He’s lucky he didn’t wake up the new John Bobbitt!

ill take that over a rangers fan.

publicly posted that i had my doubts about him. But i will publicly post that i privately had my doubts about him. He’s been a nice surprise recently.

if i predicted ramon vazquez would have a sub 700 ops this year, I’d be wrong but it wouldnt be a bad prediction.

i certainly recognize hes having a great run, but don’t think it was wrong to bash on him a bit when he was hitting 240 somesuch.

I don’t know how anyone can really argue anything otherwise. The following indications are

1. Free agent signings are either mediocre or bad, rarely good. Some signings go bad – but there should be an equal number of over-performs to balance those out. Generally, the Rangers have not seen that. Gagne and Eddie Guardado are the only pluses, and they merely did what they were paid to do. The list of failed signings is too long to recite now (and yes, it includes Millwood)

2. Young pitchers flounder when they get up to the majors. There appears to be a drop in ability from AA and AAA to Arlington. I don’t buy the rushing argument, as other teams’ push their pitchers as quickly. The recent trend of guys going elsewhere and dominating (Danks, Volquez) or exceeding expectations (i.e., Gallaragga) suggests that it isn’t eying talent that is a problem, but that final step in development.

3. Injuries are rampant, possibly contributing to #1 and #2. Yes, injuries happen. No, they don’t happen this often. Something is very, very wrong about the way this team has been conditioned, and in my opinion, the #1 reason that Connor had to go. 17 or so starting pitchers because they aren’t effective is bad enough. 17 or so because they keep getting injured means that you’re screwed no matter how good your guys are.

The result of #1, #2, and #3 is that as a team the Rangers have had to use a lot of filler guys and young guys who should be nowhere near the big leagues yet (Harrison, Hunter). The biggest problem with that is that this problem perpetuates itself – sign old guys who should be healthy, they get injured, the young guys come up, get injured, so you rush other young guys up or sign crappy old guys, etc. They’ve been doing this for years now.

Longhorn is wrong – pitching philosophy isn’t only about drafting guys. And the Rangers have shown that they can’t really do anything else.

how many of the pitchers that he has drafted have continually to get hurt??

and again, you think a change in pitching philosophy should help an ENTIRE system overnight??

please.

Nice job running ortonius off the board the other day…...greatness.

live in DC now haha

i mis ssherman sometimes. AC/Sherman were very good to me

you lost credibility when you mentioned Ballard. Haha. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if Feldman or Millwood got the spot instead of Hurley . But Hurley was doing good before he got bit by the mysterious injury bug that befuddles all Ranger pitchers once they reach the majors. BTW I think that there is no way in hell we sign both of them and probably neither but …

but they didn’t because of a few thousand dollars. Now they are doing what they should have been doing all along. Building through the draft and young players.

No reason for name calling friend.

Ok Sheets is slightly more durable than Blalock and CC is fat. My point is that 8 of the 16 highest paid ML pitchers currently are suck festivals. The other 8 include some that have been hurt for extended stretches or have suffered ineffectivity too. People didn’t sign them to those contracts because they thought they were going to dive into toilet water.

RBiA I would argue is just as bad as Coors because it breaks pitchers down through the heat in addition to being a hitters park.

I listed 6 that didn’t work out, 5 FAs and left Millwood off the list because I figured he would be readily apparent reason that FAs don’t go so hot. Of the 16 pitchers the ones who weren’t TOTAL busts and signed as FAs are Carpenter (who is a special case) and Pettitte.

I would rather sign Manny than Sheets and he’s a septegenarian (or close) because at least he’ll see the field. Maybe Burnett because at least he’d be a cheaper injured pitcher.

and obviously you can blow anyone out of the water, ARod style. That is a silly argument though. Daydreaming that Hicks is going to relive his ARod days and just sign every free agent because he has the money is a good way to be disappointed in a few months.

CC has no ties to the DFW area, and Texas is not a team players go to in order to win a world series. So it would have to be money. The last two big Ranger free agent pitchers (Park, Millwood) were very expensive busts, and they came very, very close to doing what you are saying with Barry Zito, which would have made the Park signing look like a bargain deal. Do you really think Hicks is going to go swimming in those waters again?

Sheets is a different story, because he has strong ties to the area, and his injury concerns will drive his price down. He’s a bigger injury risk than Sabathia, but at potentially half the dollar commitment, he’s not nearly as risky a signing.

This isn’t fantasy baseball. Sometimes you have to be realistic about how things will play out.

is equivalent to selling the farm. Our farm would still be extremely strong after that trade.

You cannot sign 3 type A FAs in a single offseason because you forfeit drfat picks and MLB won’t allow you to forfeit basically all your draft.