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wtf of the day

By Adam J. Morris

I have an email alert for Google News, whereby I get emails when certain Rangers-related items hit Google News.

It is pretty useless, because I generally don't get anything until well after it has been widely disseminated, and in some cases, I'll get stuff like game recaps from games played several days earlier and stuff like that.

Anyway...I got a news alert for an item entitled "Five Trades To Define 2008," a column/article that can be found on Fox Sports here.

It is apparently the blog of someone known as "UscTrojans31", who summarizes the column thusly:

Below are five trades that need to happen to define the 2008 season. Some are shocking because they involve big names, however sometimes big name players need to be traded for various reasons.

Okay. Here's the one involving the Rangers:

2) Michael Young from the Texas Rangers to the Houston Astros for Troy Patton and Tommy Manzella.

The Rangers are going absolutely nowhere in the next 3 years and rebuilding for the future would be the best idea possible. The Astros, on the other hand, are trying to win now with Ed Wade at the helm. Young was in the top 10 of every major category for shortstops and gives the Astros another terrific top of the order hitter.

For Rangers:

The Rangers' best strength is their youth. Patton is a very projectable left hander who shows good splits that project well into Rangers Field. Manzella is a decent hitting, amazing fielding shortstop. Manzella's bat might never translate well into the majors, but his glove and range sure will. This move also saves the Rangers about $70 million in the next few years.

For Astros:

Michael Young is one of the best and most underrated shortstops in the game providing around a perennial 800+ OPS and some of the best defense around. He would be ideal batting behind Hunter Pence and in front of Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee.

Ummm...what?

There are so, so many things wrong with this, from the Astros (who had a worse record than the Rangers in 2007) being in "win now" mode while the Rangers are rebuilding, to calling Tommy Manzella "decent hitting" (as a 24 year old this season, he had a 601 OPS in high-A and a 725 OPS in AA), to saying Michael Young has some of the best defense at shortstop around.

And I'm trying to figure out, why did Google News think I really needed to be emailed this link?