I thought it would be a fun exercise to review the opinions of various LSB'ers around the time the Hamilton trade happened.  For the sake of disclosure, I didn't have much of an opinion at the time.  I didn't say anything on here, but I remember being skeptical, like a lot of you.  I did make a comment back when the Reds took him in the rule 5, that he had been quite a bust up to that point.

Anyways, let the fun begin:

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So, thanks to bigskinny for pointing out that milb.tv game video is archived and available for free after the games are finished.  They don't always have video for every game, but a the RedHawks get video quite a bit.  For the lower level teams, all they ever really have is audio, but that can be enjoyable if you're bored and thirsty for more baseball.  All you need for the archived video or live audio is a milb.com account.

Texas Rangers Minor League Affiliate Multimedia Guide

Oklahoma RedHawks: Video - Audio

Frisco RoughRiders: Audio

Bakersfield Blaze: Audio

Clinton LumberKings: Audio

As an example of how you can access the RedHawks video, you need to register at milb.com, then go to that link for the video, and click on "select month" and go back to May.  Click on any of those video links on the right, and it should come up!

Hopefully this isn't old news to most of you (the free video is news to me).

Mr. Beltre makes the list this week

No. 10 Engel Beltre, OF                                                                           Rangers

Team: low Class A Clinton (Midwest)
Age: 18
Why He's Here: .407/.407/.630, 11-for-27, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 4 R, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0-for-1 SB
The Scoop: While the Eric Gagne trade may have proved to be a waste of time for the Red Sox last year, the biggest prize to come out of it on the Rangers side could well be Beltre. This season, Beltre is the youngest player in the Midwest League, but he's held his own to the tune of a .272/.298/.406 line for the year. He's been a key contributer to the MWL's best team in Clinton, batting leadoff and playing center field every day.  He ranks fourth in the league in both hits and runs scored and is second in triples. Right now, he's on a six-game hitting-streak and is also working on a streak of four straight multi-hit games.

Really cool line, good to see him getting some extra base hits, RBIs.  Want some more walks, but its only one week.  The hit streak is pretty cool too.

Lumberkings kick ass!

I know there aren't too many ESPN / BBTN fans out there, but I really have reached a breaking point.

First of all, it was the other night that I think Orestes Destrade called Hamilton "Jeff Hamilton."  Destrade even talked about how he was a part of the Rays organization when Hamilton was there... I understand people misspeak sometimes, but this is supposed to be the premiere baseball program, on the premiere sports network.  You can't make mistakes like that for a player that is killing the ball like Hamilton.

Then tonight, this comes up...

Tell me what's wrong with this picture?

via i4.photobucket.com

I swear, if a team isn't from somewhere in the Northeast/Chicago or Southern California, ESPN just doesn't give a shit about them.

I should say, they did make a correction at the end of the show, but it just goes to show how little effort they put into doing a show.  Honestly, how difficult is it to query your own organization's stats site to see how a player really ranks.  Nope, let's just make it up.  He has to be in first in all of those categories, there aren't any other teams but the Yankees, Red Sox and White Sox in the American League.

The real Rangers aren't giving us too much to be excited about, so let's talk about our MLB 2k8 Rangers.  I know there's at least a few other people out there playing it as consistently as I am.  So, post some of your more exciting stats thus far...

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Pretty bored right now, so I thought I'd start a thread for everyone to share their best fantasy draft so far this season.

I'm in a few leagues on espn.com, straight out of their live draft lobby, and I had one of the best drafts of my life yesterday, people around me were just jumping on some strange picks.  Here's my draft:

I was pick #5 in the first round

(1)   David Wright                                 (14)  Tim Lincecum
(2)   Ichiro Suzuki                                 (15)  Matt Cain
(3)   Mark Teixeira                                (16)  Matt Capps
(4)   C.C. Sabathia                               (17)  Aaron Hill
(5)   Nick Markakis                               (18)  Kevin Kouzmanoff
(6)   Troy Tulowitzki                              (19)  Manny Corpas
(7)   Russell Martin                              (20)  Ty Wigginton
(8)   Roy Halladay                                (21)  Andre Ethier
(9)   Corey Hart                                     (22)  Hank Blalock
(10) Matt Kemp                                     (23)  Rajai Davis
(11) Carlos Zambrano                        (24)  Yunel Escobar
(12) James Shields                             (25) C.J. Wilson
(13) Felix Hernandez

(as AJM would say) More after the jump...

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