And is a necessity regardless of money…. And doesn’t even save that much money… Is payroll driven?

And the Rangers can proceed forward with Taylor Teagarden and Jarrod Saltalamacchia in their 2009 plans. If Boston decides to start talking about Clay Buchholz or Justin Masterson or Michael Bowden later this winter, hey, that’s great news for Texas.

hmm. i read that to mean that so far, when discussing salty and teagarden with boston, they haven’t even included those guys in an offer. no wonder JD decided to move on and just trade Laird. I have been pretty steadfast in my confidence that Salty could return at least a package like Bowden and Bard, but it sounds like Boston is probably offering just Bard or Bard and a throw in, or so BS like that. Perhaps i am reading too much into it, but if the Rangers will “be happy” if Boston includes one of those guys, that doesn’t bode well.

I have a hard time believing the Rangers need to shed payroll unless they are hoping to sign a guy like Sheets. I can’t imagine that a major league franchise in Texas would really struggle to meet a $68 million dollar payroll. This sort of stuff freaks me out.

…but that sounded like a lot of conjecture on his part, a lot of conclusions he’s drawing, not getting direct answers from the Rangers. And you know how I feel about beat writers and conjecture about personnel decisions…

The scouting report I read didn’t mention overpowering stuff

Striking out that many guys in that few innings is pretty dominant.

why would any1 within the Organization say that the move was due to payroll reasons?

we have 4 catchers on our roster!!! Thats why we traded the oldest most expensive one!!! but im sure it was “payroll motivated”

EG is and has been for a long time, a TOOL.

from TR

The Rangers are meeting with Chad Cordero here at the Winter Meetings. Cordero is coming off shoulder surgery after saving 113 games for the Nationals in 2005-07. He could be a high-impact, low-risk signing much in the same way as Eric Gagne worked for the Rangers in 2007.

I’ve always wondered if there is an ulterior motive why the organization is characterizing it this way (I think there may be an ulterior motive to everything that’s leaked by the team). “Salary dump” isn’t going to put butts in the seats, so here’s my theory:

Dump Laird’s salary, maybe Blalock’s. Make a half-assed run at a FA pitcher. When that is unsuccessful you can go back to the fans and say, “See? We tried to get a FA pitcher to bolster the team. We even went through the effort of dumping salaries to make sure we could make a good offer. It didn’t work. Sorry fans, but we tried. And now we’re fielding a 60 MM team.”

Other option is this is less offensive to Laird than saying “Dude – you were in the way.”

per TR

The Rangers are not “quietly shopping” Michael Young at the winter meeting, according to Rangers officials. That was a rumor put out on an internet site but Rangers officials shot it down on Tuesday morning.

Said one club official, “Negative. Tis the season… You get asked about all sorts of things at this time of year but that story is inaccurate.”

Said another club official, “We did not come here with any intention of shopping Michael Young.”

Maybe it’s just me but I can’t see him waiving it unless he’s moneywhipped.

I think that if the Rangers had been willing to take back money, they could have had a major leaguer. Maybe not somebody who is coming off a great year, but perhaps somebody like Nate Robertson (a ground ball lefty who has had success in Texas).

Correction: The Rangers did not offer Inoa the kind of money you mention. It was reported they did, but my information was that the club only proposed a “What if…” scenario based on a bid double the size of Oakland’s. I don’t think they ever got to $5 or $6 million for him. The Rangers have never paid more than $1 million for a Latin American teen.

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/12/looking-at-the-laird-deal.html#comments

I don’t really think that this is one of those cases of _ is the real prize in the deal. There is an upper level guy and a high upside extreme low level guy, but I don’t think that this is like the Gagne deal where two of the players were MLB ready but not that highly regarded and the lower level guy was seen as a future stud. Neither of these guys is a huge prospect, but they have comparable promise in different ways. They’re just two interesting arms to add, no big secret to unlock as the “real” target.