Monday a.m. Rangers stuff

Kinsler went from -8.1 UZR/150 to +9.6. That’s a huge swing, actually a bigger improvement than the change from Young to Andrus at SS in the same two years (-5.4 to 11.7).

he’s not the only non-saber writer out there. The article wasn’t bad for a “catch fans up to the current situation” article a few days before spring training. You have to remember his target audience isn’t a crowd of baseball snobs.

And when I see someone write “finished 12th in fielding” it is pretty clear they’re using fielding percentage, just like “finished 8th in pitching” means ERA and “finished 4th in hitting” uses batting average. Yeah, it isn’t representative. Saying “among the worst clubs defensively” would be wrong. But “12th in fielding” is strictly speaking, accurate.

a pitcher’s best friend

Millwood/Padilla versus Harden/Lewis. Only time will tell. I think Harden’s health and IP will be the deciding factor.

This is a steady pitcher?

1 – Bring in another OF to allow DH to be split amongst the OF positions for 2 months or so. Ideally MaxRam bounces back, so he’s internal candidate number 1. If not, then Smoak by mid June / July.

2 – Murphy just gets more playing time and another OF comes up.

3 – Feliz goes in there, probably as closer. Enough high ceiling bullpen candidates to fill in the gaps (Strop, Moscoso, etc)

4 – Ugh. I think Elvis getting injured is a worst case scenario. Throw up your arms and hope pitchers start K’ing guys more.

5 – I’m not that worried about this – there are lots of starter options.

for each crisis mentioned I will list an internal and an external solution:

1) Our internal option for Vlad going out is simple: Push Smoak. even if you don’t do that you maybe ride Max Ramirez, David Murphy, et all for a month and then promote Smoak in May.
External solutions? not too hard. trade for Jack Cust or Jim Thome or maybe even Mike Lowell.

2) With Hamilton’s back, the options are different. Obviously since Ham is an outfielder, you could go with Brandon Boggs, or Craig Gentry (do we still have Golson? I forget). Also you could reach down and bring up Mitch Moreland or Engel Beltre depending. It would obviously mean more David Murphy in the outfield…. Externally, probably Rocco Baldelli. Just not Juan Pierre.

3) Bullpen injury problems? Very easy. Internally, Feliz could close with O’Day and Oliver sharing setup chores. And don’t forget Snyder and Ray. Strop and Madrigal could be brought up to fill out the pen. I don’t even want to consider external solutions.

4) With Elvis out we’ll see way too much Khalil Greene, but that should be ok as long as Elvis is not out for too long. Greene is not like Vizquel in that he won’t kill you if you have to leave him in for a month. Arias or even Marcus Lemon could be the backup. Externally, you could make a major deal, but I think the team will leave Greene there and look to pick up a backup.

5) Harden out is the easiest of all. The Rangers have like 8 or 9 options for their rotation, and I think they are expecting Harden to miss some time… getting nothing from him would suck, but not kill the team.

1) My guess is that the team waits on Smoak showing that he is ready. That might be when Vlad goes down or it might be a few weeks later. If Smoak looks like he might need another 4-5 weeks or so in the minors, then they’ll probably bring up someone like Matt Brown and try a platoon DH for a while. If Max shows he’s healthy and able to hit in ST, he could get a shot at the full-time DH job too.

2) You have an OF of Murphy/Borbon/Cruz and call up Boggs to help out. Not an ideal situation, but you can play the splits to make sure that you are getting something offensively and you still have the defensive production from that OF.

3) I’m not worried about the bullpen until the rotation gets struck by injuries. The Rangers have enough live arms to throw out there where someone is bound to work out. Holland/Feliz could be in the bullpen to begin the season anyways, Mathis has shown that he can be successful in that role, and Snyder can be your LOOGY. Between Moscoso, Nippert, Madrigal, Strop, and Ray, there’s a solid and healthy arm or two there. And the Rangers still have good candidates in the minors to come up and help the bullpen at some point in the year. Kiker, Beltre, Ogando, and Scheppers are the first ones that come to mind.

4) Elvis getting hurt would suck a lot. I’m not much of a fan of the Rangers internal candidates. You could move the IF around with Davis at 3B, Young at SS, and call up Smoak/Ramirez to play 1st. Otherwise, you’re looking at Arias or Greene to do what Elvis does defensively. Depending on the length of the injury and the Rangers place in the standings, a trade is probably the way to go.

5) If Harden’s done, the gamble you took on him unfortunately didn’t work out, but the Rangers have built SP depth for a reason. I like the rotation with a healthy Harden at the top a lot better than without him, but I’m fine rolling with the Rangers other options.

1) How is Smoak doing?

2) I guess we’re calling up Boggs and playing Murphy in left. I think that one’s pretty easy.

3) Beginning of the year I’m just dandy giving high-leverage innings to Feliz. And probably O’Day or Moscoso.

4) It would hurt a ton and we should probably have signed someone who can play shortstop competently. I’m okay with Greene on the bench, I’m not okay with him starting. So, yeah, this one would suck.

5) Then that didn’t work out. Oh well. Also, I think 5 and 2 are the least detrimental, unless Hamilton is in full 2008 mode.

1. Not let David Murphy play vs. lefties. Get him a platoon partner.

2. Not let David Murphy play vs. lefties. Get him a platoon partner.

3. Feliz.

4. If he’s out for an extended period of time, this is the most crippling one in my estimation. Counting on Khalil Greene every day would suck.

5. Dutch gets called up.

but like you said, defense is the biggest intangible. There are so many IFs again going into this season. Ultimately, the Rangers have a shot to win the division this year. Things still have to fall right and we have to stay away from injuries which seems very difficult with the likes of Kinsler, Hamilton, Vlad, Harden and McCarthy. I’m optimistic that enough cards will fall our way, but it’s still going to be an uphill battle.

I think it’s not unrealistic to expect: Harden to be much better than Millwood, Hunter to regress, Lewis to be average, Feldman to sustain and Holland to progress. Could be a zero sum, but it would not shock me if this staff, especially Feldman and Hunter, to not be as good as in 2009.

His ERA of 4.08 and FIP of 4.31 are pretty close. His 17 wins probably aren’t representative of those numbers but I don’t see him being a huge candidate for regression.

Like WyoRanger mentioned, Feldman is pretty legitimate and isn’t anymore likely to have a bad year than your average pitcher is. Holland won’t have too much pressure put on him IMO. Feldman, Lewis, and/or Hunter will have to do really, really bad (like 6 ERA bad) to start putting pressure on the other young guys to step their game up. They might struggle and underperform, but they’re going to be given at least a 10 or so starts before counting them out for the rest of the season.

I think the majority of the improvement in runs allowed from 2008 to 2009 was defense, and much of the rest of the improvement was better performance by the pitchers with RISP — the 2008 team allowed more runs than would have been expected because they were outlier-bad with RISP.

Looks like Scott Drew’s recruiting tactics are spreading to the football program

change his commitment at least 4 times…

I know Tech was in on him pretty fiercely, too. It’s a shame it’s not for this year, but I guess he’ll be ready to step in for Finley? Now we just have to see if Baylor can hold onto him for a year.

hell, for that matter, he is 4th best RB in the state at this point

he is a very good pickup for Baylor though

he’s going to have to do a lot to lose his job to Tea, I think. They want Salty to take that job and not give it back

Hamilton>Murphy ?

Andrus v2.0> Andrus v1.0 ?
3B-MY v2.0> 3B-MY v2.0 ?
Davis>Hank, etc?

Again, I think they could improve at every position except 2B and maybe RF and end up with the same overall numbers due to regression from Ian (and maybe Cruz).

Losing Omar hurts, but Greene has a chance to be at least average. Losing Omar’s occasional defense at 3B will hurt, but that can be made up with the other improvements this team made. An OF with Hamilton and Cruz in the corners and Borbon in CF is an improvement. Murphy and Gentry off the bench also give good alternatives. Young should get better and I expect a more consistent year from 1B with Davis there and Smoak being the main back-up option. The only wild cards I can see are the catching and pitching defense, but IIRC, those weren’t exactly strengths last season.

And looking at the overall UZR totals for each position, 2B, SS, and RF were the only positions that were above average by more than a few decimal points. All 3 of the starters in those positions have areas of their game where they can improve and should at least maintain something close to the levels of defensive production they had last year. Every other position on the field has room to improve on paper and should at least see some marginal improvements.

all looked like they were destined for the HOF.

Beane took Aaron Miles and his bad contract off the Cubs’ hands to get Jake Fox, and the Cubs are kicking in $1 million.

He then sent Miles to the Reds for Tavares and Tavares’ bad contract in order to get someone from the Reds, I forget who.

In any case, he basically paid $2.6 million for Fox and some other guy from the Reds.