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Bullpen coach not coming back. Every other coach is at this point.

* Conversations have been had with Matt Bush about converting to a starter

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Boo on the former. On the latter, something about this seems familiar.

Considering converting a guy that had a little arm trouble already this year and whose secondary pitches can be a little suspect seems odd.

DannyDuberstein said:

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Quote:

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Bullpen coach not coming back. Every other coach is at this point.

* Conversations have been had with Matt Bush about converting to a starter

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Boo on the former. On the latter, something about this seems familiar.

Considering converting a guy that had a little arm trouble already this year and whose secondary pitches can be a little suspect seems odd.

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We ruined Feliz and Scheppers, guess we might as well ruin Bush trying the same thing? He doesn't have the pitch assortment to be an effective starter anyway, does he?

KT 90 said:

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DannyDuberstein said:

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Bullpen coach not coming back. Every other coach is at this point.

* Conversations have been had with Matt Bush about converting to a starter

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Boo on the former. On the latter, something about this seems familiar.

Considering converting a guy that had a little arm trouble already this year and whose secondary pitches can be a little suspect seems odd.

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We ruined Feliz and Scheppers, guess we might as well ruin Bush trying the same thing? He doesn't have the pitch assortment to be an effective starter anyway, does he?

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just re-read, you did note the secondary pitch assortment issue already. This doesn't make sense. Especially when we had so much trouble with the pen in '17 anyway, and we are going to take away one of the late inning guys?

Has a nice fastball, but put him in a starter's role and I think he might mount a run at leading the league in HR's surrendered.

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* JD said payroll should drop and 2016-level should be the norm (you can never tell how much of this is truth and how much is strategy).

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And I'm calling bs on this. About to move to a stadium with increased revenues and we are going to cut the budget? That doesn't sit too good with me....

Daniels has always been vocal on the side of "we're not spending", yet payroll has increased every year.

As for "why" with Bush... I think the answer is pretty obvious. As we sit here today we have a #2 starter and a #3 starter and there doesn't look to be a whole lot on the market and thus what is available will be expensive. Since we don't really have legitimate SP arms ready to bust through from the minors, it's either trade talent or convert talent... So they are probably looking at things from the perspective of "Rather than trade a guy like Mazara+ (or Matt Bush for that matter) for some mid-range starting pitching, let's see if we can solve it in-house."

Scheppers was an injury risk when they drafted him. That was the reason he dropped to the 44th pick.

The Rangers converted him to a RP, hoping to limit his IP early. There was always hope he'd one day make it in the rotation, but he was always an injury risk.

Good to hear now that they've broken ground... that the payroll has been set. Good thing we're moving into a NEW stadium, since it clearly won't generate as much revenue as the old stadium. Well, let me rephrase that... clearly regardless of any additional revenue generated by the new stadium, payroll will remain the same and all net-proceeds will go to pay for the stadium into the pockets of the owners.

Yu finally has a a top notch outing in the playoffs............Figures

Sounds like season ticket prices are going up again as well.

$1 per seat per game in most seating areas.

No seat licenses though!

You shouldn't be shocked by that though. New stadium on the horizon that needs to be paid for. Plus need to continue to generate more revenue to sign high profile players and keep fielding competitive teams

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You shouldn't be shocked by that though. New stadium on the horizon that needs to be paid for. Plus need to continue to generate more revenue to sign high profile players and keep fielding competitive teams

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I feel like they ought to be able to eat the $1 per game per ticket via the citizens of Arlington bucking up half a billion dollars to pay for that new stadium and letting them out of a lease early of another stadium they helped a lot to pay for.

Actually, to be serious for a second, freezing ticket prices this off-season wouldn't have been a bad PR move. It's something that franchise has done in year's past before you worked there; something used by many huge sports franchises around the world; ans wouldn't have hurt efforts to assuage some of the frustration after this season and the ballpark election.

(And you can be sure a lot of folks in Arlington have been quite frustrated.)

You can frame it any way you'd like, but raising ticket prices for a team that finished 23 games out of first place a few years before prices will undoubtedly be raised again for a new stadium re-seating isn't going to sit all that well...

... especially if we don't make a splash this off-season.

Yeah, if they are going to raise ticket prices, I think it just emphasizes the importance of being visible and active on the open market.

AccidentProne said:

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$1 per seat per game in most seating areas.

No seat licenses though!

You shouldn't be shocked by that though. New stadium on the horizon that needs to be paid for. Plus need to continue to generate more revenue to sign high profile players and keep fielding competitive teams

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Actually, I'll have to get out my abacus, but I thought the good folks of Arlington agreed to keep the increased taxes for hotels and tourism (sales tax, as well) to pay for the stadium of $500M and that the owners agreed to develop the land around the new stadium... land ... all of which (including the new stadium) is paid for and owned by the city and then leased back to the team (for a nominal amount), so that there is no property tax. Development which proceeds go to the team, no?

The extra ticket revenue goes for what again?

And we are into the TV deal with all that extra money, right?

$2.5M in extra ticket sales seems nominal. However... what it does is closes the gap towards what ticket prices will be in the new stadium.

Rather than keeping prices flat now and jumping $5-10/seat in the new stadium... you can start getting that extra money now and then when the new stadium opens you say, "See, we only increased $1/seat from last year." Yeah, because you bumped every year in between.

jtstanley4621 said:

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Street_Cred_Norm said:

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Yu finally has a a top notch outing in the playoffs............Figures

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I wish Darvish nothing but the best. He seemed like a good teammate and dude. I want the Dodgers to win the WS so he can get a ring

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Agreed, he always seemed like a good guy and that is why he was well liked here. Would like to see him make his way back, but the odds aren't good. And the more post-season success he has the more expensive his contract will be. Teams always seem to overpay (even more) for the free agents to be that happen to have recent post-season success it seems, and his last outing he looked good.

40 Man roster update:

"ARLINGTON -- The Rangers have cleared four spots on their 40-man roster by outrighting pitcher Paolo Espino, infielders Phil Gosselin and Will Middlebrooksand outfielder Jared Hoying to Triple-A Round Rock.

Gosselin and Middlebrooks have both declined the outright assignment and elected to become free agents. The moves leave the Rangers with 36 players on the 40-man roster."

full story: http://m.rangers.mlb.com/news/article/258179176/rangers-clear-4-spots-on-40-man-roster/

Damn, gotta cheer for the Yankees.

Anyone but the asstros is my new motto.

Astros-Yankees is maybe the least ideal ALCS matchup I could have come up with before this season began. Bleah. I will remain neutral.

A series with Altuve and Judge.... the announcers will never talk about anything else

Ohtani with ankle surgery... out 2 to 3 months

Wasn't that planned?

I don't think it was "emergency," but I didn't know about it until I saw it. Is that to repair a lingering issue, or something that happened late in the season?

I think it goes with my thought that he likely won't be much of a contributor to any MLB rotation in 2018. I'm not doctor, but that certainly can't be helpful.

It's pretty much been planned since the WBC. It's bothered him all year and they're going to go in and clean it up.

I don't think it will further inhibit his chance to contribute at a pitcher in 2018. He'll start feeling pretty good January/February and presumably should feel as well as he has in a year or longer.

Do you place bets this season, guys? I am going to try and use the service called VulkanBet. I have recently came across it online and I wonder if it is a good thing. Have you ever tried it before? Maybe you can recommend me something here too. It would be really great

I feel like Napoli is a good teammate/dude, but I am not going to miss this version of him on the Rangers really at all.

Said it late last season when he was with Cleveland - his body is failing him and he's basically guessing at the plate. When he guesses right, he can still hit it out... but his days of a batting average above 0.240 are over.

But I think Texas knew that. We waited him out on a 1-year deal because we didn't want to get into any long-term contracts. This team needs a lot of off-season work, but they have a lot of money to work with.

Bush's inability to elevate his fastball when ahead in the count kept his strikeout numbers down. However, he has very good control to the corners, and pitches effectively low in the zone. His 4 inning outing against Toronto 2 seasons ago in the play-offs showed me that he has the tempo to be a starter. I've been advocating this, and hope he is successful. He is susceptible to the HR and giving up hits ahead in the count, but as a starter he will be rewarded most of the time for getting ahead.

I could buy into the experiment more if they are willing to go throw good $$$ at some quality bullpen arms. Basically buy themselves the opportunity to try it. That bullpen is a cesspool that needs investment anyway, but if they do this, that is one more quality bullpen arm I'd want to see them add on top of it.

You are correct that he works the fastball down in the Kzone well. My questions revolve more around his secondary pitches.

Count me out for investing substantial $$$ in the bullpen. It's a crapshoot almost every year for most teams. If Bush can be converted, I've got no problems rolling with Barnette, Diekman, Claudio, Alvarez, Kela and whoever makes a push during spring training.

Realistically if we're in a position that we are go forward trying to convert Bush it means we've missed out on the significant SP in free agency... and if that's the case I don't know that I want any expensive bullpen pieces for a team that isn't going to be handing them very many leads.