Sunday morning Rangers things

Good morning, folks...

Mac Engel has a piece that purports to be about John Hart’s impact on the Rangers, and Jon Daniels following in his footsteps, but ends up being a lot of carping about the Rangers not being good enough and JD building good regular season teams.

Bizarrely, Engel lists a group of four “wretched” contracts that JD “should be flogged for.” They include Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo, and those are fair criticisms.

Elvis Andrus is on the list, although 8 years at $15M per year seems pretty reasonable in the aftermath of Elvis’s 2016 campaign. Now seems like an odd time to be complaining about that deal.

And then it also includes Yu Darvish, someone who, according to Engel, isn’t worth the money. And not just not worth the money, but signed to a deal that JD “should be flogged for.”

I’m baffled. Beyond baffled, really. Though one must remember that Engel is one of the last “Team Nolan” holdouts in the media, and Nolan was not in favor of splurging for Darvish.

Engel also references the “almost limitless spending” that ownership has, in his mind, done, seemingly implying that the team’s success is as much due to outspending everyone than any particular ability by the front office. Given that the Rangers have continually been in the 8-10 range in payroll since new ownership took over, I’m not sure that “almost limitless spending” is an apt description.

Anyway, the whole piece appears to be a “JD isn’t really that good” piece cloaked as a “let’s praise the organization” piece, offered by someone who still isn’t over the departure of Ryan.

Jake Skole, the Rangers’ first pick in the 2010 draft, is going to play football for the University of Georgia in 2017.

And that appears to be it for this morning. Ready for Rangers news again...