Supposedly, we offered a ML contract for 4 years and 7 mil.

These guys read LSB, and see the hardcore Ranger fans:

1) Talking about statistics they’ve never even heard of, which are often designed to provide insight into robotic results, and do not allow for immeasurables like heart, will, fight, and a true “want to win” nature of a player.

2) Talking about how one of their players who is recognized with an award, more than likely didn’t “deserve it”, instead of being happy that “one of our own” was recognized by others in the league, despite some deficiencies we see on a daily basis.

3) Discussing how the Rangers should trade anybody who is about to make a little more money than they had in the past, so that they can trade them for more prospects, or overvalued vet’s who have some statistically sneaky nuggets. eg) Wilkerson and others for Soriano.

With this trend of the Rangers, and all that young talent on the roster and in the minors, what do you see happening in the next 4-10 years?

I see LSB members blowing up the boards because Hicks isn’t raising that payroll too much to keep all that talent at one time. We will be clamoring away at trading them for more prospects. Nice, if you always want to have potential and discuss the minor leagues.

Where do these guys see the most earning potential? Not with the Rangers, because there are only so many quality players you can sign for the next 4-10 years, so that leaves one of these Asian or South American dudes, the odd man out.

True, the Rangers reputation for developing pitchers is horrible. Even worse than the reputation for that, is the fact that the Rangers have the reputation of trading pitchers who blossom somewhere else.

We can’t sign FA pitchers anyway, because they don’t want to pitch in Arlington. Yet we got a couple that we had to overpay for, but continually pound on them for making too much relative to their stats.

Name one Rangers starting pitcher who has had good stats since they put in that stinking wall/barrier for the “status” fans that made this place Coors Field. A relative launching pad, of sorts.

The Rangers make bad decisions on who to keep and who to let go/trade. We keep Blalock and Cat, but let Bradley walk. For whatever reason, Bradley with 128 games per season would prove more valuable at 10 mil than Blalock and Cat at that same 10 million, combined, even if they played all 162 games.

Bradley did something that we haven’t seen since the likes of the Keeper of the Big Gold, Julio Franco. Except the fact that Franco could stay injury free and play almost all the games (which Bradley has never done), Bradley and Franco were the most valuable 4 or 5 hitters the Rangers have ever had. BECAUSE they provided protection for our best RBI producers. Who takes that role now? Which player is going to bat behind Hamilton and provide “the danger” of avg, power, RBI, OBP/Walks? Well, nobody currently on this roster.

My point is that the Rangers aren’t going to get anything for Cat or Blalock at the trade deadline, so if they don’t deal them now, they just walk later. Meanwhile, Bradley is somewhere having a solid season, while in a bad mood, playing about 128 games, while providing a good supporting role in a lineup.

Any way, after going way out of bounds in this topic, I attempt to come back to just say, its decisions like this, and others I mentioned, plus future earning potential that makes Asian FA’s, and any other FA’s, take lesser offers to play elsewhere.

There is no future in Texas, because once you have value, you are being shipped off. God forbid you win an award, because hardcore Ranger fans will throw out some statistic you’ve never heard of, to show you were not all that deserving, even if your peers thought you were. They will NOT congratulate one of their own.

yesterday. I remember how Clemens used to always feign interest in us to drive up bids from the teams he really wanted too.

 What really got me thinking this was that his agent said that Texas was offering by far the highest bid and then said that he was most likely going to Boston. Why would the agent say anything about Texas offer if they aren’t even considering it. It seems like they either would be all set to sign with Boston and thus there would be no point mentioning any other offers, or they would mention the Rangers offer because they weren’t sure about Boston and they were still considering other different offers.

All I am saying is it sounded to me that they just threw in the part of the Rangers making a huge offer because they were close on agreeing to a deal with Boston and they wanted Boston to up it a little more. With no confirmation of any such large offer from JD it sounds even more like maybe they took some creative liberties with their statement.

This story from Grant seems to only say that he is following my same line of thinking because he also has no concrete evidence of anything.

I have tons of schtick, but what I wrote had nothing to do with that. BTW, I believe you would be hard-pressed to find me posting at the DMN blog. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever been there.

With that out of the way, I want to say that I appreciate all comments that I’ve seen, both positive and negative towards what I wrote, who I am, etc.. I learn more from people that do not agree with me, than I ever have from people who think/feel the same way I do.

I am well aware that my “bag of nothing” was somewhat disjointed, and I will apologize for not bottling the ends. Even after I wrote it, I was aware that some members may take the comments as an attack on subjects discussed on LSB, but not with the intent of calling out one group or another. Believe it or not, as much as I might question the usefulness of some of the statistical formulas discussed on this site, I am somewhat of a statistical kind of guy.

Despite what perception you may have in regards to what kind of “fan” I am, I too am excited about the rebuilt farm system, and what should be waves of talent coming to the Rangers during the next several years. I have never proposed shipping them off for an over-valued veteran, or shipping them off period, but would not be opposed to making a deal that improves the major league club for the next several years.

My “rant” began as commentary on the Japanese pitcher alledgedly getting a better offer from the Rangers, but still might sign with Boston “because of a better situation”. What is that better situation in reality? Not sure, but I guarantee that part of it is the player’s perception of the Rangers. Fair/Accurate or not, it really doesn’t matter.

I see FA’s as customers you are selling something to. In this case, we are selling the Rangers organization. When “kicking the tires” on a decision to buy, the FA MUST look at other customers’ reviews of the product. Also, they must also look at how the product will benefit them, not just in the short term, but for the long term. They must be convinced that buying into the Rangers will benefit them in the long run. If our track record becomes one of not paying market value for players when a new contract comes up, then why would any pitcher in his right mind want to pitch for the Rangers before getting a new contract. Honestly, TBiA is not exactly going to improve their stats, which is one of the keys to how much earning potential they will develop before they become FA’s. Thus, if we are going to get FA pitchers to Texas, they will HAVE to ensure they are making up some of the money they will lose in FA after pitching here. That is a core reason for the Rangers having to pay more than some of the other teams to get someone in here. Shoot, the last one of significance that wanted to return (and had decent stats while being here), was not wanted back because he shoved a cameraman. He is the only pitcher that has shown me he could continually pitch well in this stadium.

Bottom line is that we will not attract anybody for a few years, because the FA’s and their agents are using a type of statistical anyalysis that indicates that due to past practice by the club, they can infer future results in signing with Texas. So when our track record is not stellar in this facet of the evaluation, it will take some time to alter their perception of what it means, and could mean in the future, by signing with Texas. We cannot just tell them, “Look, we have changed!”

Some of my comments probably were a shot across the bow, so to speak, to the multitude of some of the stats used so often on this site. I can only trace this back to a few years ago when the Soriano/Wilkerson deal went down. Like I said earlier, I enjoy using stats in evaluation, but really soured on some of the usefulness of some of the stats when some members were using these stats to convince that statistially, Wilkerson could be just as valuable to the club as Soriano was at the time, if not more. Trying to convince me of that was almost futile, because I couldn’t get past the opinion that the stats didn’t match up to what I was seeing with my own eyes, when it came to each players impact on the club. Honestly, statistics are most useful when used without any bias as to one outcome or another. A lot of times, I don’t feel that is the case here.

As for my feelings about Hicks and his pocketbook (in my eyes, commitment), well only time will tell.

I’m not a whiner, complainer, etc., but I am an equal opportunity basher. If I feel somebody did something good, I acknowledge it. If I fell they didn’t, I acknowledge that also. We are all here as fans, so I never doubt that about anybody on this site.

OK, I’m pretty tired now and will end this post. I haven’t been to bed yet as I have been statistically analyzing how I lost my ass at poker tonight. ;-)