A round of up some things of interest from the last couple of days...
Jon Heyman talks about the worst free agent signings ever, and only one Ranger signing makes the cut -- the Ho, of course. Part of what sucked about the Ho was the trickle-down-suckiness effect, since we ended up stuck with Phil Nevin because of the Ho, and insisted on giving him ABs, then got JHJ for Nevin. We would have been better off, ultimately, just releasing the Ho.
Our old friend Gerry Fraley says Jon Daniels and Ron Washington are not making a good impression on their new boss, although he also says that the Ranger offense "remains stuck in the homer-or-nothing mode," which I don't think is really the case at this point. The team is 6th in the A.L. in homers and 8th in runs scored, which doesn't really support Fraley's contention.
David Pinto wonders, in the context of last night's game, why Toronto, with a 7 man bullpen, doesn't have a long man. I think part of the problem is that the closest thing Toronto really has to a long man is Brian Tallet, who came in for Litsch in the 6th, was ineffective, and got yanked without finishing the inning.
Kevin Goldstein has a Future Shock 10 Pack featuring ten players who made BP's top 100 list, but who are off to bad starts this season, and one Ranger, Eric Hurley, is included. At this point, I'm not really worried about Hurley, and I think it will help relieve some of the pressure to have him come up immediately. I'd like to see him have a solid season, maybe come up in August and pitch some out of the pen, and be ready to win a starting job for 2009.
We have another Age-Gate casualty...Miguel Tejada is actually 33, not 31, and turns 34 next month.
FJM amuses me. This recent piece, I thought, was particularly entertaining, if only because one of the people who wrote the underlying item is named "Iggy."