He made his major league debut as a Ranger.

do you remember the palmeiro trade that didn’t happen?

Nolasco should already be a Ranger, Raffy!

and he got better as the year went on.

In the last two months of the season, he posted 77.2 IP, 61 H, 8 BB, 82 K, 0.89 WHIP, and a 2.78 ERA. (5-1 record). That is a K/BB ratio of over 10.

He was pretty solid in 2008, and he got significantly better as the year went on.

And raise you Tim MacMahon.

If he’s allowed to keep covering the Rangers, MacMahon is the next Randy Galloway.

Kind of a prick thing to say, don’t you think?

Some people here may have already heard about Junichi Tazawa, a very highly touted Japanese pitcher who is yet to be drafted by an NPB team and is telling them to not draft him so he can shop himself to MLB teams as a free agent.
Now, could we reach some sort of Incaviglia-esque agreement with the Tigers where they draft and sell Tazawa to us for Nelly? I know it would be frowned upon by both leagues but are I don’t know if there’re any rules that prevent that from happening.
And yes, I know it sounds crazy.

 Darvish plays for the Nippon-Ham Fighters

Yah I don’t have it either…

He analyzes some of the previous trades made for pitching and then has this to say about what the Padres can expect.

The team acquiring Peavy would get something similar to what Arizona got financially in Haren — three years of control at below-market prices — but they’re not getting the same pitcher on the field. Peavy missed time this year with elbow trouble after notching a career high in innings in 2007. When he did pitch, his strikeout rate was down, his walk rate was up, and his home run rate was back up after being exceptionally low in 2007. His velocity was about normal, sitting 92-93 mph on the four-seamer, a few miles per hour below that on the two-seamer, but his slider didn’t have the same bite. He uses the slider often, which isn’t good for the elbow, and without that as a primary weapon, he’s not going to be as effective.

Peavy has also benefitted tremendously from his home environment. Petco Park is one of the toughest places in baseball to hit a home run, good news for pitchers like Peavy who don’t keep the ball on the ground. In fact, Peavy has allowed far more home runs (81) in his career on the road than he has at home (47), despite throwing 95 more innings at home. And that’s before we consider the soft competition that he’s faced, between the National League and the weak offenses in the NL West.

All of this puts speculation, like that reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post on Wednesday, into some perspective:

    The executives spoken to say they anticipate a Braves package being built around pitcher Tommy Hanson and outfielder Jordan Schafer, who both peaked at Double-A last year, plus a middle infielder, either shortstop Yunel Escobar or second baseman Kelly Johnson.

That package includes Atlanta’s top pitching prospect (Hanson), an established big-league middle infielder (Escobar or Johnson), and another of Atlanta’s top five prospects (Schafer). It’s completely out of line with the prices paid for other top-flight starters in the past two years, including the most directly comparable deal in Haren, in which the A’s took bulk prospects over established major-league players. And that’s before we consider the questions about Peavy’s elbow.

If San Diego is looking for that much big-league and prospect value in return for Peavy, odds are he’ll still be a Padre at Christmas. The Padres have an opportunity to move quickly here as the lone seller before free agency brings a flood of high-end pitching, as Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe, Ryan Dempster and Oliver Perez will all be available without requiring teams to give up any prospects at all. If the take from Sherman’s sources on the asking price is accurate, the Padres will have to lower their demands to get a deal done — and Padres fans should lower their expectations as well.

But that’s a really, really bad thing because he’s still not even mediocre.

+19 fielder this year I think and a free agent.

But we’re in the business of assuming Michael Young is too egotistical to move for a “scrub” to make the team better.