Odor can be just brutal sometimes

Frustrating night for our "all-star" tonight

Beautiful

There goes your All-Star, Rangers fans.

Wow. What a beating. Red Sox have destroyed us this year.

Team is tanking just in time for the break. Sell. Sell. Sell.

Darvish has #1 arm talent and a high-school brain.

cevans_40 said:

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Darvish has #1 arm talent and a high-school brain.

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he really is pretty stupid I think

Huell Babineaux said:

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cevans_40 said:

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Darvish has #1 arm talent and a high-school brain.

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he really is pretty stupid I think

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I don't know if he is or not but he pitches like a tard sometimes. What gets me is the occasional gem and then the 4 terrible outings that follow. I swear next game, Chirinos will take his glove off so he can signal 6 or 7 to him. If he would just throw 3 pitches and be done with it, he would be much better off.

toucan82 said:

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I think I've seen enough of Benintendi for this season

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Even more true now than it was an hour ago

Ranger July 4th baseball!

Frisco down 11-3
Round Rock down 8-1
Texas down 8-0

toucan82 said:

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toucan82 said:

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I think I've seen enough of Benintendi for this season

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Even more true now than it was an hour ago

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Didn't he go a few spots after Tate in the draft? Would've been nice to have him but of course we probably would have traded him anyway.

cevans_40 said:

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Seven Costanza said:

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Only a few more months until the outfield grass is back to normal, guys.

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That has to be the worst field maintenance job of all time. All they had to do was scalp all of the grass 3 weeks before the season started and everything would have been fine. I bet it will still be noticeable at seasons end.

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Are you the one that argued with me at the very beginning of the year when I said the field was pathetic and the head groundskeeper should be fired?

Nope. I would have said it then as well. I have over a decade of experience managing golf courses and will usually take up for the guy "cutting the grass" but this is just bad.

Rangers seem to want to start the All Star break a day or two early.

Glad I was out doing other stuff and just saw the scoring updates tonight. Elvis >> Darvish.

This team is also going nowhere. I wouldn't be upset if we had a fire sale on everyone but Mazara and Elvis

Seven Costanza said:

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Only a few more months until the outfield grass is back to normal, guys.

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Those stupid amoeba grass patterns have obviously offended the baseball gods. Would it really cost that much to paint over them or do something similar?

Baseball Gods said:

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TIME TO SELL!

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Definitely need to be major sellers, ever if we get the WC our record against division leaders is laughable, see below

The more the Rangers slip\lose... the easier it becomes to make the case to dump players.

I think the Rangers have the talent, with a few minor additions. However, I think they have shown more an ability to lose games, than to win. You just don't see the type of clutch moment to change the outcome in a positive way. The converse appears to regularly happen. clutch moments to change the outcome in a negative way.

So is it too early to start putting price tags out?

We've reviewed this before...

Free Agents
SP:
Darvish: 18 GS, 3.56, 1.14 <- You'd think even with the debacle last night he has great value.
Cashner: 13 GS, 3.87 ERA, 1.48 WHIP <- I've seen worse traded at the deadline. Garza.
Ross: 4 GS, 6.41 ERA, 1.32 WHIP. Not sure he'll get enough additional GS. You might trade him just to get a rotation spot for someone like YoMen.

OF: Gomez: .252, 11 HR

IF: Napoli (2018 Option): .194, 18 HR

C: Lucroy: .259, 4 HR, GREAT RECEIVER and FRAMER. EXCELLENT!

RP: Grilli. 0.00 ERA, 0.00 WHIP, 18K/9IP. Dude is a phenom.

Guys with some control, worth moving?
Jeremy Jeffress (A2 in 2018): 5.46 ERA for a RP, is worthless.
AJG (A3 in 2018): On DL60. Worthless.
Profar (A2 in 2018): .299, 2 HR, 3 SB in AAA. I think he only has 1 more year of team control, which makes him almost worthless in any trade option.
Scheppers (A3 in 2018): Worthless

I don't think we have enough to "restock" our minors. We'd do well to get 3 guys projected to make MLB out of all that. We'd get guys like Profar, who are getting long in the tooth with Rule V concerns.

We're going to suck in 2018.

Yu is a thrower, not a pitcher.

If you put aside the opportunity cost, the roster is of course better with him; and someone will be better with him next year.

But it is the opportunity cost that would concern me.

Can you get 2-for-1 for the money required to sign him? Can you find another big name player, either in free agency or a trade, that gives you more confidence of producing consistent great play?

I don't have the answers for that, at least as far as trades may go, but those are the two questions I think the Rangers front office has to be asking itself re: Yu Darvish.

Quote:

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Profar (A2 in 2018): .299, 2 HR, 3 SB in AAA. I think he only has 1 more year of team control, which makes him almost worthless in any trade option.

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I reckon Profar can't accumulate the required service time after next season to be a free agent under the general six year rule. He came into this year with less than 4 years of service time.

Generally speaking, he's going to run up against the options limit meaning he'll need to be on the 25-man roster or likely be moved to another franchise. But the team would still have control.

Is he going to run into an exception to allow him to test free agency?

Given the trajectory of the Astros, in my mind it is much more worth it to sell rather than try to fix the bullpen. This would suck so much to see, but I would politely ask Beltre if he would want to go somewhere for a few more shots at a WS.

In terms of guys we can't move: Elvis we likely couldn't move due to this contract. Honestly he's worth keeping at this point. Mazara has high potential and is still very young. I wouldn't trade him. We also likely cannot move Choo, and Odor's new contract/plate discipline makes him not very desirable for a team. But literally EVERYONE else.... I wouldn't have an issue with trading. We need to restock the farm in a big way.

I wouldn't even say that the trades we did to make the push to get to the WS (Hamels, Beltran, Lucroy) were bad. But the results have fallen well short of the goal, and it looks like in retrospect it would have been nice to just sit on and develop most of the talent we gave away in those trades. Nothing can be done about that, of course, but I think it just underscores the need to get prospects back in the pipeline.

I think Elvis is movable, but it'll be a relatively small list of potential buyers and won't be a great value trade.

Will need to find a contender that needs a shortstop to get good or better trade value. But the Red Sox have Bogaerts; the Yankees have Gregorius; the Nationals have Turner, etc., etc.

Seems to me a lot of the clubs that expect to be multi-year contenders in the next few years have good, young shortstops.

TXAggie2011 said:

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Yu is a thrower, not a pitcher.

If you put aside the opportunity cost, the roster is of course better with him; and someone will be better with him next year.

But it is the opportunity cost that would concern me.

Can you get 2-for-1 for the money required to sign him? Can you find another big name player, either in free agency or a trade, that gives you more confidence of producing consistent great play?

I don't have the answers for that, at least as far as trades may go, but those are the two questions I think the Rangers front office has to be asking itself re: Yu Darvish.

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As horrible as Darvish has been... his ERA is 10th in the AL. Even after last night's debacle of 7ERs.

If has an occasional meltdown and is still 10th in the AL in ERA, the other games he must be even that much more outstanding.

9 of his 18 GS have been 6.0+ IP and no more than 2 ER.

In 4 of 18 GS, he has gone (6.1/4, 5.1/4, 5.0/5 & 4.1/7)= 21.0 IP/20ER = 8.57 ERA
In the other 14 GS, he has gone 90.1 IP/24ER = 2.39 ERA

So, in 78% of his GS, he has a 2.39 ERA. That's pretty damn good.

The problem with signing a 2:1 for the price is, you are not going to get the brilliance, the consistency, nor the duration.

Very few pitchers are going to be in the Top 10 ERA for 3-4 years straight. Almost any pitcher we sign, we'll overpay (because that is what GMs have to do) for a limited resource.

TXAggie2011 said:

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Quote:

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Profar (A2 in 2018): .299, 2 HR, 3 SB in AAA. I think he only has 1 more year of team control, which makes him almost worthless in any trade option.

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I reckon Profar can't accumulate the required service time after next season to be a free agent under the general six year rule. He came into this year with less than 4 years of service time.

Generally speaking, he's going to run up against the options limit meaning he'll need to be on the 25-man roster or likely be moved to another franchise. But the team would still have control.

Is he going to run into an exception to allow him to test free agency?

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I'm not an expert and I can be wrong, but once the Arb clock starts clicking, I didn't think it stopped.

He has 3 years of service time and his Arb clock has started. Looking at his status on COTS, seems to indicate he is Arb3 in 2019, so either I made a mistake in counting, or he ended up with another year.

Either way, it appears I listed him as A2 in 2018, with 1 more year of control, when math would seem to indicate 2 more years of team control (2018 and 2019).

Thanks for catching that.

See I can be nice.

Perusing some stats at the desk during lunch: Joey Gallo's spreads when the count starts 1-0 vs. 0-1 are huge. Double the league average.

BA: .119 vs. .242 (123 point spread)
OBP: .194 vs. .420 (226 point spread)
SLG: .297 vs. .571 (274 point spread)

OPS: .490 vs. .992 (502 point spread)


League averages

BA: .221 vs .273 (52 point spread)
OBP: .226 vs .387 (161 point spread)
SLG: .357 vs. 465 (108 point spread)

OPS: .623 vs .852 (229 point spread)

If Darvish is willing to return for $28m/year or less, it's a no-brainer for Texas.

I would guess with the new stadium on the horizon that Texas will even go $30m/year or a little above. This front office has never undergone a true rebuild from a contender, and I seriously doubt they are going to start now.

So if you aren't rebuilding, but you are letting Darvish go -- minus some mega-trade out of nowhere, who are your consistent front-end of the rotation free agent starting pitchers worth signing to multi-year deals?

Johnny Cueto? Tanaka? Arrieta? Pineda?

All sporting ERA's almost a full run higher than Darvish this season.

So yeah, we'd all like some more consistency out of our front end starter -- but you're certainly not guaranteed to find it in 2017 free agency.

jtstanley4621 said:

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Given the trajectory of the Astros, in my mind it is much more worth it to sell rather than try to fix the bullpen. This would suck so much to see, but I would politely ask Beltre if he would want to go somewhere for a few more shots at a WS.

In terms of guys we can't move: Elvis we likely couldn't move due to this contract. Honestly he's worth keeping at this point. Mazara has high potential and is still very young. I wouldn't trade him. We also likely cannot move Choo, and Odor's new contract/plate discipline makes him not very desirable for a team. But literally EVERYONE else.... I wouldn't have an issue with trading. We need to restock the farm in a big way.

I wouldn't even say that the trades we did to make the push to get to the WS (Hamels, Beltran, Lucroy) were bad. But the results have fallen well short of the goal, and it looks like in retrospect it would have been nice to just sit on and develop most of the talent we gave away in those trades. Nothing can be done about that, of course, but I think it just underscores the need to get prospects back in the pipeline.

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Beltre has extended his contract with Texas through 2018, I believe because the Rangers have committed to play him at 3rd. He will be breaking many, many key milestones and he will end up being ranked in the Top 3 in almost every category for players who played at 3B (not counting stats when they played other positions). There is zero chance to move him.

If you trade Elvis... who do you replace him with? He leads the Rangers in almost every category for SSs, and has the ability (based on longevity) to surpass players like Jeter and Ripken in many categories.
Andrus has 1269 G at SS. Jeter has 2668. Ripken has 2297. Elvis has 6 more years on his contract. At 150 GP at SS (for 6 years) and another 50 G this season, that's 2169.

You don't move players like Mazara and Odor. Who would you replace them with, how much would you pay? Young, cheap controlled talent is not easily replaced.

Choo... I agree we could like eat $$$ to dump him.

I think the idea of not re-signing Darvish---however it were happen---would not be to find an equal or better direct replacement, but to find a good pitcher and then use saved money to upgrade another starting spot or another position.

The base theory would be there are bigger holes on the roster than Darvish's absence would create.


Assuming he's not signing an extension in the next 26 days, its probably too early get into who exactly you'd target in free agency and what kind of drop you might expect between them and Darvish.


I'm not trying to act as a proponent of that, just noting the theory of it.

Huell Babineaux said:

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Beltre, Elvis, Mazara, Odor, Gallo are going nowhere. I could see everyone else getting moved.

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Agree, the only one of those I can see leaving is Beltre. He's 39 and only played in 1 World Series. If he asks to go to a contender, I doubt the front office would say no, he's too respected.