Various links of opinions around the web...
Keith Law declares the Rangers one of the "winners" at the trade deadline, saying that "Jon Daniels made his bones this weekend."
Jayson Stark has one of the most ridiculous columns I've read in a long time, whining that the Astros didn't just give Roger Clemens to the BoSox.
It is a very long, bizarre, and, quite frankly, stupid column, which starts out:
It was a deal that would have changed history -- and pennant races.
It was a deal that didn't happen this weekend, but apparently could have -- and should have.
It was a deal that never was -- a deal involving the only active 343-game winner currently hanging around our planet.
Multiple sources say it was a trade that could have been made, even as late as Monday afternoon. All Astros owner Drayton McLane would have had to do was say: "You know, it's the right thing to do."
But apparently, that isn't what he said. Drayton McLane isn't ready to give up on his season. And he isn't ready to give up Roger Clemens.
That is followed by a bunch of whining about how Drayton McLane is stupid for thinking his team is still in it, about how McLane should have done the "right thing" -- a phrase that shows up five times in the text of Stark's story, and once in the headline.
This is the sort of crap that makes people hate ESPN, and perpetuates the notion of an "East Coast bias." If Clemens wanted to play for Boston, he could have signed there. Or he could have gone to McLane and asked for a trade there (something that Stark excuses him from doing, saying that "isn't what he's about.").
But he didn't. He made his decision. And for Stark to claim that the Astros somehow had an obligation to baseball at large to send Clemens to Boston is stupid.
Joe Sheehan praises the Rangers, saying that only the Yankees did a better job in the A.L. of improving their team at the deadline. He also rips David Littlefield:
There's just no polite way to discuss the job Littlefield did, work that was really the end product of years of value destruction.
There's more along those lines...
Our friends at Bucs Dugout seem to feel the same way.
Finally, over at the DMN blog, Evan Grant talks about the DVD guys, and while he doesn't go as far as Fraley did yesterday, he takes the position that they aren't the next Mulder/Hudson/Zito in terms of potential, and that fans shouldn't view them as such.
I think Grant is largely correct in his assessment, although I am probably a little more optimistic about John Danks than he is. However, at the same time, I wonder if the media may be guilty of overestimating the amount of "hype" about these guys that is out there.
Largely because of the work Jamey Newberg and Mike Hindman do, I think the Ranger fan base probably is more plugged in to the minor leagues than the fan base of just about any other major league team. And I think that, as a result, it gets fans fired up about guys that other team's fans wouldn't care so much about.
Yes, John Danks is no King Felix or Francisco Liriano in terms of prospect potential. None of the DVD is likely to make BA's top 25 this offseason, when the overall prospect rankings come out.
But at the same time, these guys are pretty damn good prospects, who are pretty close to the majors, and are on a team that needs an infusion of pitching from the minors.
I think folks realize that getting one solid starter and one quality reliever out of that trio would be a "win" for the Rangers, development-wise.
But at the same time, given the state of the team and the long-term state of the pitching staff, I think it is natural, and not really wrong, to be excited about these guys, so long as that excitement is tempered by some realism.