6/15 minors

And a week away from starting to rebulid some trade value.

but yeah, true enough. and vazquez is still playing fairly well so i know the rangers wont move him back to 3b (if that is indeed even possible).

what if blalock were out for the year.

do you go ahead and give davis a shot before the all star break?

keeps hitting well in AAA, say 850+ OPS kind of performance, I’d be pretty surprised if he didn’t get rewarded with a September call-up (if nothing else).

Also made of Steel.

Even on one leg.

Do they not just goto a playoff hole? Whats going on here….

...that, from an internal politics p.o.v., having a guy who was the 33rd pick in the draft and was given a major league contract then called up in September without having just completely dominated in the minors isn’t going to go over real well.

Particularly if you have guys like Ramirez, JMJ, or Teagarden who don’t get called up.

in the sense of a power hitter, but what more could you ask for from a CF who projects to be a leadoff hitter?

was far and away about being one of our first couple picks because there was word we might take him there.

i dont think nearly as many people minded him at #35.

there are people out there that think he should be here and thnk he is a top tier prospect.

11th in runs and have the 2nd best record in the AL. It’s clearly all about “productive” at bats and giving away outs on the basepaths that makes them win.

On a related note, looking at RF/RA, I just noticed that the Rangers have given up 414 runs. Next most in the AL is Minnesota at 355, so we’re giving up almost a run a game more than anyone else in the AL. Pittsburgh is worst in the NL at 366.

Since I’m one that picks them every year, I don’t mind the former, heh. As you can tell, Scioscia is a major sore spot for me.

But it could be the sort of thing that can sneak up on you and you think you should have seen it, when the player struggles for a while. Mind you, I’m not predicting trouble for him. If you look back, I’ve been a big fan of this guy since he was in rookie ball.

But as nice of a season as he had last year, his K-rate was beyond one per four official AB (102 in 391 and worse than one per three AB in Bakersfield). And it’s really impressive that he has improved since Davis left, but he still is at 4.2 in Frisco. He’s a 23 year old who has moved a level at a time, so unlike Davis you don’t attribute any of it to his youth or pace of development.

Again, I’m not predicting, just saying that we hone in on something obvious and then wonder why it didn’t turn out like we expoected. Here’s an example, Jeremy Hermida vs Hanley Ramirez. Look at their minor league numbers and tell me how you were supposed to predict from them that Ramirez would easily rise above his obvious shortcomings, and Hermida, who while he struck out quite a bit was considered to have solid control of the strike zone, hasn’t so much so far. The answer (beyond some nagging injuries on Hermida’s part, which were predictable) is that Ramirez has that something extra that scouts recognized and most fans did not.

Virtually EVERY player who rises to the major leagues has an “issue” with plate control. When I say that Ramirez has a small issue, that means that he is just like literally 98-99% of players approaching the majors. They will struggle to survive on some level, because they are not already perfectly equipped to handle major league quality of every sort of pitch in every location. They just haven’t been exposed to it yet.

So I’m not saying that he’s got this wart, just that he’s probably not one of the handful of freaks that come along each decade who don’t ever appear that they have an adjustment period in the majors. And I’m saying that we are wise to consider things that may not be plainly obvious in stat lines, but that we have some level of access to that could explain how someone could project Davis as a better hitter than Ramirez..