Anyway, the other two could be broadcast, as this schedule doesn’t list any national games. There’s always a few games that get rescheduled for ESPN Game of the Week, or Fox Saturday afternoon baseball or something like that. So this probably isn’t set in stone. Also, there’s no HD schedule yet. It doesn’t affect me personally, as I haven’t been able to afford to buy one of those yet – hopefully soon.
Another interesting thing is this new “FSN Plus” channel, which will be showing the 50 “free TV” games on an alternate cable channel. Read this from the press release about the schedule:

FSN Southwest will distribute the 50 over-the-air games broadcast in Dallas Fort Worth in the team’s outer markets on FSN Plus, a second channel available to participating cable systems. Games on FSN Southwest will be shown in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of New Mexico and on FSN Plus affiliates in markets where there are programming conflicts.

I have DirecTV here, and see them all anyway, but I’m a little unclear as to the purpose of this. If I subscribe to a system that has access to “FSN Plus”, I’d be able to get the free TV broadcasts anyway. While I don’t think this is bad, it just is a bit of an eyebrow raiser – I don’t get it. Can someone who does please explain it to me?
The Rangers site has a press release about the schedule, as well as a downloadable PDF TV schedule of each game and which channel it is scheduled to be on.
I’ve started updating my 2008 schedule with this. I haven’t posted it yet, because I’m doing something new in 2008, and it’s incredibly tedious to set up – it takes me about an hour or so to do one month. But it will pay off as the season gets started. I hope to be finished some time early this coming week with that.

Ian Kinsler was signed to a five year contract extension, with a team option for 2013.
This effectively voids the $400k contact he signed the other day as it goes into effect now. The total dollar value is $22 million for the five years. The sixth year is a $10 million option with a $500k option.
More details as they come in.
UPDATE: I’ve got a breakdown of the 5 year guaranteed stuff. It does replace the $400k contract for 2008.
Signing Bonus: $1 Million
2008: $500,000
2009: $3 Million
2010: $4 Million
2011: $6 Million
2012: $7 Million
2013: $10 Million club option w/ $500k buyout

The Rangers site has a press release stating that 14 players have been signed to 2008 contracts. These are all guys we control, so the numbers aren’t going to be bigtime here.
In fact, as I write this, only one number is out, that’s Ian Kinsler’s figure of $407,570.
Evan Grant thinks that this isn’t a big deal, and it probably isn’t. He even classifies it as a “good faith” move from Kinsler’s people about a 2008 contract. The list of folks who signed for 2008 today are:
Joaquin Arias – $391,000
Brandon Boggs – $390,000
Nelson Cruz – $398,150
Scott Feldman – $397,430
Kason Gabbard – $396,380
Josh Hamilton – $396,830
Matt Harrison – $390,000
Ian Kinsler – $407,570
Kameron Loe – $410,690
Luis Mendoza – $391,000
Max Ramirez – $390,000
John Rheinecker – $395,320
Josh Rupe – $392,000
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – $396,710
That leaves 11 other unsigned players.
UPDATE: The Ft Worth Star Telegram blog posted dollar values for all of them. I’ve updated my list.

As has been reported the last couple of days, Kevin Mench has signed a minor league deal with the Rangers that includes an invite to spring training. Let’s hope this repeat appearance of Shrek is better than the most recent repeat appearance of Shrek in the movies. Blech.

Several stories in the last few days said that the Rangers were asking for a guarantee that he would accept an assignment to AAA should he not make the club. The Dallas Morning News is reporting that was part of the deal, but it’s not indefinite. That’s because there is a reported condition that if he’s not added to the major league roster by June 1st, he can request his release from the club. Kevin doesn’t strike me as someone who is beyond his days to be stuck in AAA going downwards. I suspect he could hook on with someone if he’s not here past June, so I expect he’ll be gone if he’s not in the majors. The deal calls for a $600,000 salary if he’s on the opening day roster, although it doesn’t say how much he gets if he gets called up later; probably a prorated number from that salary.

It makes the competition for the OF a bit more crowded. I would see his main competition being David Murphy ( who was wearing Kevin’s old uniform number last season), Jason Botts, & Nelson Cruz. Cruz is probably on his last straw with the Rangers, and Botts probably isn’t serious competition, as he’s not the best outfielder around.

Be nice to have him around again. I wouldn’t mind seeing the commercial with him and Rangers Captain back on the airwaves – that was one of the funnier ones around. Actually the Rangers site says it’s available, but since mlb.com switched to a new media player, a lot of their older clips like this are all broken. Figures.

This is really a no risk move for the Rangers. My gut feeling is that he doesn’t break camp with the club, though.