Does anyone else have the same reaction on TV when Josh Lewin says “We go to Jim Knox”? For me that means hitting the fast forward button on the TiVo. I’d rather watch the staff clean up the ballpark after everyone’s gone home.
I actually switched over to watch a minute or two of women’s basketball. Actually was waiting for the Giants/Nats game to start on ESPN2, but some women’s basketball game is in double overtime. Surprised they’re sticking with that, and not showing Bonds.

Is there anyone else secretly wishing that Vicente Padilla doesn’t come back from his injury at all? As a human being you don’t want to see someone hurt, but as a baseball fan… I kind of like what we have now.
Anyone else feel the same way?

Just in case you didn’t know about the bridge accident in Minneapolis, go read this.

If you are seeing this message, then you are seeing the new look for my site. The look that I used to have was not one I was terribly happy with from the moment I launched it. A few weeks back, Six Apart, the folks who make the software that drives this site (Movable Type) launched a new v4 beta. It’s got a boatload of new features that would make the way I do this site an awful lot easier.
One of the things in the new software package was a bunch of new themes, and I took the opportunity to use that as a key to redesign the site. This is mostly stock software actually – the theme has some customizations (the header graphic, the baseballs), but is mostly “out of the box”. Their “out of the box” is a lot better than it used to be. :) Big thanks to Thijs Leenders for his help with the graphics.
One of the larger more updated sections is my seat selector section. It’s something I started on my own in 1999 on this site, years before the Rangers did it themselves. But this new version lets me cut a lot of waste out of the site. You see in the old version I had three editions of the seat selector (regular, large, extra large). There was an HTML page for each version, because I used to show the images as a pop-up. There are 177 sections in the ballpark, with another 25 or so hidden areas, so there’s roughly 600 HTML pages. This new version does it very differently, so I could drop the popups, saving myself conversdion of 600 HTML pages. Plus the new version of the site just looks a lot cooler.
I’ve cleaned up text formatting, just done a lot of cool stuff to make everything look nicer. I hope you think the same.
One change though – if you were reading the site’s updates via an RSS reader, you may need to resubscribe, as the rss feed url has changed depending on which format you were using in the past. Additionally, if you want to leave comments, you will have to log in and create an account. For some reason Typekey isn’t working, that could be a bug, as this is still technically beta software. If you have any questions about using the new software, let me know via email.
I’ll also be looking at the forums and the gallery to see if I can style them the same and make ’em look more like the “main site”. I also need to fix the captcha issue in the forums, as well as here. Edit: Nevermind – fixed it on the forums. Now I need to fix it in MT.
Thanks again for visiting. Glad you took the time to come.

OK, Teixeira has been traded. I can’t say that surprises me in the least. Even with the Boras factor ignored, I don’t think many Ranger fans thought he was going to stay here. Those comments he made a couple of weeks ago regarding “fun conversations with Baltimore in a year and a half” were pretty damning. I can’t speak to his “happiness” here, as I’m sure we’d get the Bull Durham lines about wanting to help the team win, etc… But I think most everybody seems to think it was inevitable that he would be moved.

So OK, that leaves a few possibilities. First, we keep him through his final arb year of 2008 and let him walk at the end for draft picks. That was so seriously not likely to happen, I can’t even fathom it being thought about. Second, we trade him. If you trade him, that gives you three realistic options. Trade deadline now. Trade deadline in 2008, and the off season between 07 & 08. If you are going to trade a player like Mark Teixeira, you want to maximize the value you get for him. That’s actually what you generally want to do in any trade, but especially for something like this.

So OK, we’re trading him. You go out and see who wants to take a player who will likely get $12 million in arbitration next year, the final year of his contract, where it’s widely expected he will go out on the market and not just automatically resign. That kind of rules out trading at the deadline in 2008, since it would be for just two months, and you’re not going to get a ton of value if you trade him 12 months from now. I also don’t think the offseason is the best time, the best time to trade him if you’re trading him at all is now. At least this way we can have a handle on what other pieces we might need in 2008 when we go into the offseason in October.

OK, we’ve arrived at now being the optimum time to trade him being now. So you go out there and see who wants him? While he is under control for next season, as I said he’s arb eligible, which means he’s likely making $12 million next year. That fact alone limits some of the teams. Plus not everyone will need the player as they have others there already. So that narrows it down. The widely talked about teams in this trade scenario were the Braves, the Angels, and the Dodgers. Heard the Diamondbacks in the last couple of days, but my gut says that wasn’t a realistic option.

So OK. You then look down what each team offers. I know most people will scream “pitching please” as a return. As would I, but one has to be realistic about it. Are these teams going to send us their best pitcher or pitching prospect for Tex? No, they’re not. So you look at the best option for all of them. For the Angels, the best option for pitching I saw was Ervin Santana. Eh. For the Dodgers, the word was that the Rangers wanted Clayton Kershaw. By all accounts, that would have been a spectacular move. But LA didn’t want to give him up. I probably wouldn’t have, either. That left the Braves and their package.

There’s also the issue of trading Tex inside our own division to the Angels, something that I would have a hard time dealing with. It’s always annoying when you trade a fan favorite and a good player away, but it’s worse inside your own division. We would have to have been absolutely bowled over with an offer from the Angels to trade him there. That didn’t happen, so I’m glad about that.

So Teixeira is traded away with Ron Mahay for four players. One major leaguer, and three prospects. By all accounts the two named ones are great prospects (not marginal ones), and the fourth is unknown yet, rumored to be another pitcher. First, let me say breaking down individual players is not my strength. That is a strength of Jamey Newberg, so I’ll defer to him on the actual playing abilities of each of the guys we get. But I do have a few words.

Inbound we get a switch hitting catcher Jarrod Saltamacchia. I kept hearing that he can play some first base. In trading away a player of Mark Teixeira’s caliber for a player who is primarily a catcher, the immediate first thought is What about Gerald Laird?. There was some talk a day or two ago that we were looking at trading Laird & Mahay to the Cubs for Felix Pie. I find that hard to believe – while Pie is supposed to be a stud, I can’t see where that trade makes much sense from the Cubs standpoint. Anyway the question will be where will Salt play in Texas? Laird is our front line catcher, and we did just bring in Adam Melhuse, so we don’t really need another catcher, although Salt is a switch hitter with a lot of power. Do we play Salt at first base? Does that bump Wilkkkkkkerson back to part time duties in the OF? We’ll see.

The others are infielder Elvis Andrews, who is supposed to be a very good infielder, but he’s at A ball, so he’s awhile away from making a big impact. There’s also pitching prospect Neftali Feliz, who has some decent numbers, he is in rookie ball. Even further away. The fourth player is unknown, but supposedly pitcher Matt Harrison, but there’s some injury concerns, which is why he’s likely to be a PTBNL in this deal.

As for Ron Mahay, while he’s pitched OK for us, I can’t see him being here super long term, either – and he’s what 37 I think? Nice guy, but I don’t think will be seriously missed.

Is this a blockbuster trade? No, probably not. However, all things considered, we probably got the best we could get. Yeah, there’s some question marks about the minor leaguers, but when isn’t there about minor leaguers – honestly? You’re not getting a team to give up a front line starting pitcher here, so this is probably the best you can do. My overall opinion is probably “eh”, but I think that’s more based off of the fact that you knew Tex was going to go anyway, not the players back. Once those remarks about “fun conversations” came out a few weeks back, you kind of knew this day was coming, and that’s where my feelings come from. I’m OK with the players in return, just annoyed we had to trade him in the first place.

Why did I write all this? I’m just tired of knee-jerk reactions of people in call in shows who say things like “No major league pitching? This automatically sucks”. I detest sports call in shows, because most of the people who call in generally have no friggin clue about the larger picture. This post won’t change that behaviour, but at least will get some steam out of me. I wish Steve Busby was back on the KRLD post game call in. I loved how he would mock people calling in with that kind of attitude. I miss that. Busby had some balls on the post game show.

I do have to admit to being curious what Michael Young’s remarks about the trade will be.

In addition to the photos I took of the Ballpark out at the doubleheader on Tuesday, I also took some photos of Jerryland, which is being built next door. The panoramic shot posted above was actually four jpgs I stitched together to make what you see. I took them standing at the back of the Dr Pepper Youth Ballpark which was right on the other side of Mark Holtz lake. For those of you who had any doubt, this definitely qualifies as a “next door” neighbor. If you’ve ever been to Baltimore or Pittsburgh and seen games there, then this will feel the same. If you stand in Oriole Park, and look out the upper concourse across the parking lot, you can see the Ravens stadium. Same in Pittsburgh. Stand at PNC Park, and you can see the Steelers’ home (Heinz Field) on the far side of the parking lot.

Jerryland and The Ballpark in Arlington are separated by more than just a parking lot – but not much more. I hope that when it’s all done, they won’t put things inbetween like buildings that will block the view. My guess is Jerry won’t want people to not be able to see Jerryland from the Ballpark anyway, and that’s unlikely to happen. :)

The shot below was taken where my seat was, which was the last row in Section 326 behind home plate. I did zoom in a bit, but not much – the place is pretty darned close.

Well, last night was the All-Star game. I didn’t get to see any of it. Why?
Late in the afternoon my wife told me the air conditioning broke in our house, and as such we were dealing with that – which mostly involved trying to keep our two year old cool and happy. I also was fixing a leaky faucet underneath the sink in teh bathroom.
Between two trips to Lowe’s and the baby, and being hot.. All I really got to watch was the player intros, and I did get to see a few minutes which included Ichiro’s inside the parker. That was it. The game had been over for 45 minutes by the time I actually got to sit down where I could watch it if I wanted to. Didn’t want to, I was too hot and too upset from the day’s events.
The only reason I’m even posting this is I saw a comment saying something like “..since you don’t have an All Star Game post…”. :)
Michael Young did not get in the game, but that’s OK with me. His time was last year. Ron Washington was out there as third base coach for awhile, that was nice to see.

You know, when I was watching the Home Run Derby tonight, I have to admit at the start wanting Ryan Howard to win. First because I’m a Phillies fan, and second because he was the defending champ. However, after the thing got started, I have to admit that I wanted Matt Holliday to win the thing. Something about him seemed like “nice guy”. Not that Howard or any of the other guys aren’t, just wanted him to win. But I’ve always been a Vlad Guerrero fan, going back to his days in Montreal. So I was glad he got it.

I did not start watching the Derby until about 9:30PM. This is a good thing, as it allowed me to skip all the garbage in between hitting the balls. It’s toned down a bit, I really detested the accosting of the player coming out of the batters circle to ask them what they thought. GAH – hate that! Thank God for TiVo so I can skip all that, and just watch the balls being hit.

And speaking of the balls, did anyone else have serious issues simply finding the balls in flight? I could barely see most of them in flight, it wasn’t until you saw people again that you could pick up the balls.

Chris Berman seemed to be much more toned down than in previous years. Much less of “back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back ” on home run calls. That’s good. I don’t mind that shtick by him, but it really has gone overboard in the last few years or so. Nice to see that pulled back.

I still would have loved to have seen Bonds in this thing. I actually don’t totally mind his stated answer as to why he wasn’t doing it, which I heard on XM today as “I feel it’s time for the young kids to have the spotlight” (I’m paraphrasing there, but you get the idea). Nice PC answer, but still a bit of a surprise to hear that.

Also, what is with the disrespecting of Albert Pujols I think it was by spending most of his time at bat yakking to Arod about the Yankees? Who cares? I actually watched that in 2x speed so I could still see, and not have to listen to that. Ugh.

There were some really nice overhead views of the Giants park. To anyone reading this who has actually attended games there… Is that really nice view of the water even viewable from the lower deck seats? From the way the stadium is constructed, I would think you’d have to be in the upper deck to get that great view.

And speaking of “views”.. Check out these shots I saw of all the boat guys in McCovey Cove (was nice to see Willie McCovey out there, too)…

Honestly – it seems stupid to be in the mosh pit like that. I imagine people getting stuck under capsized boats. And what’s with the last one? Do they see the ball coming and all back away or something? If not, how does the ball find that little spot of open water in between all those boats like that? :) The funny thing about all those guys out there was the fact that I don’t think more than 3-4 balls were even hit out there. I can only recall one for sure, and one that might have gone in there. There had to be more than just 2, right? :) Oh, and they should have had more shots from Kenny Mayne’s camera. That was pretty amusing.
And finally, this has nothing to do with the Home Run Derby, but.. Did you see the footage from the Rockies / Phillies game on Sunday? The footage of the tarp being blown around by high winds? It was quite amusing to see the Phillies players all run out on the field and help out the grounds crew by holding the thing down. Not sure why the Rockies players didn’t do that, but the footage was quite amusing, although it did look like some of the grounds crew could have seriously been hurt. Check out a story about it, there’s a video clip, too.

P.S. back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back