It will be interesting to see what kind of shape he turns up in this spring. EG was dogging him all last year for showing up in bad shape. The Rangers gave the guy the "ace" crown and he's done nothing but eat donuts and hunt as a payback. And NO hunting is NOT athleticism. Do you consider Dick Cheney an athlete??

"I only got one thing to say to you: strike this motherfucker out."

After scouring the SBN blogs and doing a fairly careful review of starting pitcher histories among active major leaguers, I've come to a conclusion.  That conclusion is enhanced (or exacerbated, according to your point of view) by 60 years of following Major League Baseball, and thousands and thousands of hours of umpiring, playing at times, and following the authentic baseball analytical work that is extant.  

Weisman is one of the prominent reasons your baseball coverage simply lacks credibility.  His tomes on ranking the AL and NL pitching staffs for 2008:

• Includes pitchers who won't be on rosters
  
• Ignores career trended performances readily available with a little research
  
• Indicts a few pitchers on grounds that are as shaky as a lava flow
  
• Identifies virtually nothing about incoming starters who can pitch higher in the rotation than #5
  
• Isolates factual but relatively meaningless information to downgrade some staffs
  
• Idles right past the context in which they are pitching (League, Division, matchups)
  
• Inflames the non-casual followers of the game
  
• Illustrates the quick splash mentality of SI/CNN
  
• Infers that he is in any way qualified to make such assessments, and
  
• Irritates me that it consumes online bandwidth.

Sorry to use so many I-words, but seriously,
- I hope you get the point.

TX pitching staff was 9th in ERA in all of baseball after the ASB, 5th in the AL.  Once everyone got healthy the rotation stabilized dramatically and pitched quite well.  The overall numbers reflect a terrible first half, when the team was 29th in ERA despite a solid bullpen.

The reporting here is incomplete at best.  Do the Rangers need more pitching?  Of course.  Will they finish 5th in the AL this year?  Maybe, probably closer to 8th-10th is my guess as they work in a couple of younger guys.  But they are not the worst rotation in baseball, or even in the AL.