- OF Marlon Byrd signed to a 1 year contract [ Link ]
Rule V Draft
- SS Johany Abreu, RHP Kendy Batista and C Brian Munhall were selected in the Triple-A phase of the 2006 Rule V Draft [ Link ]
Don Carman
This week is filled with stories about Barry Zito, Mike Piazza, Vicente Padilla, and other names from the Winter Meetings. I want to take a minute to talk about former Ranger pitcher Don Carman. If you don’t remember Don as a Ranger, that’s not surprising. He had even less than a cup of coffee with the Rangers in 1992. His entire Ranger career was two games in 1992 for a total of 2.1 innings pitched. His name is not up there in Rangers lore with Nolan Ryan.
But that’s not why I bring him up. Visitors to my site know I’m also a Phillies fan, and have been since I was a kid. I knew Carman fairly well in the 80’s with the Phillies. A friend of mine sent me a link this afternoon to a story on slate.com about Don Carman and fan mail. It’s a really nice story which shows players aren’t all about what Scott Boras can get for them in negotiations.
It’s the story of a kid (now an adult) who wrote to Don Carman back in the 80’s and never got a reply back. Until now. 15 years later Mr Carman found a box of letters in his garage, and decided to write back to them. Some of the things told in this story are a nice thing to hear in this week of meetings that are so awash in cash, one wonders if Lucifer himself is behind all the evil that that much money does.
Anyway, check it out. It’s a pretty darned nice story to read. It’s written by a Bryan Curtis; I wonder if that’s the same Bryan Curtis who is a news reporter for NBC5 news here in Dallas.
I have a few of these outstanding letters myself from many a year gone by – I wonder if I’ll ver get some of them back – problem is the address I would have sent them from has been out of my family for a decade now. Oh well. :)
Andy Pettite
One guy I know some of my other Ranger fan website brethren have advocated, Andy Pettite, appears to be close to resigning with the Yankees. Ugh. I hate it when someone helps the Yankees, and you know that $7 mil a year we’re sending Steinbrenner really frosts my weenie. ;)
Seriously, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Pettite here, but I didn’t think it was a realistic option. I figured it would be Houston, New York, or the baseball game that comes with the Nintendo Wii.
Padilla re-signs
I was at the Stars / Sharks game tonight at the AAC. I return to find out we’ve apparently resigned Vicente Pidente to a 3 year $33 million deal, with a team option fourth at $12 mil (or $15 depending on whose story you’re reading).
It’s probably a signing we needed to make, and given the overall market, it’s what he’ll get – probably more than he deserves, but if he can hold up 2006’s performance I’ll take the pitching, even if the paycheck is bloated.
I’m tired, I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow.
Arbitration Decisions
No surprises at all in the arbitration department. We offered it to Vicente Padilla, and did NOT to Rod Barajas or Eric Young. I would have been stunned if EY came back, and the same with Barajas, and especially after his botched contract signing up in Toronto.
On another note, the A’s did offer it to Barry Zito, which is probably just a formality so the A’s can get an extra pick. Assuming we sign Zito (big if), I’d surrender our draft pick for that.
Also, not that this would affect us in any way, but I noticed that the Padres offered salary arbitration to Chan Ho Park. He’s been in the majors for some time now – what the heck does he still get salary arbitration for? I would have thought he was past that by now.
Barry Zito
You know, having been here watching the Rangers as so many big name free agents come through here, the skeptical side of me wonders how much of Barry Zito’s eventual contract will be driven up by the free agent’s token appearance in Texas today.
But then the kid that is still left in me (after contracts, steroids, ticket prices, quarter billion dollar contracts) wakes up and goes “BARRY ZITO IS HERE!“. That pitcher that takes a teddy bear on the road with him is here! Yay!
For some reason, this visit seems promising. Even if we don’t get him, I won’t come away from this one feeling used like I usually feel (Clemens, Johnson) when one of these visitors signs elsewhere.
Most Ranger fans I talk to don’t say Ron Washington was their first choice to be manager in the recent sweepstakes (I certainly didn’t think that – always liked him from afar, but never considered him my manager material). But if it pays off with Zito, then I bet you you’ll see a lot of revised opinions in that regard (mine’s already changed after listening to the man).
Scott Miller on the Rangers
Scott Miller over at CBS Sportsline really torched Jon Daniels for being so inactive this off season. I’m not sure if it’s worthy of as many words as Miller wrote. Take out all the irrelevant fluff in the article and it’d be about half the length. And it boils down to him not liking us not doing much.
While it is a bit of a eyebrow raiser that we haven’t done much, I’m not terribly concerned. I like the quote of Daniels saying that he doesn’t want to sign someone just to have an announcement. Some of the more “baseball worthy” quotes from the article:
The Rangers right now are like that guy in Airplane who periodically observes things like, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking” and “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.”
Things keep going like this, the Texas Rangers’ 2007 lineup will consist of a cardboard cutout of Nolan Ryan, a Jeff Burroughs bobble-head and a pair of Alex Rodriguez’s sweaty old spikes. Oh, yes, and Michael Young at shortstop.
In Texas, meanwhile, the Rangers right now would get out-shopped by Charlie Brown for a Christmas tree.
Texas’ Alumni Club is growing more rapidly than Notre Dame’s vaunted Subway Alums, and the Rangers aren’t even BCS-eligible.
I’ve liked Miller for awhile, and while this one article won’t change my opinion there, I have to say it’s got some really dumb writing in there as evidenced by the quotes I’ve picked out above.
If you want to read the entire piece, you can do so here.
Luis Alicea is back in the majors
Former Rangers infielder Luis Alicea is back in the major leagues. He’s been hired to be the first base coach for the Boston Red Sox. I always liked Alicea – who was mentally paired with Roberto Kelley as bench players in the late 90’s.
It’ll be nice to see Alicea again, who I believe is the last Ranger player to hit an inside the park home run in Arlington. Could be wrong, but I seem to remember it being the last Ranger one.
Rangers to resign Pidente?
Adam over at lonestar ball thinks so – he linked to a story at ESPN (which is behind their pay area, darn it), saying this:
I’m hearing that [the Rangers] are closing in on a deal to re-sign Vicente Padilla.
Be nice to see us resign one of our own free agents. :) Vicente Padilla Pidente is probably the best option for us to sign a veteran starting pitcher. Especially one that doesn’t seem fazed by our ballpark. Resigning him would allow Josh Lewin to talk about he “random plunking of a batter” he used to talk about with Chan Ho all the time.
I can’t seriously see Zito coming here, and I don’t want Schmidt (injury problem), and Eaton wasn’t a realistic option, I thought. My guess as to what it will take? Four years, $36-$40 million. Or three with a easily vestable option fourth.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 244
- 245
- 246
- 247
- 248
- …
- 521
- Next Page »