This is the fourth year of the Highest Paid G.M. in Baseball's tenure with the Rangers.
Texas is fighting to get back to .500, and it appears likely that, for the third time in those four years, they will end the season having failed to meet expectations.
In four years, the team run by the Highest Paid G.M. In Baseball has failed to finish higher than third.
And we're already hearing about how, maybe, just maybe, the plan is to be patient for another season, accept another season of sub-.500 ball in 2006, in the hopes that maybe some young pitching will develop that will help the team compete in the latter part of the decade.
Meanwhile, his successor in Cleveland, Mark Shapiro, has the Indians currently in the lead in the wild card standings, and with 6 games remaining against the fading ChiSox, who are just 4.5 games up on Cleveland, the Indians may well end up winning the A.L. Central, which would be one of the greatest comebacks of all time.
Remember, the Indians were the team the Highest Paid G.M. in Baseball left behind, because they didn't have the resources, or the talent base, necessary to compete. Unlike, supposedly, the Rangers -- the team the HPGMIB joined.
I'm thinking that maybe Hicks snagged the wrong Cleveland exec, when he was casting about for a replacement for Doug Melvin.
And speaking of Melvin...his hapless Brewers are currently sitting at .500.
It appears more likely than not that Melvin's new team, a squad that was vying with the Deviled Eggs as the laughingstock of the league when he was hired, will end up with a better record than the Rangers this year.
But hey, we'll always have that third place finish in the Magical Year of 2004...right?
We'll always have David Dellucci's double, and the great performances in 2004 by the Dominicans in the pen, right?
Hey, it was good enough to get the HPGMIB and his manager lucrative raises and contract extensions...