- P Jayson Duroscher signed to a 1 year AAA contract and given an invite to Spring Training
- P Jose Silva signed to a 1 year AAA contract and given an invite to Spring Training [ Link ]
Miguel Tejada? Oh, now this is interesting
Miguel Tejada wants out of Baltimore.
Should we go get him? Oh hell yes. What would it take? Probably Joaquin Arias, one of Danks/Diamond, and probably Hank Blalock. I wonder if the Orioles would try and tack on Javy Lopez to that. It probably won’t happen, but oh man would that be cool.
Mike Young has already said he’d go back to second base if the right situation presented itself. I think Miguel Tejada would be the right situation. :)
Busy day for me. I just realized this was my eighth entry of the day here. 9th in the last 24 hrs if you count the Soriano trade story from last night. I’m not sure I’ve been that prolific before, but then again today’s been a busy day in Rangerland. :)
Feel free to use the comments system here to respond to anything I’ve said.
Rule 5 stuff
Read on the DMN site where the Rangers lost no players in the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft today. We did, of course end up with Fabio Castro via the Royals (via trade for Esteban German). That’s good, as I was worried we’d lose some of our good players. We did add and lose some in the minor league phase, though. I’ll quote from Jamey Newberg‘s report on that one.
In the AAA phase of the draft, Texas lost utility man Cameron Coughlan to Oakland and added three players: outfielders Alexi Ogando and Jayce Tingler and lefthander Estelin Soto. Unlike the big league phase of the draft, the minor league phases don’t carry any roster requirements, and so Coughlan is lost to the A’s and Ogando, Tingler, and Soto are now Ranger property.
Reaction to Soriano Trade
There’s a few articles out now with player response to trade. Pretty predictably, Soriano was sad about it, and Brad Wilkerson was excited.
Wilkerson’s reaction
Soriano’s reaction
Baseball America’s Reaction – has some good insight on Sledge & Galarraga.
SI’s Tim Verducci
Also, there’s an article where the Nationals expect Soriano to play the outfield. Good luck with that. Every time it was talked about him playing the OF either with the Yankees or the Rangers, he went into a funk, it seemed. Perhaps Frank Robinson can work on that, but I’d be surprised if he stays happy there all year. Anyone know if he was solely a 2B when he played in Japanese ball?
Additionally, you should check out the Official Nationals Message Board at mlb.com. Has some interesting fan reactions.
Kenny Rogers signs with Tigers
That didn’t take long. According to this story, Kenny Rogers has signed a two year deal with the Detroit Tigers the night after the Rangers formally cut ties with him by not offering him arbitration. That part is not a surprise, really. The surprise is that it’s a two year deal for $16 million. $8 Million a year for Kenny Rogers, eh? Wow.
At least it’ll bring back the battery of Kenny to Pudge. Provided Pudge doesn’t whine his way out of Detroit.
Roster Transaction
- IF Esteban German traded to KC Royals for Fabio Castro (1st overall Rule 5 pick) [ Link ]
Turn Back the Clock Series
In going through all the sections of my website during this offseason, I ran across the old “Turn Back the Ranger Clock” section. It was a series of articles written by Jeremy Northrip for my website. There were two sections in it. One being “Ranger Player from the Past”, and the other being “Worst / Best Trades in Team History”.
He did these during the 2000 season, and got into January of 2001, and then disappeared, unfortunately. It was a good series, and I never found out what happened to him. He completed the 5th through 2nd worst trades in history before he stopped. The worst trade (in his opinion) never was published, and he never got the best trades in history. I’ve contemplated picking up the series a few times over the years, but I don’t know enough about the 70’s & 80’s Rangers to make a guess in regards to trades back then – I didn’t start following the Rangers until the early 90’s.
One thing I will add on my own, is that the #1 Worst Free Agent signing in team history has to be Chan Ho Park. I have no idea how anything could be considered any worse than that.
I’ve preserved the articles in here so you can look at them. Check out the menus on the side and click on the “Turn Back the Clock” category to see all of them. Jeremy, if you’re still out there, and see this, I’d love to continue the series, if you’re interested!
Rangers cut ties to six formally, and other random news
Forgot to mention this yesterday, but the Rangers formally cut all ties with six players by not offering them arbitration.
The players are: C Sandy Alomar, Jr., RHP Doug Brocail, INF Greg Colbrunn, OF Richard Hidalgo, RHP Steve Karsay and LHP Kenny Rogers.
No surprises on any of them, although there was some noise the last few days saying the Rangers might offer Rogers arbitration. Boor-ass came out and said that it was in his contract that we can’t do that, so I don’t know what all the speculation was about. I would have liked to have seen us retain Alomar, I thought he did a great job as the backup catcher this year.
Additionally, the following former Rangers were also not offered arbitration by thier respective clubs: Todd Hollandsworth, Jay Powell, Royce Clayton, Juan Gonzalez, Jeff Nelson, Todd Greene, Rafael Palmeiro, Ugueth Urbina, Rudy Seanez, James Baldwin, Carl Everett. Also Danny Kolb was traded back to the Brewers from the Braves for Wes Obermueller.
We avoided a scary situation today when the Colorado Rockies signed Jose Mesa. I really did not want him coming here at all. Having followed him the last 4 years or so in Philly & Pittsburgh… Uh, NO. Thank you Colorado.
Fabio Castro & Rumours
There were some reports this morning that the Rangers have traded Esteban German to the Royals for their first pick in the Rule 5 draft. I thought you can’t trade draft picks? Or is the Rule 5 draft different? I don’t know bout that.
Anyway, if it holds up, we’d have Rule 5 rights to a pitcher named Fabio Castro. Don’t know anything about him, although there’s some stats on him here and here. There’s a news story about it on the Royals site here. As of the writing of this, there hasn’t been any formal announcement, although Castro has been drafted by the Royals.
There’s another one about Kris Benson and his wife coming here for Juan Dominugez & Laynce Nix. Dominguez has kind of soured in the Rangers’ eyes – or so I was reading at the end of the season. Plus with Nix being hurt a lot and never making a big splash with his potential, they may want to move him, too. I can see it happening. Benson doesn’t excite me very much, but he’s not godawful, either. If he does come here, I wonder how fast the Ticket guys will fall all over each other trying to get his wife on their shows.
Mench to Dodgers for Jonathan Broxton?
Blue Jays want Brad Wilkerson now?
Rangers Captain to Philly for the Phanatic?
/me notices his head hurting.
Writer feels Nats fans “ripped off”
Interesting take on the Soriano trade (which I feel more good about this morning than I did last night). The writer of this article says “Washington fans, you got ripped off”, as well as saying that Soriano for Wilkerson straight up would have been a bad deal on it’s own.
Check out the article over at baseballmusings.com. I’m not sure if I agree with the straight up being bad remark, but it does kind of feel like we got away with more than we should have with three guys coming back. Especially as you know Soriano won’t be happy playing the outfield, and he’ll only be a Nat for 2006.
I’ll be curious to see how this move (getting two OF back) changes our own OF situation, as we essentially have Mench in left, Matthews/Nix in center and nobody in right. Don’t think Mark DeRosa is the answer there, although he did play fairly well at the end of the season out there. I really would rather not trade Mench – I’d much rather us trade Matthews, although I don’t really want to do that, either.
There’s also a poll on the ESPN site where you’re asked questions about the trade. Given the nature of some of the questions asked, it appears like it was angled from a Nationals fan standpoint. Check it out.
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