Quiet day on the news front...
Jan Hubbard has a piece on Daisuke Matsuzaka and the gyroball, although Will Carroll says that Matsuzaka doesn't actually throw a gyroball.
And if the Rangers really do end up getting Matsuzaka (and it seems that they are going to be in the bidding), I'm going to have to figure out how to spell his name, rather than cutting-and-pasting every time I reference him.
Kat O'Brien has a piece praising the 2006 Ranger defense.
T.R. Sullivan talks to Buck Showalter about the rumors surrounding his job security, and the criticism of the job he's done. One very interesting segment:
If his players feel the communication is not there, Showalter has a hard time believing that.
"That door is open," Showalter said, sitting behind the desk in an office that he had named in honor of Johnny Oates. "It's not shut. Come on in. You may not like what you hear. If you define reality enough for people, then it can be hard, and the reality is right now we're not going to the playoffs."
Showalter laughed when asked if his team was too tight with him around.
"I think that's ... too tight?" Showalter said. "Come on in here. I get a belly laugh from just about everybody here. Too tight? I don't see anything tight about our club. It's one of the loosest bunch of players I've been around.
And Jeff Cogen says the Rangers will basically break even.
Which means that it was a good year for Tom Hicks...baseball franchises are the equivalent of growth stocks, not spinning off much (or any) income, but providing a ROI in the increase of the value of the underlying asset.