Evan Grant's projected Opening Day roster v4.0

you get more in value for trade for him than you do warehousing him in the bullpen as injury insurance.

I just can’t imagine he has much trade value after his Ranger years.

TR’s belief that CJ will claim that 5th spot

or

Evan’s belief, now, that Harrison will claim the 5th spot

I just about crapped myself. I glanced over at the Fanshots on the right and saw “Matt Harrison out for the season” and then noticed it was from 7 months ago. Those things scare me on a regular basis.

If Hall is ready do you roll with Salty, Hall, and Max?

TT may have the fastest pop time possible but he can’t seem to hit anything.

Is Max just adjusting or is he sucking or both? Would it be worth it to put Brown on the 40 man to have a DH/CIF?

Have I asked too many questions?

than put him in the bullpen, which might displace someone like….I don’t know….Nippert? (EG has him displacing Ray but that doesn’t seem right to me.) But as far as what the team needs right now, i don’t think we get it from trading McCarthy. Doesn’t seem like good business to give up a serviceable MLB pitcher for a utility infielder. We’re not gonna get a good catcher for him. If you’re gonna trade him I think you go for prospects and we’re fine on prospects, but i guess you can never have too many.

Whether it’s here, or somewhere else?

And I’ll actually be able to participate in the GDT. Sounds good.

Texas starter Derek Holland, fighting for a spot in the Rangers’ rotation, spent much of his outing on Sunday against the Dodgers working on his curve and especially his slider, using the latter in changeup counts even though he has an above-average change. Holland worked at 90-92, touching 93 once, and was generally around the plate, with some tail — reminding me of that old baseball saw about left-handers having natural movement on their fastballs. He also had good depth on his curveball. His slider was less consistent, probably an average pitch on balance, with some showing good tilt and others tending to flatten out a little.

He’s going to have to continue throwing it in games often for it to improve, as it looks like he is still improving his feel for the pitch, but by mid-season he could be a four-pitch lefty with good command and no pitch worse than average if that feel for the slider comes.

• Rangers right-hander Alexi Ogando had the same velocity he had when I saw him last week, but didn’t have much feel for either breaking ball and wasn’t commanding his fastball either. Another right-hander, Pedro Strop, showed a very straight 88-93 mph fastball and a slurvy breaking ball with a max-effort delivery and, shockingly, below-average command.

• Texas lefty Mike Kirkman threw about a half-dozen pitches before leaving when a comebacker nicked the side of his face — he’s OK! — but I did like the little I saw, fastball 89-93, hard-breaking curve at 78-81, with one changeup mixed in. He even threw the curve at a right-handed hitter’s back foot for a strikeout just before he exited the game. Kirkman and Withrow are two of the few pitchers in pro ball who developed “the thing” (the one where you can’t throw a strike in a game if your life depended on it, also called “the yips” or “Steve Blass Disease”) and recovered from it to have anything approaching normal control.

• Chris Davis showed a good approach in his first two at-bats on Sunday, staying back on balls away instead of trying to pull everything and finishing with a couple of hits for his efforts. Justin Smoak is right behind him, but Texas doesn’t seem inclined to rush Smoak, especially since he’s been slowed by a minor hip flexor injury this month.

If you honestly believe Holland, Harrison and Wilson are all better, shouldn’t you trade him? Its not like they lack options for starter spots. If he can be turned into a couple of Low A/High A position prospects that don’t need to be on the 40 for two or more years then isn’t that a good thing for the club?

Clogging up the 5th starter spot on a guy who can’t stay healthy and isn’t the best option anyway is self defeating is it not?

The Rangers have assembled pitching depth for a reason. If they can’t get McCarthy through waivers, there is still room to keep all these guys here, even if CJ is put in the rotation. You’d be looking at a rotation of:
Harden/Feldman/Lewis/Hunter/CJ

with a bullpen of:
FX2/Ray/Nippert/McCarthy/O’Day/Oliver and a last spot possibly going to Snyder or one of a few other decent arms

That leaves you with one hell of a AAA and AA rotation to back up the potential injury/stamina issues of the ML rotation with some great options to fill in any possible hole the ML pitching staff has. That might not be the most effective rotation they can have out there opening day, but there is no Kris Benson/Jason Jennings type taking up a spot and leaves you with 5 guys who all have the potential to have good-great 2010s and a bullpen that won’t have a problem with pitching too many innings in case things go wrong.

Grant has McCarthy going to the bullpen, and suggests that he could “shadow” Rich Harden, being available on Harden’s days to pitch multiple innings.

It’s not traditional or anything, but you have two guys with injury concerns, have them share games. I’m having trouble finding, outside of McCarthy’s feelings, the actual problem if he’s getting 3-4 innings every 5th day.