Looks like Boston is making a soft offer to Varitek.  Link to article

Theo doesn't hold onto fan/locker room favorites just for the heck of it.. see Nomar, Manny, Pedro, Damon, etc.  This appears to play into the notion that Boston will need to acquire a young C this year.  Even if Varitek accepts, they'll still need a young C to work in for 2010.  Salty playing well in the AFL couldn't have come at a better time.

Pardon season is coming.  Anyone know how to formally file for a pardon?  It'd be nice to see what Oganda and Beltre might be able to do. 

I'm guessing we'd need to get a couple of character testimonials and some research on the two, but all accounts point to them being taken advantage while young and wanting to play baseball.. not exactly the thing that warrants a lifetime ban from the US.  Thoughts?

Note: If anyone in the Rangers org wants us to stay out of it, let AJM know, and he can nix this thread.

He first spoke with club officials by phone Saturday and accepted the job without a face-to-face meeting.

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Link on DMN Blog: EV on moving MY to 3B

I have to agree with Evan here.  All this noise about moving MY to 3B seems to fit the 80/20 rule.  We only get a marginal improvement by fixing the 20% (fielding) of the problem, but there is bigger chunk to be had by fixing the 80% (pitching).

I believe a team could win the championship with MY at SS.  Let's keep the focus where it belongs-- on the mound.

On the DMN blog -- DMN Rangers Blog.

For a while there Poochy seemed to have been de-clawed, or let go.  I thought hoped that his 'vacation' was going to be his send off.  I don't really see what he brings to any of the DMN sports coverage.  He's doesn't have that fun loving devil's advocate approach, he's posts are annoying and half baked.  I imagine most of the other DMN writers are really annoyed by him.

Per dmn blog:

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/05/hank-blalock-had-wrist-surgery.html

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Rangers hire former President of the Baseball Hall of Fame to head up marketing efforts.  Interestingly, he seems to have a lot of political ties.. perhaps he could help with the two guys being held back due to the marriage visa scam?

http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080430&content_id=2618065&vkey=news_tex&fext=.jsp&c_id=tex

Quoting the article to hit word limit:

The Rangers on Wednesday hired former National Baseball Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey for the newly created position of executive vice president of marketing and community development.

The DFA of Wilkerson got me thinking about how badly we've missed on scouting for trades.  I'm not whining about past trades, but wondering-- is there a score card for the scouts who gave the thumbs up on these guys?  Do we need to replace the scouts?  Are they good, but JD is not listening to them?

We probably had limited options when trading Soriano, but someone had to have been very persuasive in thinking Wilkerson would be able to come close to matching Soriano's offensive output, otherwise we would have been better off keeping Soriano and letting him walk as a FA-- and getting picks.  A. Galarraga seems to be an anomaly, but someone obviously thought he was less likely than Tejeda to contribute at the MLB level.

McCarthy for Danks still needs to play out, but the idea there was we would be able to skip a year of development for a young, cheap starting pitcher.  Someone had to think that McCarthy would be a significant upgrade over Danks and sell it to management that it was worth the risk, even though the organization really needed to develop a starter from within.

Not to beat the Young <-> Eaton deal further to death, but it seems we at least sold low on A. Gonzalez and mis-judged Eaton's ability.

Obviously, JD is on the face of the deals, but there had to be other voices in the room that were confident these were the right players coming back.  How do you consistently miss this badly?