The L.A. Daily News takes a look at the Rangers' pitching situation, in advance of next week's series between the top two teams in the A.L. West, and suggests that the Francisco and Almanzar T-J surgeries could be attributable to overuse last season...
The Nationals have added another Ranger castoff pitcher, with Travis Hughes being called up to take the place of the injured T.J. Tucker on the Nats roster. Hughes has pitched well so far for New Orleans, the Nats' AAA affiliate, but he's 27 years old and has never had success above AA coming into the season (and little success at AA, for that matter). Maybe he finally put it all together with Washington, but I remain skeptical about his future, and I don't blame the Rangers for dropping him from the 40 man roster and exposing him to waivers...
Echoing a problem I mentioned yesterday, Evan Grant says that Dellucci may be dropped out of the leadoff spot for the Rangers due to his slump. Dellucci was terrific for the Rangers during the first six weeks of the season, but he's coming crashing back down to Earth, highlighting once again the fact that the DH and RF spots are problems for the Rangers right now. Carlos Delgado, meanwhile, is second in the N.L. in EQA at .348, is performing like an MVP candidate, and should be putting to rest the notion that the Rangers don't really need him because they have Dellucci...
Someone who might be an interesting possibility in the leadoff spot is Oakland centerfielder Mark Kotsay, who, as a free agent after the season, is rumored to be available. He's not a top-flight leadoff hitter, but he can provide a solid OBP from the top slot, and also plays an elite level of centerfield defense, something that would be helpful as well. Beane supposedly is reluctant to deal within the division, and the asking price for Kotsay would probably be fairly steep -- Botts, Sinisi and Hudgins, perhaps? -- but it is a possibility to keep an eye on.
Meanwhile, Kenny Rogers has thrown down the gauntlet, saying that he's staying out of any contract negotiations with the Rangers, and that Hicks will have to deal directly with Scott Boras, his agent. Which makes a certain amount of sense, since the reason why you have an agent is to handle these negotiations, generally. Still, after the bang-up job Boras did for Rogers after the 2002 season (rejecting a multi-year deal from the Rangers that ended up being much more lucrative than what Rogers ended up getting from Minnesota), one has to wonder if they will be a little more cooperative with management this time around. On the other hand, Rogers seems to have dueling issues here...he clearly wants to stay in Texas, where he lives, but is also pretty clearly not happy with management, dating back to the ARod trade, and also encompassing the leak to T.R. Sullivan of his supposed threat to retire back in February, and most recently the loss of Ryan Drese. For a pitcher as old as Rogers, I'd be reluctant to go over one year, and would definitely do nothing more than two years. If he doesn't want to go along with that, then he's welcome to test the market after the season.
C.J. Wilson makes his debut today. I'm worried about this...I'm afraid he's going to be this year's Sam Narron, a flavor of the month prospect who rockets into management's good graces, then gets discarded immediately thereafter because of a bad outing.