TR's blog - Good point!

he wasnt supposed to be a minor player.

but generally, a fair point.

DSheppard,
McCarthy wasn't supposed to be a minor player in two or three years.  This year he was seen as the third or fourth starter.  Nobody saw him as an ace yet.  Although he was a step or two above Loe in expectations.  Probably around the Wilkerson level.

The point is that Tex, Young, Blalock, Padilla and Millwood who are all key factors in this team winning are underperforming.  Those five make up just under half of the team's payroll.

The Rangers have one starter that is pitching above the league average (Tejeda at 117 ERA+), whereas Millwood, Padilla, McCarthy and Loe are 76, 79, 45 and 63.  That's sickening.

When you look at OPS, the Rangers only have two guys that are better than league average...Kinsler and Sosa (176 and 125 OPS+).  Young, Tex and Blalock are respectively at 49, 81 and 88 (although it could be argued that Blalock is actually improving on his 84 OPS+ from last season).

The Rangers three best hitters so far are:

Kinsler (176 OPS+) - $390,708
Sosa (125) - $500,000 + 2.2 in incentives (max)
Wilkerson (99) - $4.35 million

The three best pitchers are:

Tejeda (117 ERA+) - $389,446
Mahay (187 in 10 IP) - 1.25 million
Aki (478 but in only 9 IP)  - 3 million

That's a grand total of just over 12 million if you include Sosa's incentives.

Compare that to the whopping 36.75 million that Tex, Young, Padilla, Millwood and Blalock are making this season.

It never helps when your highest paid players, faces of the franchise, and "team leaders" like Michael Young are amongst the worst players in baseball after a month.  Michael Young has the 24th worst VORP, 4.5 below a replacement level player, in baseball.

You can bitch about your rookies and your cheap one year pickups all you want, but Young is being paid like 90 million over the next 7 years to be a team leader and one of the best players in baseball.  He needs to earn his money and stop playing worse than a replacement level player.