- P Bruce Chen signed to a minor league contract with a spring training invite. [ Link ]
Rangers sign Bruce Chen
From the “throw a lot of crap against the wall and see what sticks department” comes the news that the Rangers have signed home run specialist Bruce Chen to a minor league contract for 2007. He also got an invite to spring training.
Is anyone as excited about this move as me? He had a somewhat respectable season in 2005, but he’s been the definition of journeyman. Since he broke in, he’s been with:
Atlanta (1998-2000)
Philadelphia (2000-2001)
NY Mets (2001-2002)
Montreal (2002)
Cincinnati (2002)
Houston (2003)
Boston (2003)
Baltimore (2004-2006)
And now Texas
All I can say about this is given the sheer volume of candidates for the fifth starter position, if Chen (or anyone else for that matter) makes the club, then he will have earned it, given the sheer number of people going for the same thing around him.
Rick Helling Retires
Former Ranger Rick Helling retired on Monday. Rick was a great guy, and was someone I was sad to see go after the 2001 season. He came back briefly for a cup of coffee in our minor league system in 2004, but bounced around quite a lot since leaving after Arod’s first year in Texas. Rick was with us for a few seasons, making his debut in 1994, and then being traded in 1996 for John Burkett who was instrumental in the 1996 championship team. We reacquired Helling again in 1997, and he remained through 2001, producing these years the second time around.
1998: 20-7, 216.3 IP, 4.41 ERA, 4 complete games, two shutouts
1999: 13-11, 219.3 IP, 4.84 ERA, 2 complete games
2000: 16-13, 217.0 IP, 4.48 ERA
2001: 12-11, 215.7 IP, 5.17
While his ERA and wins didn’t keep up with his 1998 campaign, he certainly was durable, putting in a consistent number of innings. In fact, of all his seasons, these were the only four with more than 200 innings pitched. In fact, since leaving the Rangers in 2001, his travels were to the Diamondbacks (2002), Orioles & Marlins (2003), Twins & Rangers again (2004), Brewers (2005 & 2006). He actually signed a minor league contract with the Phillies on Jan 29, 2007, but retired Monday, about a week after that, claiming he wanted to be with his family. I can understand that.
So good luck to Rick in whatever he does in the future, to me the Rangers uniform #32 will always be Rick’s.
Fantasy Baseball
For my regular site visitors, I intend on doing the fantasy leagues I’ve done the last several years.
I checked this afternoon, and they haven’t announced the start date yet registration – once they do announce that, I’ll get something together for the site and announce it.
Thanks for visiting!
MLB 2k7
I’ve been playing baseball games since the 70’s when baseball games looked like this on the Atari 2600:
Now baseball games look like this:
The second screenshot is from the Xbox 360 version of “Major League Baseball 2K7” from 2K Sports, which is due in March.
I’ve been following this series since it was called World Series Baseball and it started on Xbox 1. It’s now called “MLB 2kx”, and a lot of reports called last year’s game a failure. I personally didn’t see that, but the developer took a lot of steps to make sure this year’s edition (and future ones) got significantly better. They hired the lead developer from 2K’s biggest competition, EA’s baseball game, which was generally regarded as better when they lost their license due to EA getting it. By all accounts, this year’s edition should be significantly better. The problem I suppose with last year’s edition is that nothing on it really seemed like it was ‘next gen worthy’.
But this certainly does. And that’s why I’m talking now. I will spend many an hour with this game when it comes out, as should you if you play video games and like baseball. The primary reason I started this entry was that I discovered tonight that the lead designer of MLB 2K7 has started a blog at gaming site 1up.com where he will be talking about the game. It’s definitely worth a read, check it out here: http://mlb2k7.1up.com. Additionally, there’s several eye popping new screenshots out, you can check out that archive here. There’s several previews for the game out at IGN, IGN again, Gamespot, amongst others. There’s also the official website at 2K.
The game is scheduled to come out on March 5th for the following platforms:
You can click on any of those to pre-order a copy at Amazon.com.
I really wish they had done a Wii version – I found that the Wii controller system was excellent for the copy of Madden 2007 I have for the Wii. I would hope we’d get a real baseball game for the Wii with the 2k8 edition, and not the tech demo baseball game that comes with that console. Anyway, I’ll be playing on the Xbox 360, that’s my platform of choice.
Take a look at the links and previews above – the game looks impressive.
MLB Extra Innings
For a few years (a few years ago) I subscribed to the MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV. It allowed you to see a lot more games than you normally would. You can’t see everything, mind you, but you get to see a lot. A lot of fans are addicted to this package – I personally stopped getting it when I realized I was watching about 90% Rangers games, the cost for the packge didn’t make it worth it for me. But it’s worth it for others, and I bet a lot of those “others” are pissed off at the story MLB is cooking up with Extra Innings.
While the agreement hasn’t been formally signed and announced, everything points to the MLBEI package being a DirecTV exclusive product starting this season in a similar fashion to the NFL Sunday Ticket package (which I do subscribe to). Folks who got MLBEI on cable will be left out, unless they switch to DirecTV, of course. This is all about a cash grab, and it doesn’t strike me as the best strategy, unless they feel that the money they’d get from MLB would offset the loss of revenue from folks who will not switch to DirecTV.
One thing that is coming out of this will be a 24 hour baseball channel on DirecTV, starting in 2009 according to this article over at “The Biz of Baseball”. I’ve linked to these guys several times, and if you aren’t reading it regularly, you should. For some reason, as I got close to 40, I became a lot more interested in the business side of baseball. I still love the sport, love watching games, always will. But I love the backside stuff now a lot more than I used to, and TBoB is a great site for this kind of thing. Make sure and check out their updated article on the MLB Extra Innings deal, which has some nice details on the matter.
Sammy Sosa
- OF Sammy Sosa signed to a 1 year minor league deal with an invite to spring training [ Link ]
Sosa Officially signs
Well, Sammy Sosa officially signed with the Rangers today. $500,000 minor league deal with a boatload of (as of yet) unspecified incentives. Be nice if he could be the old Sosa, but recent history says he won’t be, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll give Jason Botts a chance. :)
Press conference at 1PM tomorrow. Ought to be interesting.
Jamey Wright
- P Jamey Wright signed to a 1 year minor league contract with a NR invite to spring training [ Link ]
Meyer, Morban
- IF Jose Morban signed to a minor league contract
- IF Drew Meyer assigned to AAA after clearing waivers; given NR spring training invite [ Link ]
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