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Thanks to the morons who decided it was a good idea to add the "Gold Club".
isn't the stadium a wind tunnel to the outfield?
Thanks to the morons who decided it was a good idea to add the "Gold Club".
you've got to be ING KIDDING ME! First off, Chris Young pitched pretty damn well in his first full season in Texas until he hit the wall that every young picher hits in their first full season as a starter. Pedro hit it, Dontrelle Willis hit it, EVERYONE hits it....and somehow Jon Daniels in his infinite 29 year old wisdom decides that Young will never be able to pitch and decides to trade him for ADAM ING EATON???!?! A guy who has a LONG history of injuries and who was very publicly against going to Texas in the first place, which of course meant he would never sign a long term deal with the team, effectively meaning that once the season ended that we gave up Chris Young for NOTHING!!!! You'd think maybe the GM would DO SOME RESEARCH and SCOUTING to find out that Adam Eaton thinks Texas sucks and is a ty place to play before TRADING FOR HIM and GIVING UP ONE OF OUR BEST YOUNG PITCHING PROSPECTS IN YEARS FOR HIM!!!!!!
We get rid of Cordero, a guy who had an ALL-STAR YEAR as a closer for this team but went through ONE BAD MONTH at the start of the season, and who do we get? Carlos Lee, who we rent for half a season and then DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO TRY AND RE-SIGN and now he's beating the out of the baseball for a team not named the Rangers. Gagne may or may not be as good as Cordero, but WE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO WASTE MONEY ON GAGNE IF WE KEPT CORDERO IN THE FIRST PLACE! Now Tom Hicks can use his bull excuse of "hey! I went out and signed Eric Gagne! See, I really do give a about this team!" as he then goes and writes 30 million dollar checks like it's monopoly money for Liverpool instead.
And then of course we just HAD to get rid of that cancerous presence, Soriano, because he was bad for morale and a butcher at second base....meanwhile Ian Kinsler is picking up in 50-some games almost as many errors as the butcher Soriano picked up in AN ENTIRE SEASON. And aside from a nice first few weeks, Kinsler's bat hasn't done for what Soriano did for this team.
seriously, do you even pay attention to what's going on out there or are you too distracted by the Red and Blue Pom-Poms you're waving about?
John Hart was horrendous, I agree, but Jon Daniels is in WAY over his head. He's running this team like it's his MLB 2K7 franchise, except he can't push the reset button every time one of his mad scientist deals s up. And I'm glad Ron Washington can spit cliche after cliche about "taking it one game at a time" and how "the guys in the clubhouse haven't quit on me" but the guy obviously has ZERO respect from this team and doesn't know what the he's doing out there either.
And this all reflects on ownership, which is the big problem with this whole thing. This team will continue to suck until Tom Hicks sells it. And I think fans ing about how ty the team, the manager, the GM, and the owner are CAN make a difference. You don't think public opinion and the absolute hatred everybody had for John Hart didn't influence him leaving? You're crazy. It had everything to do with it. John Hart and Tom Hicks were as good of buddies as you can imagine, but Hicks knew that it would be complete PR suicide to bring Hart back as GM.
You can't have intelligent discussion when you're looking at the most poorly run baseball team in the major leagues. I can throw out all the trade scenarios in the world, but it won't matter because Daniels doesn't have the smarts to make the right moves, and Hicks doesn't care enough about the team to sign a truly quality free agent. Anybody who wants to bring up Chan Ho or Millwood can stop right now - Chan Ho was always considered a #2 starter AT BEST and Millwood is a tough pitcher but he is nowhere near "ace" status and anybody with half a in' brain knew that BEFORE he got signed here.
ING ABOUT THE CONSTANT FAILURES OF THE PAST shows that NEW OWNERSHIP and NEW MANAGEMENT are the ONLY things that will help improve this team....you can't talk about how to make this team better when the people in charge aren't even concerned with making this team better.
But yeah, GO RANGERS!
Oh yeah, while I'm ing, let's not forget the deal involving Hank Blalock, John Danks, and I forget what else, that was on the table that would have netted us Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett....I'm really glad that management had such high regard for Blalock that they decided that this trade wasn't a good idea...
You can't unspill milk, so why cry over it? If it makes you so mad, stop watching the ing team. You already gave up on your basketball team, why not your baseball team, too?
I am not waving pom poms around, I just know that any turnaround they are trying is going to take time. There are good prospects and talent, it just hasn't come together and it's not going to with a 2nd yr GM and a brand-new, first-time manager. To start crying for heads to roll at this point is ridiculous. Trying to reverse the culture of failure that has plagued the Rangers for years does not happen overnight. The first step was getting rid of Hart, the second was Showalter. Now you have to give it time to sink in. It doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen in 50 games.
And crying over rumored trades? Nobody knows for sure what went on but there are two sides to every story, adn one of them was that Beckett did NOT want to go to Texas and the deal fell apart. But you go ahead and believe the Rangers didn't wan to get rid of Blalock, since it supports your ranting. Truth is, the Rangers have endlessly shopped Blalock and can't seem to get a deal done. There are reasons for that, and I don't think that its because the Rangers weren't willing.
That's the big problem as I see it. No pitcher worth a damn wants to come here and see every warning track or even short of warning track fly ball they give up in other parks fly over the walls in Arlington. Pitching wins in baseball, even the Astros made a world series with a batting lineup that would get out hit by the Redhawks because of pitching. The taboo is set on the Ballpark in Arlington, and unless they get a new park (or fix this one) that doesn't include a jet stream for fly balls to clear the wall they will never have the caliber of pitching to win a World Series.
Yeah what the .......doesnt a 9 game losing streak count for something.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. It sure took the Detroit Tigers a load of time to reverse the culture of losing....OH WAIT it took them ONE YEAR. First step wasn't getting rid of Hart (though I applauded it), Daniels is not the answer, and Washington is not the answer....these guys were put in their positions by the person MOST RESPONSIBLE for ushering this new culture of failure - Tom Hicks.
And it does appear that this will be the first time that a team who fired Buck Showalter won't win the World Series the VERY NEXT YEAR.
And I've seen PLENTY of reports about Texas backing out of the Beckett deal because they didn't think Lowell could perform as well as Blalock and they didn't want to give up John Danks (that is until mad scientist Daniels decided to dump him for another unproven prospect).
1. There's still 81 games played outside of The Temple.
2. There's no bigger for money than baseball players. They'll pitch in Siberia for the right price.
The problem is when your team scouts pitching free agents and comes to the conclusion that CHAN HO PARK can be a staff ace. The problem is when your owner makes PUBLIC statements like "I've got to stop writing checks" and makes it well known that making a profit is more important than winning.
for left-handed hitters its the best hitters ball park around. even better than Coors, cause the jet stream blows right out to the short porch. Bonds would be jesus if he played for the Rangers, he'd have atleast 900 by now.
the thing that frustrates me as a longtime Ranger fan is that we always give up early on players and they turn out to be all stars elsewhere or we trade some of our best ones for prospects. we had Travis Hafner for a couple of years and now look at him. we got rid of Rick ing and he does well in Arizona. Chan Ho Park was an all star in LA, then he comes to Texas and has like three good starts in four years, then we trade him to San Diego and he's an all star again.we had Adrian Gonzalez, and he's gonna be a great player someday for the Padres. we had Soriano who had good numbers but turned out to be an MVP candidate for the Nats. and then of course we had Chris Young who's career was just getting started and now he's flourishing with the Padres.
What really irritated me is the way Hicks and Co. sold DVD on us....about how DVD was gonna be the next Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz and how all we was just WAIT and BE PATIENT because DVD was on it's way to save the Rangers! Come to find out, our three "saviors" were only considered "above average prospects" by scouts for every other team. And now in the year where DVD was supposed to emerge, we trade off Danks and decide "eh Diamond and Volquez really aren't all that great..." without even giving them a chance.
And now suddenly it's HURLEY...the new pitching savior that I'm sure in a few years we'll dump to Toronto for AJ Burnett in his contract year where he can give us half a crappy season before signing with the Yankees.
What planet are you on where McCarthy is "another prospect"? This is his third year in the majors, he is hardly a prospect. And Danks got rocked pretty bad and has seen his ERA consistently increase. 50 games in is too early to be judging that trade but so far it seems almost like a wash.
And how on EARTH do you think Volquez has "not been given a chance?" Are you smoking crack, the boy has been given plenty of chances, to the point where they had to give him the Roy Halladay treatment this season to try and straighten the boy out. It's working so far, btw but you have no patience and don't want to hear about progress. I know we have been sold a bill of goods before but this is a new regime and if you can't give it more than 50 ing games to try and work it out, then there really is no reasoning with you.
Throwing Volquez out there to the wolves, seeing him get eaten alive, and then tossing him back into the minors with a swift kick in the ass and a note saying "you suck" year after year isn't giving him a chance in my opinion.
I guess that as long as Tom Hicks is running things, I don't see it as a new regime. But honestly I hope you're right about this, I'd rather the Rangers win and I eat crow than they be fighting with Kansas City for worst team in the majors and I about it. I just see no evidence that this team will ever get better, in fact, I see this thing going into an "early nineties Mavericks" tailspin that they wont get out of unless they get an owner who gives a crap.
The ownership isn't going to change, and I am partially with you on that. Hicks is aware that Rangers/Stars fans are apathetic right now, he said as much in the Liverpool press. I don't think it matters to him, but I am not going to let it get in the way of watching the team.
Thing is, the parts are there, I honestly just believe its going to take time. While I agree some trades Daniels has done are queestionable, he has had very little to work with. Nobody (especially pitchers outside of Millwood and Crazy Vicente) wants to come here, so the Rangers have to mostly build up with draft picks and trades.
There are signs of life in A/AA, some good prospects. By season's end, most will be in AA/AAA and perhaps a spring invite. Yes, Hurley is one of them but there are others and I don't understand why they don't ing give Jason Botts a chance to get his ass up here and try to show us something for more than five fricken games (most of which are spent on the bench).
I think in our desire to see the team as better, we are on the same page. We just see the learning curve as different -- I think we are on it as we speak, and you do not. As Michael Young put it "winning is not as important right now as the process." Now, this doesn't mean MY doesn't think its not important to win. What it means is, its going to take time to get through the 'process' of learning to win, and that means some bad streaks along the way. This is one of them.
For the record, I think the Rangers won't be worst in MLB at end of the year. , after last night's win, that's back on the Royals. It may only be half a game, but its a start.
i agree and i think the Rangers will finish above .500 barely. they are on the right start but it takes some adjusting to the new style and injuries have not helped either. just stay on course and deal with tough times. waving the white flag after 50 games with a new manager will never get you anywhere. i believe they will begin to play better near the end of the year
as of right now Kansas City is the worst!
That means there are 81 games in it if you pitch for the Rangers. Pitchers know that coming to Arlington is just asking to get your ERA blasted to 7.00. If you want to live in a box and believe that all of these pitchers WANT to come to Arlington then go ahead, but it's obvious that the good ones avoid this place like the plague. That leaves unproven kids and down trodden veterans who are trying to grasp on to their former glory but can't break the rotation with most teams (the #2 in your post) as the pitching options for the Rangers. The Rangers should just say it and go out to find 5 sinker ball pitchers to at least try to keep the ball on the ground because anything in the air hits the seats.
I mean damn, this ball park is turning Sammy Sosa into a home run hitter again.
^
with the humidor at Coors Field. this stadium is definitely the best hitters park out there. and when it's hot outside its ridiculous. there is a reason the Rangers hit the most homeruns in the majors every year, and there is a reason that the only very good pitcher they've ever had was Nolan Ryan. why do you think Millwood led the league in ERA (2.65) one year, and then gets traded and his ERA balloons to over 5? this place is for pitchers, and until they do something about the stadium they will never get the right pitching they need. why do you think Clemens didnt want to come here?
Nolan Ryan never played in the Ballpark. He retired in '93 and it didn't open until the next year.
Couldn't agree more. It will take time, but I don't think they will finish the year 15 games under .500 either. And believe it or not, I haven't entirely given up on this season like most. If they start to gel as a team, this season was hardly a waste. The bullpen is awesome. We have some real mashers, although the OF could use a big upgrade. But (most of) the pieces are there, its just gonna take time. And I still think Ron Wash is the man for the job.
the "hitter's ball park" argument only holds so much water. Yes, that ballpark might lend itself to pitchers giving up more longballs and more runs...but you CAN have success in that ballpark, it's happened before...you just have to find the right pitchers...which again goes back to SCOUTING. how is it that for a nice 5 or 6 year period, Doug Melvin could put together a respectable starting rotation that consisted of guys like Ken Hill, Darren Oliver, Rick ing, John Burkett, Roger Pavlik, and Aaron Sele? Would you call any of them good? They all were average at the very best, even outside of Texas. Granted, they had support from a great offensive force, and none of them were consistently successful for more than 2 or 3 years, but they all had very nice years with decent ERA's and were successful with the way they pitched, not simply the run support they received. Kenny Rogers never seemed to hate pitching for the Rangers with each stop he made here either. It's about finding the right pieces, something that just hasn't happened since Hicks came aboard and Melvin/Oates got canned.
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