Rangerfans.com

I’ve decided that I’m going to try and shamelessly steal an idea that Joey over at BBTia does which is offer my thoughts on the stories of the day. I probably won’t be able to do it as regularly as him, mostly because i don’t always have time in the morning to peruse the stories, digest it and spit it out, I have stuff to deal with at work. hahaha. :) Anyway, here’s what I see today.
Minor Injuries: It seems that Brandon Boggs and Marlon Byrd are dealing with some minor injuries. Boggs has an inflamed right shoulder (and got an MRI), and Byrd is recovering from a knee surgery. Byrd has apparently declared himself 75% healed, and there’s not a ton on Boggs. In the various scenarios we’ve been hearing, I haven’t heard much about Boggs. He was a nice story in 2008, but barring injuries to our projected front line guys, I don’t see Boggs cracking the lineup much this year – especially if Andruw Jones is on the roster.
Ben Sheets: Given Sheets didn’t sign with the Rangers and had surgery, he probably thinks he can make a major play with a team contending. I was hoping we’d do the sign for a two year contract with year 1 being next to nothing. Oh well.
Nelson Cruz: There was a nice article I read in the DMN about Nelson Cruz and his turnaround last year. Apparently the fact that no other club claimed him when the Rangers released him was the turning point. If he continues that into 2009, I think it pretty much seals it for Brandon Boggs as I theorized above.
Number 21: Jarrod Saltamacchia has switched to #21, voluntarily giving up 25 for Andruw Jones. I covered this last week when I updated my uniform number history section of the website with all the spring moves. Anyway, some notes from the DMN say that it was done out of respect for Andruw. Uniform numbers are a big thing with me, so I like to make note of things like this.
Joaquin Arias: The same set of notes talk about Joquin Arias and playing short again in workouts so far. The last remnant of the Alex Rodriguez trade (either direct or indirect) is probably never going to make it with the Rangers, I would imagine. With Elvis Andrus all but being handed the SS job, and Michael Young going to third, I can’t see where Arias fits anymore.
Frank Catalanotto: Here’s another guy who I think would be off the club if his contract wasn’t what it is. He seems to have been relegated to almost 25th man; we barely saw him last year. This article talks about his playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic. It’s theorized he will probably see more action there then he will for the Rangers. Shame, as I really liked the guy, but when he came back, he “not hit” himself into the position he’s in. The Rangers website talks about this too, also including Travis Metcalf in this category of “just about forgotten players”.
Rudy Jaramillo & Steroids: OK, I’m breaking my steroids rule after only a couple of days, but not for the usual reason. This was an angle I had thought about a lot. With all the talk of Ranger players and steroids, did it diminsh the reputation of Rudy Jaramillo at all? He’s generally considered the best hitting coach in baseball, and if the Rangers were as roided up as has been theorized, perhaps Rudy wasn’t that great after all? I’d like to think that’s not the case, and this article by Jim Reeves addresses this issue. It’s a good read. Rudy’s also the last link back to the Johnny Oates era (well, OK Jerry Narron is also here in an advisory capacity), and I kind of like he’s still around – even if just for that reason.
Less than a week now till the first game of spring training.
Oh, and finally, thanks to Adam Stellar over at “Ranger Rumors” for naming me a “Hot Rangers Fan“. It was kind of odd to see that pop up. Not sure what I did to deserve that, but thank you. :)

So we’ve gotten going with pitchers and catchers. That opened on Saturday.
In a move that surprised me, Ron Washington has effectively named his starting rotation. Now. Before position players are supposed to report. If you had a rotation slated to include Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton, and a fifth of Roger Clemens, it seems odd to name your starting rotation this early. Especially when the names are Millwood, Padilla, Feldman, Harrson, & McCarthy.
Millwood & Padilla probably are both good #3 guys, but I’m not sure if either is #2 material, definitely not #1. Scott Feldman has done well for us lately, but I don’t think that’s truly a confident fan choice. Matt Harrison also has done well, but has little under his belt long term, and McCarthy? Can we have John Danks back?
It just seems odd to me to declare these guys the starting five. Obviously, anything can change between now and the start. It probably will, but I don’t understand the mindset of having things declared this early. I saw some line about having our catchers get in sync with the starters. That seems like a pile of bunk, to be honest.
There’s a boatload of other guys in camp that fall under the category of “rotation competition”. Does anyone really believe these are the five we’re going to battle with at the start of the season? I don’t.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to be hearing a ton of “Elvis has left the building” jokes this season. I’m sure I’ll make some of them, but I’ll try and space them out. So I thought I’d get the first one out of the way on the opening of Spring Training.

If you’re reading this site, you know that Spring Training officially opened today. Pitchers & catchers had their formal reporting day yesterday, and today was the first day of workouts. A good deal of the position players are in camp as well, which is no real surprise. But it’s nice to read reports on actual game play. Not too long before games start, either.

We did however, make it into spring training after an offseason where we signed nobody to a major league contract from the free agent pool. Everyone we signed as a minor league deal, which doesn’t count against the 40. The problem with THAT is if there’s a ton of them who play well enough to get roster spots, we’re going to have to get rid of some people to make that move, but we’ll see how it plays out.

First game is Feb 25th, but the first “real” game is Feb 26th, and it’s on the radio. This is good.

The Rangers announced this afternoon that our Spring Training broadcast schedule will be far greater than at any point in the past. Some highlights:

• Five games on TV! – In the past, we’d get generally two, and all in the last week. This time most of them are at the end of spring training, but there’s one early. The five dates are Mar 7 (White Sox), Mar 22 (Dodgers), Mar 25 (DBacks), Mar 27 (Brewers), & Apr 4 (Royals). The last one is the spring finale, and is in Arlington.
• 18 games on the radio! – This was previously announced when the new radio deal with 105.3 FM was announced, but it’s nice to see a lot more of them. You can check out my schedule page for spring training to see what is what there.
• MLB.com Gameday Audio – It was said that there will be eight (presumably other) games that will be webcast on Gameday Audio. I’m hoping it uses the Rangers guys, and not just the general MLB guys. The latter don’t make for a good broadcast, I think, since they spend most of their time talking about everything else except the teams on the field. The press release refers to it as “Texas Rangers Gameday Audio”. That could just be markting crap, and it’s the MLB guys, but I’m hopeful those will be actually listenable. The press release does NOT, however say which eight games. They only mention the first one, which is March 10th. If anyone knows the dates of the other seven, please pass them along to me. Thanks.

In addition, I went through my schedule for the regular season and updated game times. The schedule published a month or so ago had about 20 games with TBD as the gametime. That’s been rectified for all but one game, so I’ve gone ahead and updated my schedule with the proper times. The official press release talks about three other games that have had their times changed, I picked up those, too.
Saturday, June 20 at San Francisco: TBD to 8:05 p.m. CT
Sunday, August 16 vs. Boston: 7:05 to 1:05 p.m. CT
Friday, August 21 at Tampa Bay: 6:08 to 6:38 p.m. CT