Good morning, everyone. I think there's a football game of some import for the D/FW area later today, right? And everyone is absorbed with that? Well, before you focus on that, here's some Rangers stuff for your reading enjoyment...
Jurickson Profar and Shin-Soo Choo appeared at a Rangers Winter Caravan stop yesterday, and had positive things to say about their respective health situations.
Anthony Andro writes that Profar is confident that his shoulder will hold up when he starts throwing, while Shin-Soo Choo says he feels "too good."
T.R. Sullivan has quotes from Profar, who called 2014 "a terrible year," and Choo, who said his focus many game days last year was not on the game, but how to keep his body from hurting.
Profar says that, in regards to 2015, he doesn't care where he plays -- majors or minors -- he just wants to be on the field and play.
One of the things that was a hallmark of Ron Washington's time in Texas was him letting his every day players play every day...the 2012 team, for example, had five players appear in at least 156 games, a historically high usage rate. In a piece in the Detroit Free-Press, however, new manager Jeff Banister talks about what the data shows in regards to giving every day players regular rest:
Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister says teams should begin to think about limiting hitters' plate appearances much as they do with pitchers' innings. He thinks platooning would go beyond the advantage of giving the offense an opposite-side advantage on the pitcher but also provide built-in rest for hitters over the season.
"I think we've gotten a lot better with all of the data that we're capable of collecting now," Banister says, "with not only just statistics, but how players perform. How they perform after days off. How they perform in extended times where it's day after day, four days in a row, five days in a row, 10 days in a row … charting this at a greater rate and making sure that we give our players ample opportunity to get off their legs and freshen up as much as they can. This is a 162-game marathon, 7½ months."
So it sounds likely we'll see more use of the bench in 2015 than we generally saw in previous years under Wash.
Evan Grant continues his countdown of his top 15 prospects in the Rangers system, with Luis Ortiz coming in at #10.
According to the Denver Post, the Rockies were involved in "significant" trade talks with the Rangers regarding catcher Wilin Rosario earlier in the offseason.
Derek Holland appeared at a camp in Newark yesterday, and provided one-on-one pitching instruction to the kids there.
Over at Sports on Earth, Anthony Castrovince does "5 Bold Predictions," and prediction #1 is that the Rangers, Padres and Phillies will pull off a three-way deal that would send Cole Hamels to San Diego and Carlos Ruiz, Ryan Howard and Ian Kennedy to the Rangers.
Brandon McCarthy says that the Hall of Fame needs to provide clear guidance for voters in regards to how to treat PED users, and absent that, use (or suspected use) of PEDs should not keep a player out of the Hall.