Okay, so what do we got out there this morning?
T.R. Sullivan has an item on the organizational meetings that the Rangers had this past week, the first time the Rangers have done this since 2000:
General manager Jon Daniels brought in every employee who works in baseball operations: all front office staff, Major League and Minor League field personnel, trainers and medical staff and all professional, amateur and international scouts.
"I'd say we had about 90 people," Daniels said after the four-day meetings came to an end on Friday. "They were tremendous meetings. It was a chance for everybody to get together and meet each other and get on the same page. Some of these people work on their own little island and this was their first time to be in Arlington and see the ballpark.
"It was a very honest assessment of the organization. It wasn't like we handed everybody a checklist of everything we're going to do. We talked philosophy; good baseball talk by good baseball people."
mlb.com says that the Mets aren't raising their offer for Barry Zito above 5 years, $70 million. I'd take this with a grain of salt...but if that is, in fact, the case, I'd be very surprised if Zito isn't a Ranger in 2007.
The L.A. Times has an item indicating that the Angels are not pursuing Barry Zito, which is good news for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the only way the Rangers would lose the Angels' first round pick that they got for losing GMJ would be if Anaheim signs Zito...
T.R. Sullivan says that the Rangers have "strong interest" in former Brave Russ Ortiz, who got a huge contract from the D-Backs a couple of years ago, got released, and is still on the Arizona payroll.
Bleah. I guess as an NRI he'd be okay -- Sullivan says that Ortiz has fixed his mechanics, has his velocity back up, and is pitching well in winter ball -- but I'd just as soon the Rangers steer clear of him.
The BoSox made a flurry of moves after landing Dice K this week, bringing Doug Mirabelli back, trading for Brendan Donnelly, and signing J.C. Romero. The Donnelly and Romero moves could conceivably impact Boston's interest in the Rangers' relievers, but any such deal seemed unlikely except as part of a Manny Ramirez trade, which doesn't look like it will happen anyway.
The Padres have signed Doug Brocail to a one year, $500,000 deal. I know Rangers fans will be crushed that he won't be coming back to Texas.
John Sickels has the top 20 Angels prospects up...and it is a good indication of how quickly these lists turn over, since only Brandon Wood and Erick Aybar remain from the big, big time group of highly ranked prospects the Angels had last year. Jeff Mathis is still hanging around, as well, from that initial group of prospects that then got surpassed by the Kendrick/Weaver/Morales group...