It seems like you are cherry picking "guys who weren't necessarily good with the Rangers but were good in their career", but then turning around and only looking at tiny segments of their career.

Tanana was really great early in his career. He was a league average pitcher the last 15+ years of it.

Proposition Joe said:

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It seems like you are cherry picking "guys who weren't necessarily good with the Rangers but were good in their career", but then turning around and only looking at tiny segments of their career.

Tanana was really great early in his career. He was a league average pitcher the last 15+ years of it.

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And you're completely ignoring the fact that the type of pitcher you described is exactly what Yu Darvish is.

With the Rangers, he went 52-39 with a 3.42 ERA...solid pitching, not what I would consider elite, but really good.

Since then?
4-3, 3.44 ERA with the Dodgers after the trade
15-14 / 3.60 with the Cubs in 3 seasons
15-14 3.87 with the Padres last year & this.

All of those teams were good teams when he was with them, and yet he was basically a 500 pitcher.

I'll circle back around to the initial comment that stirred this debate.

"one of the best pitchers to ever don the Rangers uniform" IMO means their greatness didn't necessarily have to be when they were pitching for the Rangers.

Darvish is in the discussion, no doubt. I just believe there are others who, over the course of their careers, were better pitchers.

rbtexan said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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It seems like you are cherry picking "guys who weren't necessarily good with the Rangers but were good in their career", but then turning around and only looking at tiny segments of their career.

Tanana was really great early in his career. He was a league average pitcher the last 15+ years of it.

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And you're completely ignoring the fact that the type of pitcher you described is exactly what Yu Darvish is.

With the Rangers, he went 52-39 with a 3.42 ERA...solid pitching, not what I would consider elite, but really good.

Since then?
4-3, 3.44 ERA with the Dodgers after the trade
15-14 / 3.60 with the Cubs in 3 seasons
15-14 3.87 with the Padres last year & this.

All of those teams were good teams when he was with them, and yet he was basically a 500 pitcher.

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Again, you're kind of cherry picking which stats you deem important during one periods of time.

So with the Rangers Darvish was 13 games over 0.500, but since then he's been "basically a 0.500 pitcher" (34-31).

Charlie Hough has a career winning percentage of 0.500. Frank Tanana barely over that.

I mean, win percentage is a pretty silly metric to go by for a pitcher anyways... But if that's the one you're choosing to reference than some of the guys in your list have no business being there.

About the only thing you can really slight Darvish for at this point is the # of years he's pitched. But do we really need to see a guy go out there 10 more years pitching league average or below to then give him the nod as "one of the best ever" ?

Pot meet kettle as it pertains to cherry picking.

I provided a snapshot of 4 consecutive seasons where Tanana was a dominant pitcher - strictly as an example. He was one of the top pitchers in the league at that time. Please point me to a similar stretch in Darvish's career...I'll wait. I could do the same with Charlie Hough, because regardless of his win percentage (and I agree that can be misleading) he was one of the top pitchers in the league on bad teams.

You dismissed Hough & Tanana because their career ERAs were "barely over league average". That was your statement. Well congrats, you just described Yu Darvish. His career ERA is almost identical to theirs.

I enjoyed watching Yu with the Rangers, he was a good pitcher and was the ace of a otherwise pretty mediocre rotation. But let's be honest, he had one arguably 'great' season, that being his first when he won 16 games. That's the high water mark for this career. He's never come close to that since. The only season you could possibly point to was the jacked up covid season, where everyone's stats were weird.

My point is that every pitcher I mentioned had several truly great seasons in their careers. Every one of them, including Hough. Darvish has had one - maybe, that's debatable. And if we want to base the conversation on "best seasons by a pitcher in Ranger's history" there's a lot of better performances there as well....Kevin Brown's 21 win season, Jenkins winning 25, Matlack's season with a 2.27 ERA, Nolan's 301 strikeout season....hell, even Rick Helling won 20 games one season.

I'm clearly not going to change your mind on this, and that's fine....you're not changing mine either. I'm not bashing Darvish, and I'm certainly not a fan boy of any of the pitchers I mentioned. Look at baseball reference, and peruse their career stats. Look at several of the great seasons they had in their careers. Then try to find the same things in Darvish's stats. You won't, because it isn't there.

When comparing pitchers from different eras you have to first compare them to the average pit her at that time. A 3.50 ERA now may be better than a 3.25 ERA 30 years ago.

Quote:

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I provided a snapshot of 4 consecutive seasons where Tanana was a dominant pitcher - strictly as an example. He was one of the top pitchers in the league at that time. Please point me to a similar stretch in Darvish's career...I'll wait. I could do the same with Charlie Hough, because regardless of his win percentage (and I agree that can be misleading) he was one of the top pitchers in the league on bad teams.

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Seasons #3-6 for Tanana: ERA+ of 129

Seasons #1-4 for Darvish: ERA+ of 129


Difference is that was it for Tanana. There rest of his career he was league average.

Darvish was still well above average after his first 4, and almost won a Cy Young in 2020.

Considering Frank Tanana one of the greatest pitchers to ever wear a Rangers uniform but not even having Darvish in your Top 10 (15?) means the 8 color TV you were probably watching him on didn't really give you a good vantage point

Stop moving the goalposts and misquoting me.

I specifically said, if you're talking top 10 he's probably in there.

And fine, since you've chosen to fixate on Tanana, take him out. I still rank the other pitchers I mentioned higher than Darvish. Is he in the top 10? Again, probably so. But he's not in the top 5, not IMO.

My Top 5
Nolan
Blyleven
Jenkins
Perry
Hough

You can disagree on Hough if you want, but if you disagree with the other five you're simply not being objective.

* and if the criteria you began with still applies, simply donning the Ranger uniform, technically Corey Kluber counts and I'd rank him above Darvish too. He wore the uniform for one inning, so he was one the best ever to do so.

Honestly it was a very simple comment that was more referencing what we got in return on the trade rather than a deep-dive on analytics. It was meant as a "one of the best pitchers as a Ranger we've had in the last few decades", I assumed no one would really think that meant I was comparing Yu Darvish to Nolan Ryan.

But when Frank Tanana is on your list and Darvish isn't... Yeah, you're picking favorites, not looking objectively at performance.

Which kind of harkens back to all of the "will to win" talk from back in Darvish's days... Some fans just did not like the guy.

Huff sent down to AAA??? I dont get it???? Are they only going to carry 1 catcher now????

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June 21: C Meibrys Viloria selected from Triple-A Round Rock; C Sam Huff optioned to Round Rock

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alvtimes said:

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Huff sent down to AAA??? I dont get it???? Are they only going to carry 1 catcher now????

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Huff has been overmatched at the plate for weeks now. Hopefully he can get right quick.

gigem1223 said:

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alvtimes said:

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Huff sent down to AAA??? I dont get it???? Are they only going to carry 1 catcher now????

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Huff has been overmatched at the plate for weeks now. Hopefully he can get right quick.

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Overmatched for weeks but still has the highest batting average on the team, minus Smith. Fine with him getting sent down, but he was bound to revert to the mean a bit after his hot start

Really don't understand taking Josh Smith's bat out of the line up.

El Bombiiiii!!!!!!!!!

Maybe Dunning should only pitch at home.

Danny Vermin said:

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Maybe Dunning should only pitch at home.

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Was literally just talking about this with my buddy. He's nails at home and **** on the road.

Adolis trying to tie the game up with that swing

We continue to suck against bad teams

Base hit would be nice here

Effing Semien. Someone needs to take an Amber Heard in his bed

Oh look, Semien coming up small again

$500 million worth of dog **** on display in the 9th

Overpaid players continue to suck in big spots. These 2 contracts are going to kill this rebuild.

They look good with no one on though!

vander54 said:

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Semien has looked great lately. Some of y'all can't handle a loss.

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Yes he's played better lately but when has he had a big hit in a critical spot late in the game? He has continued to come up short every time. Seager? Much of the same. King of the solo homer in the 1st or 3rd inning.

And lol at "can't handle a loss". We're Rangers fans.

Went to the game last night, it was pretty damn loud in the 9th. Bummed they couldn't get one in but I was impressed with the noise.

Disco Stu said:

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Quote:

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June 21: C Meibrys Viloria selected from Triple-A Round Rock; C Sam Huff optioned to Round Rock

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thanks..... missed that part

gigem1223 said:

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Overpaid players continue to suck in big spots. These 2 contracts are going to kill this rebuild.

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Overreact much?

WestTexasAg said:

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gigem1223 said:

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Overpaid players continue to suck in big spots. These 2 contracts are going to kill this rebuild.

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Overreact much?

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Nope. Semien and Seager continue to suck late in games. Happened again today. 8th inning, 1 on and no outs, Semien hits into double play and Seager then proceeds to K. I was as big a fan of the signings as anyone but they've both way underperformed their contracts 70 games in. Not sure how anyone could argue that.