Im sure this won't be as thourough as one that Adam or spursdynasty could do but I figured we could get a look at what, as of now, next years payroll looks like.

All figures from cots

Tom Hicks has stated that next years payroll won't increase significantly but could if the right situation presented itself. Presumably that would mean one of the top FA starting pitchers signed for below market value here (hello Mr Sheets)

Guaranteed contracts

Kevin Millwood: 11M

Vicente Padilla: 12M

Hank Blalock: 6.2M

Michael Young: 16M

Frank Catalanotto: 4M

Joaquin Benoit: 3.5M

Ian Kinsler: 3M

Total: 55.7 Million

As you can see Youngs contract is a big piece. I think we all pretty much agree he is overpaid but theres nothing we can do about that now. Kinslers extension may prove to be an unbelievable bargain. As of now only Young and Kinsler out of this group are signed past next year.

Arbitration eligibles (2009 projected salary listed, 2008 salary in parenthesis)

Gerald Laird: 2.5M (1.6M) Laird had a solid season for a catcher. I imagine he will ask for somewhere in the 3M neighborhood and they will settle for 2.5

Marlon Byrd: 3M (1.8M) Byrd put together another strong season. I actually think this        one could go to arbitrator with Byrd asking for somewhere in the 5M range and the Rangers only offering 3M

Frank Francisco: 1.25M (0.775M) Frankie could get more than this due to his late season role as closer. His second arbitration season.

CJ Wilson: 1M (0.42M) His injury probably cost him a bit more but he should break the million dollar mark. His first arbitration season.

Brandon McCarthy: 0.6M (0.4M) All his time on the 60 day DL caused this. He won’t get much of a raise but hes a lot closer to FA than hoped for after this past season. His first arbitration season.

Kam Loe: 0.5M (0.41M) Wasted season but his time up put him over the three year mark. His first arbitration season.

Total (projected): 8.85M

Total team (projected): 64.55M

Loe could get DFAd and Laird could get traded so that would affect this category. Overall that’s 13 players so far with 12 being guaranteed a spot on the roster if they are still here. The only one I see not being on the 25 man is McCarthy because he has options left and we may be squeezed for rotation spots

Pre-arbitration players (2009 salary projected but will all be similar to 2008 most likely)

Nelson Cruz: 0.42M

Wes Littleton: 0.4M

Scott Feldman: 0.5M

Josh Hamilton: 0.75M

Jarrod Saltalamacchia: 0.42M

Dustin Nippert: 0.4M

David Murphy: 0.425M

Travis Metcalf: 0.4M

Josh Rupe: 0.4M

Brandon Boggs: 0.4M

Chris Davis: 0.4M

German Duran: 0.4M

Matt Harrison: 0.4M

Eric Hurley: 0.4M

Warner Madrigal: 0.4M

Taylor Teagarden: 0.4M

Total (projected): 6.915M

Total (team projected): 74.465M

Kason Gabbard, John Rheinecker, Joaquin Arias, Luis Mendoza, Julio Borbon, Thomas Diamond, Tommy Hunter, Doug Mathis, Max Ramirez. All these players are currently on the 40 man who I project to start the season in the minors (if they are still in the organization) and who will make the minimum if called up. Now that list is 16 players which combined with the 13 above makes 29. Four too many for the active roster. I listed 3 catchers so one will most likely either be in the minors or have been traded. Also a couple of the young starters will probably start the season in OKC.

This doesn’t include a possible extension for Hamilton. If its like Kinslers was it wo’t take affect until 2010 anyway. Also this doesn’t have any free agent signings. If we did go out and sign say Ben Sheets we would be looking at a payroll in the upper 80s to close to 90 million. Not necessarily out of the realm of possibilities but highly unlikely.

Well hope this can create some discussion and helo people when they are considering who we can and can’t sign. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

Didn't see anything posted yet. Maybe most people are actually at the games. Anyway looks like Holland got the start in game 1 for Frisco instead of Feliz. Maybe someone knows the reason. I would assume Feliz pitches game 2 but I don't know.

OKC vs Iowa

Lizard 3 IP/ 1ER/ 1K so far. Down 1-0 top 4

Frisco vs San Antonio

Holland  1.2 IP/ 0 ER/ 1K so far. Tied at 0

Clinton vs Cedar Rapids

Beavan 2 IP/ 0 ER/ 1K so far. Tied at 0

Spokane goes at 8:30 vs Boise

Shroomers site has Nam going.

Tommy Hunter made a meteoric rise through the minor leagues this season. He even defied odds and was called up to the majors barely a year removed from being drafted. At the time we were decimated with injuries and he was on a roll. The only problem was his 40 status. He wasn't due to be added to the 40 man roster for another 2 years and as we have seen first hand when it comes to having to make decisions on players who are out of options I don't want to run into that problem with Hunter in a few years.

On August 16th he was optioned back to OKC. Under MLB rules as long as he spends less than 20 days in the minors he will retain his option for this year. The deadline to call him up and save his option is quickly approaching. By my count we have until Friday to do so.

Alot has been made of JDs roster management in his tenure here and I have defended him on most counts. The Galarraga DFA being the only major mistake I can remember. But if we allow one of our most promising young pitchers to burn an option a full two years before it is necessary when we have plenty of room on the roster for that person, that would be a terrible mistake. The rosters expanded on the 1st so that you can conceivably carry all 40 players on your 40 man roster in Arlington. I don't care if they want to shut him down and not have him pitch anymore he better be shut down in Arlington so we have 3 option years on him going into next year. Some people may think that is a trivial thing but with the amount of talent we have on the horizon it could become a big issue if it is not handled correctly. I hadn't heard any plans to bring him up like we did with Teagarden, Duran, and White which is why I broach this subject. Hopefully we do the right thing and not potentially hurt a guys future by a simple error such as this.

What are we? Does being in the DFW area make us a large market club? With the recent discussion about FA pitching and who we should and shouldn't go after this winter and the size of our payroll it got me wondering.

I think we are a mid level club who thinks they are a large market club. Our location means we should be a large market in the same tier as New York, Boston, LA and Chicago. Which is why in the winter we seem to have our name attached to the top names on the market. But we always seem to come up short. We as fans get upset but should we be? I don't think we should.

I believe we should be targeting the mid level guys. We should be the biggest of that level and should get those guys. Go back two winters. There was a good amount of pitchers available. At the top of the list was Zito and Dice-K with Padilla (coming off his 15 win season) as the tail end of the top group of FA pitchers. Then the second tier of guys included Lilly, Meche, and Suppan. We went hard after Zito and made an aggressive bid for Dice-K but came up empty handed and had to resort to Padilla. hes been good but what it also did was pretty much take us out of the market for those mid level guys.

Now look at this winter upcoming. With CC and Sheets arguably being the top of the heap with AJ Burnett as the tail end of the top group. The 2nd tier of pitchers includes guys like Oliver Perez, Jon Garland and Derek Lowe.

As Hindmans blog entry yesterday showed those high priced guys don't always end up giving the best results. Yet because we are in the DFW area most fans expect us to go after the top talent. I believe we should drop the notion that we are a large market club and settle in our minds as the biggest mid level franchise there is and use that to acquire talent based on that premise. With our offense we don't necessarily need shut down, ERA leading pitchers to be a winning ballclub. But we do need consistency and guys who we can depend on. Ive advocated signing Jon Garland for a long time. I think he would be the perfect fit in this rotation. he would slide into the 3rd or 4th slot and be asked to just go out every 5 days and give us the 6 or 7 innings he has his whole career. A 5 ERA will still be a 10 win pitcher most likely. We aren't Florida or tampa by any means but we also aren't the Cubs or Yankees. I don't think its a bad thing if we were just considered the biggest of the mid level teams.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3481747

Wow their season is truly headed down the drain and fast. I wonder if this ends the Bedard trade speculation or if he will be able to come back in enough time for them to drum up some interest in him.

Well as TAG would say, see ya ya 6'7" formerly good player. And if you are going to hit someone we would have hit one of their good players.

Well someone in the gameday thread asked for a transcript of Josh and Toms commentaryduring the melee at Safeco and since I couldn't sleep I figured what the hell. It starts when Sexson comes to the plate and ends when Gabbard starts pitching again. Tom got a couple more good quips in a little afterwards but frankly I was too tired to go on. Hope yall enjoy

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Looks like its not Hank that is going to the DL but Marlong Byrd. And we are going to get some German Duran action now.

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/i-hope-hes-hungry-to-face-brian-wolfe.html

Personally I am worried about what move they made to clear room for Duran. And I don't think he is ready for the big leagues. He had a breakthrough season last year at AA but then started this year slow. Now he is coming off an injury and will be sitting on the bench for 2 weeks basically. Personally I think he would be better served to play everyday in OKC then to play once or twice in the next couple weeks up here. Also we just lost a full year of evaluation time by putting him on the 40 man. Had we waited until September and brought him up we would have still had 3 options left going into next year. Now we will only have two and with Kinsler and Young/Andrus entrenched at his primary positions the more options we have the better.

I know after his first outing everyone wanted to get rid of the guy but I am glad he had a solid outing tonight. I think there were alot of factors that played into that bad outing. For one, he hadn't pitched in over a week. He had been traded during that time and had his first child born if I recall correctly. Thats alot to have happen to a guy in such a short amount of time. Add in the fact that he came in a game with an 8 run lead or something big like that and there wasn't any sense of urgency. He was just going through the motions it seemed.

Well tonight he looked really good. Arizona was in the same position we were in with Tejeda. A young guy with alot of potential but was out of options. They decided to trade him off. Hopefully he can get under contol here and be another young bullpen arm we can rely on. In any case I think tonight shut down any attempt to DL him to make room for Feldman on Monday.