Is it me or is he looking a bit better lately? Good to see Max and Davis drawing walks yesterday as well.

In some ways sweeping the Angels would be bad. The last thing I want is for Hicks and/or Daniels to get the idea of tilting at the windmill of contention this year. This team has a lot of young wild cards and injury issues in addition to a hugely questionable pitching staff. Even adding an ace to the rotation might not make them a contender, and the cost might be more than we could bear down the road.

good guy

those comments from Milton sound like those of a guy who’s finally found a situation where he is happy and comfortable. Id imagine the fact that his first all-star appearance occurred with the Rangers organization is rather significant. Who knows….whether he’s traded or he stays and plays the year out, maybe he looks back in the offseason and thinks that this was a really good situation for him and a place he’d like to stay. I know it always comes down to money, but I think its hard to discount certain intangibles, such as player happiness, especially for guys as emotionally intense as Bradley.

Next time Rangers fans will know better and vote 25 times, just like Al Gore’s people.

Uh…what? Did we really need to shoehorn in an awkward political joke about something that happened nearly eight years ago? Good lord.

I have tried to continue hating Milton Bradley, but watching him play everyday and articles like that one make it pretty difficult. I have enjoyed watching him interact with his teammates and the fans at the ballpark.

Honestly, my strong dislike for him was dented at end of his season last year, well before we knew he was going to be a Ranger. I had strong reservations about bringing him to Texas (I believe I mentioned them here), but he has proven to be a good guy and the numbers don’t hurt either.

Goldstein’s doing a BP chat later today. Get some questions in, people. I’m tired of being the only angers fan represented at those things… let’s stem the inevitable tide of Laporta questions.

I don’t get this idea of not thinking the Rangers are not playoff worthy this year. A team is a contender when it’s record deems it so, not its personnel. If the Rangers have a fluky good year, given their youth and questionable pitching, so what. It’s still better to figure out how to improve the team’s chances of getting to the playoffs than to sit back and think they’ll be so much better next year or the one after that.

The Rangers clearly need an ace and they need someone to stabilize the bullpen. An ace costs alot more than bullpen arm, but the return on investment is higher. I’d much rather give up a few top prospects for an ace than one top prospect for a bullpen arm.

The conservative move is to hope that McCarthy comes back looking like a #2, that Benoit comes back as the dude he was last year, and that Tommy Hunter bursts onto the scene as a 6th-7th inning guy.

The aggressive move would be to top the Brewer’s offer for CC, but the better move is to look around for front-end guys the Rangers can control for a year or more, like Aaron Harang, Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay. All of those fellas are under team control through 2010. I think it would be justifiable to give up a Teixeira-type package for one of these fellas.

And its not like he’s only in the game because the Rangers need a representative. It’s a legit spot, and he deserves it.