My last post was 112 games ago.  A ton has happened and it has been another fantastic year to be a Rangers fan.  Here are some bullet points:

• Yu Darvish debuted against the Mariners.
• Josh Hamilton was the AL Player of the Month (April, May).
• Matt Harrison has a stellar 1st half, shows Ace capability.
• Craig “Kitten Face” Gentry shows he can be more than a pinch runner.
• Josh Hamilton gets more All Star votes than anyone in the history of fan voting. 
• 8 Rangers make the AL All Start team. (Hambone, Nap, Kins, Elvis, Beltre, Harry, Joe Nathan, and Yu.)
• Neftali Feliz and Colby Lewis are both shut down for the entire season with injuries.
• The #FreeLeonys and #FreeMikeOlt campaigns both result in call-ups.
• Ryan Dempster and Geo Soto become Rangers at the trade deadline.

There has been a good number of other story lines this season.  But as it stands today, August 12th, 2012, the Rangers are 5.5 games up on the Oakland A’s and 7 up on the Pre-Season World Series favorite LA Angels.

With 50 games left, we are projected to end the season with a 95-67 record 8 games up on Oak and 9 games up on LAA.  We have a 92.5% chance of making the playoffs per ESPN.  I think that is extremely conservative considering the Angels can’t seem to take a series from the Rangers and I still have trouble imagining the A’s continuing their phenomenal play. 

If the season ended today, we would hold the #2 seed and play the #3 seeded White Sox who has beaten us 6 of 9 games this season.  I still give us the edge in October though, just based off home field advantage and depth.  We are only 1 game back of the Yankees for the top seed in the AL, which would mean we would play the Winner of the Wildcard 1 game playoff.  This would be extremely interesting, seeing as that team would have already used their #1 pitcher.

Lots of fun stuff to come for sure.

Yes, yes.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish off the comparative posts between last year and this years Rangers’ squads.  But oh well, Eet’s Tyme :)

In less than 13 hours, the Rangers will take the field and I will be watching from my favorite watering hole:  Village Burger Bar.  Most likely I will have watery eyes from being extremely excited and happy, or someone bought me a warm shot of something nasty.  Regardless, it’s here.

Quite possibly my favorite day of sports all year long.  Most people would say the Super Bowl, but for me…it has to be Opening Day for my Texas Rangers.  My Rangers, who have lost back-to-back World Series, will come out and start a brand new trek towards the playoffs. 

Nothing is set in stone obviously, see 2011 Boston Red Sox, the team EVERYONE and their dog had winning the World Series prior to the season starting.  Yea, they didn’t even make the tourney.  But, I have faith in my little Rangers along with the coaching staff and especially the front office.

Not only do we have a great team taking the field, but we have a top 3 farm system to boot.  The Rangers are poised to carry on being perennial contender year in and year out.  Of course, this may be the last year we have this version of the team.  Josh Hamilton is most assuredly gone after the 2012 campaign.  In case you don’t already know this about me, he is my absolute favorite player.

Josh Hamilton embodies a lot of the struggles I sometimes feel I have.  Not to the extent he had to endure, but surely in my own way.  No crazy drugs or tattoos, just internal struggles.  He found his way back, and so have I.  It’s easy to root for someone you feel you can relate to.  But, there is no way we need to pay him what he is asking…so bye, bye Hambone.

The entire squad has reported to Surprise, AZ and my baseball pants are going wild!!!!!!!  It’s time to talk about our fantastic depth at 3rd, 1st and Catcher.

Last year had a ton of question marks going into Opening Day.  Where was Michael Young going to fit in with the addition of Mike Napoli?  Who was going to play 1st base?  The only catcher from 2010 coming into 2011 was Taylor Teagarden, would he finally develop? 

This year, far fewer questions.  Our starting catcher is Mike Napoli aka Nap Nap Wiener!!  Our starting 3rd baseman is obviously Adrian Beltre.  And our 1st base will be a combo of Michael “The Face” Young and Mitch Moreland.  Yorvit Torrealba will be thrown in there at catcher to give Napoli’s knees a break, but I sincerely don’t see how we take Napoli’s bat out of the lineup, so that means Mitch takes a seat.

2011 Situation
Catcher:  Yorvit Torrealba, Mike Napoli, Taylor Teagarden.
1st Base:  Michael Young, Mitch Moreland
3rd Base:  Adrian Beltre, Michael Young
DH:  Mike Napoli, Michael Young, Mitch Moreland

2012 Situation
Catcher:  Mike Napoli, Yorvit Torrealba
1st Base:  Mitch Moreland, Michael Young, Mike Napoli
3rd Base:  Adrian Beltre, Michael Young
DH;  Michael Young, Mitch Moreland, David Murphy

I think between having fewer question marks and having a good amount of flexibility, 2012 is just a better situation to be in!

Woo hoo!  37 days until Opening Day!

Also, side note…just finished a bottle of $7.99 Cherrywood Merlot.  :)

The Bullpen can make or break a team.  Unless you are rolling out guys like Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay, you aren’t getting a complete game from your starters most nights.  There have definitely been some changes from last year to this one, in fact, there may only end up being two pitchers in the pen that remain from the Opening Day roster in 2011.

Opening Day 2011 bullpen per the www.texasrangers.com depth chart:

Name - 2011 role - 2012 status
Neftali Feliz - Closer - Rangers starter
Darren O’Day - RHP - Orioles RHP
Arthur Rhodes - LHP - Not on active MLB roster
Darren Oliver - LHP - Blue Jays signed multi-year deal
Mark Lowe -  RHP - Active Rangers RHP
Pedro Strop - RHP - Traded to Balt for Mike Gonzalez
Mason Tobin - RHP - Not on active MLB roster
Dave Bush - RHP - Signed with Phillies

Opening Day 2012 bullpen:

Name - 2011 role - 2012 status
Joe Nathan - Twins closer - Rangers closer via Free Agency
Alexi Ogando - Rangers starter - Rangers RHP
Scott Feldman - 60-day DL - Rangers long relief
Koji Uehara - Baltimore RHP - Rangers RHP via trade
Mike Adams - San Diego RHP - Rangers RHP via trade
Yoshi Tateyama - Rangers minors RHP - Rangers RHP
Michael Kirkman - Rangers minors LHP - Rangers LHP

Bubble pitchers in my opinion:
Mark Lowe - Rangers RHP - Rangers RHP
Mark Hamburger - Rangers minors RHP - Rangers RHP
Joe Beimal - Pirates LHP - Rangers non-roster invitee LHP

I think one of those bubble players will make the Opening Day 2012 roster since we have such an influx of young, new starters making the transistion to MLB everyday starter.  Overall, a much more solid bullpen that gives us the flexibility for a spot start from Ogando or Feldman to help out Feliz and Darvish.  Losing Darren Oliver to the Blue Jays is probably the only major hole to fill.  He was great against lefties and somewhat underrated amongst fans here.  It doesn’t look like we are going to resign Mike Gonzalez (a pitcher we traded for before the waiver deadline from Baltimore), which would have been our lefty specialist.

Opening Day 2012 > Opening Day 2011 for sure!

Going into 2011 Spring Training I was pretty bummed about our SP staff.  We had lost out on trying to resign Cliff Lee, and had not replaced him in the rotation with anyone I hadn’t seen before.  We were going to roll out CJ as our #1, Colby Lewis as our #2, Tommy Hunter as our #3, Derek Holland/Matt Harrison as our #4/5.  Then Tommy Hunter went down with a hamstring injury, so the Rangers braintrust went with Alexi Ogando as the 5th starter.

Tommy Hunter never came close to establishing himself as a starter for us again, and subsequently was traded along with Chris Davis to Baltimore for Koji Uehara.  CJ had a great season (aside from not being able to win any important games).  Colby was his usual innings eating self, but was prone to the long ball.  Matt Harrison, Derek Holland and Alexi Ogando, all had fantastic years as starters.  Ogando made the All Star game but quickly faded after that with the Texas heat and his lack of experience pitching as many innings as he had.

CJ was going into free agency after we lost the World Series, and most assumed he wouldn’t be back.  Although, it wasn’t the same situation as the 2010-11 offseason when we actually pursued Cliff Lee.  We just weren’t keen on offering CJ the type of money it was obviously going to take to re-sign him.  He ended up going to the Angels for $77.5mil over 5yrs.  Good riddance.

This offseason, we didn’t let the void of losing the #1 pitcher from the season before stay a void.  We went out and got the best pitcher on the market, Yu Darvish.  Not ony that, but we got him for $20mil less than CJ in terms of contract value, and he is 5yrs younger!

Going into 2012, we will roll out Colby Lewis as our Opening Day starter.  Everyone is assuming Yu will be our #1 production-wise, but I think Colby has earned this Opening Day start.  We are moving Neftali Feliz from the closers spot into the rotation.  This move was only able to take place by the signing of Joe Nathan.  We round out the five starters with Yu, Derek Holland and Matt Harrison.  Sending Alexi Ogando to the pen, where he thrived in the playoffs, and also making Scott Feldman (Opening Day starter of 2010) the long relief man.

I think if you want to compare the rotation of 2011; CJ, Colby, Matt H., Dutch, and Ogando to the 2012 rotation of Yu, Colby, Neftali, Matt H., and Dutch, it’s a pretty easy decision which one I favor.

2012 :)

Every single blog, column I read about the Rangers, features a position-by-position outlook each year going into the new season.  I figured I would take a run at doing this as well just to showcase how great of a position the Rangers of 2012 are really in.

I will break it down into a few different posts so I try to straddle the fence on inundating you with way too much greatness or wasting your time with a little baby post.

First, will be starting pitchers.  Then, I will attempt to analyze the relief corps.  After that, I will divuldge into our 1st/3rd/Catcher situations.  Then, middle infielders and bench.  Finally, I will talk about our outfielders.

I won’t throw a time table out there, just because I am pretty sporadic with my postings as of late.

Yesterday around 2:05pm ct, the Rangers officially fell out of the bidding for Prince Fielder and to my surprise, I was not all that upset about it.  I was not upset because of the reported contract he was offered. 

9yrs $214,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yea, no thanks.

Opening Day is 72 days away.  I don’t think the Rangers are done with signing players, but I don’t see them signing anyone who will make a huge impact to the day-to-day operation.  So let’s take a look at what the depth chart would look like if we were to begin the season on this bright and sunny day nasty, cold and rainy Wednesday.

Catcher:
1. Mike Napoli
2. Yorvit Torrealba

1st Base:
1. Mitch Moreland
2. Michael Young, Mike Napoli

2nd Base:
1. Ian Kinsler
2. Michael Young

3rd Base:
1. Adrian Beltre
2. Michael Young

SS:
1. Elvis Andrus
2. Michael Young

Left Field:
1. Josh Hamilton
2. David Murphy

Center Field:
1. Craig Gentry
2. Josh Hamilton
3. Julio Borbon/Leonys Martin (Only one of these players will make the team.  My money would be on Borbon, even though I want to see Martin.)

Right Field:
1. Nelson Cruz
2. David Murphy

DH:
1. Michael Young
2. Mike Napoli

Starting Pitchers:
1. Yu Darvish
2. Colby Lewis
3. Derek Holland
4. Neftali Feliz
5. Matt Harrison

Bullpen:
1. Alexi Ogando
2. Scott Feldman
3. Joe Nathan (Closer)
4. Mike Adams
5. Koji Uehara
6. Mark Lowe
7. Yoshi Tateyama

There is what I believe will be our 25-man roster for Opening day.  It is a pretty conservative outlook on my part, but I think the only thing that will change any of this would be if we send Koji somewhere and sign someone like Mike Gonzalez.

According to BBTiA, Jim Bowden of ESPN and Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Yu Darvish will sign with the Rangers for 5 years with a 6th year player option.

YAY!

This morning I woke up to eagerly check my email or texts to see if Yu had signed with the Rangers or not, or if there was any news at all.  There wasn’t.  In fact, of what I have read this morning, it seems as though people have tapped the breaks on the initial belief that we would absolutely sign him.  Now it’s more of a “yeaaaaa, they will probably sign him” sort of feeling.  

 
    Yu is apparently a Derek Holland fan.

Apparently, there is one major sticking point to getting this deal hashed out.  He wants to get paid more than Daisuke, but only for 5 years rather than the 6 years the Rangers are offering.  This is why this is intriguing:

• Most pitchers look for security with their contracts, they would rather have extra years tacked on and typically will take less money if the organization will oblige.
• The Rangers lost out on Cliff Lee because they were not willing to go passed 5 years, as well as C.J. Wilson.  Although, I think for C.J. it was more us not seeing what he saw in himself.  Thank goodness.
• The Rangers have already invested close to $52 million just to sit at the table and negotiate with Yu.  I am assuming they are figuring that money into the entirety of the contract.  So, even though they will only end up paying $11-12 mil/year for Yu, they want that $52 million they used on the posting fee to go the distance.
• Yu wants to hit free agency as a 30 year old.  I think this shows he truly believes in his stuff, and I like that confidence.  He is okay not getting the security of a 6 year deal because he sees himself as that great.  Not good, but great.
• The Rangers ultimately have the most leverage against Yu.  He will make substantially less money by going back to Japan.  He will not be able to begin his showcase for his next big deal 5 years from now.  Most of all, the Rangers still have options.  If we don’t sign him, we turn our attention to Prince Fielder, Roy Oswalt and Edwin Jackson.

So, what to do, what to do…

The Rangers have until 4pm ct to hash this deal out.  I personally think the deal will get done and we still will have our nose in the Prince sweepstakes.  May be wishful naive thinking, but it makes me a happy boy.

I love Twitter. @jimbobburris incase you also love Twitter.  But I am really starting to wonder if enough is enough.

First it was the status update on Facebook, and that got, and does get made fun of on a constant basis.  I myself complained about people who insist on letting the rest of us know how happy they are with their relationship over and over.  Look, you have your relationship status, update it and be done.  Sure if they do something significant then your FB friends probably wouldn’t mind knowing, hence the Facebook friendship.  But it’s like the guy that keeps talking about how much money he makes, at what point does it just become annoying and moreso a hint as to him being a $30,000 millionaire rather than an actual millinaire.  Just saying.

I digress…

I follow a variety of different people on Twitter, most of all, sports writers who I am hoping will have the ultimate story posted on Twitter before it becomes national news on ESPN.  For instance, in 2010 when it looked as if Cliff Lee was going to become a part of the evil empire (the Yankees), Twitter gave me insight that shocked me.  The Rangers had infact swooped in and yanked him away!  Pun intended.

Then, whenever it came time for free agency later that year, all I heard about was this supposed ‘mystery team’ that had Cliff Lee’s attention when I thought it was down to us and the Yankees.  Well, the ‘mystery team’ was the Phillies and as we all know, they got him.

The problem I have with Twitter, is not actually with Twitter.  It is with the sports writers who don’t actually have a story.  Over and over again I heard about how Yu Darvish’s 2011 Japanese team was going to accept whatever the offer was for him.  No shit.  Or, ‘sources with knowledge of the situation believe that the bid will go to either Texas or Toronto.’  No shit. 

The worst part of this problem…I still read these people’s tweets and still follow them.  I can’t help it.  I want to know!!  Will the Rangers get a deal hashed out for Yu?  Was the Rangers meeting with Prince Fielder just an over-blown book tour for Boras to remind everyone that Prince was still out there?  Were the Rangers using him to try and force Yu’s hand?  Someone please tell me what the ‘sources’ are saying! 

I hate them, and apparently need them.  Twitter is an animal.