Monday morning Rangers stuff

To me, it is perfectly legitimate to question Washington’s moves and wonder if the game might have turned out differently yesterday. It’s even perfectly legitimate to say he managed badly yesterday and it might have cost the team the game.

But to say he has cost the team several games this year because he is stupid crosses the line in a big way. And to only mention his name when blame is being assigned and to somehow forget he leads this group when giving credit is asinine.

This is my mantra here most days: It’s just not that simple.

But it is equally difficult to say that Ron Washington is a bad manager based on a few frustrating losses when globally this team has exceeded expectations.

I’ve never been a huge Washington fan; I think that had I been GM he wouldn’t have lasted through last season’s debacle. But at this point you could make a better case for Rudy Jaramillo needing to go than Washington. Washington’s job is to maximize productivity out of his players, which is hard to argue with (look at the roster, particularly the pitchers, and honestly say you expected them to be 72-57 at this point). Add in fostering a great environment for young kids (and important aspect of his job right now), and I am actually glad he’s our manager today.

Just that probably whatever dream manager everyone is dreaming about who would pinch hit for Andrus or Borbon yesterday is going to also be biased towards veterans. And probably would never have had Andrus or Borbon in the game in the first place. All managers are going to be biased towards their better players at the expense of youth, particularly if part of their job description is “win or you will lose your job”

And boo hoo about Sosa and Jones. First, they were signed by the front office, not Wash. Second, it isn’t like they were actually blocking any good players. Playing a veteran over a crappy guy who can’t get past AAA doesn’t mean he’s biased towards old dudes. What was he supposed to do with Blalock? He was the only first baseman on the team most of the last two months.

than he had in all but 2 of his 15 coaching season (and both of those seasons were with 2 solidly stacked Mets teams)

Never had more 87 wins as the manager of the Rangers

Prove that managers have a lot of effect on the team’s W/L record. Not little stories or enecdotes but actual proof.

I’ll be waiting.

Congrats on missing the point completely and totally. Given the context of the conversation above, it seems pretty obvious that I meant managers don’t have a lot of effect on W-L record with in-game tactical decisions. Obviously, in all other ways they have an effect.

Either you missed the point or you think that Earl Weaver was great because he knew when to pinch hit.

but the players all speak well of him and seem to trust him. Winning begets good chemistry to be sure, but the players liked him last year as well.

I sigh, or even shout, at some of his in-game choices, but the math we talk about on some of those moves is often pretty miniscule when it comes to the odds of a run scored or prevented. Same with lineups, the difference from one lineup to the next is a tiny fraction of a run, or maybe a couple of runs over the course of an entire season, but we talk as if it were the difference between the team scoring 3 or 10 runs.

Hell, he includes a guy named “Whitey.”

German played 39 games in the OF for the Royals last year. He will be with the Rangers tomorrow; that’s a no brainer. But I think they should find a way to add Freel, too.

The Rangers have a handful of pitchers who are Rule 5 eligible after the season. I would add and of the Rule 5 eligible Michael Ballard, Fabio Castillo, Brendan Garr, Clayton Hamilton, Matt Nevarez, Beau Jones, A.J. Murray, Zach Phillips, OR Beau Vaghn before giving Mendoza another chance.