Before we go any further tonight, we've got an injury update on Hank Blalock from TXR.com - apparently Hank's quad is okay and is slated to play tomorrow (well, Hank and his quad both, actually). According to Ron Washington, his removal from the game yesterday was just a precautionary measure:
"Without a doubt, he's playing Tuesday," Washington said. "It was precautionary mode more than anything else today. He could have finished. Once he said he feels it a little bit, so we didn't mess around with it."
Good to hear.
Now, this is what I was going to get to last night, but didn't have the time for - you may remember all those notes from Evan Grant I linked to while evidencing the impression Derek Holland left yesterday. Well, that wasn't the only thing that stuck out to me. There's this, too on CJ Wilson (currently on the shelf with a blister on his pitching hand):
A callus that split open has delayed C.J. Wilson’s announced decision to return to the windup. He announced the decision on his Myspace blog, but when we tried to catch up with him, he didn’t have much to say about the new wrinkle in his game.“I just thought it would look cool; what do you want me to say?” Wilson said. “I think it would give me more versatility in the future.”
......
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the blog entry is that a handful of Rangers officials I spoke to had no idea Wilson planned to take the windup into a game. Pitching coach Mike Maddux said he has seen Wilson throw from the windup in the bullpen, but there has been no discussion about a change to his delivery.
CJ, as you probably already know, is coming off a 2008 season soiled by injury and off-field drama that began with the now-infamous pre-season incident involving his statements in an ESPN insider article and on lonestarball.com, and culminated with the "ball flip" in August (in his final appearance before his season was cut short by surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow). After the August ball flip, the FWST's Jeff Wilson suggested that at least the latter of those two incidents may have stemmed from the mid-season departure of pitching and bullpen coaches Mark Connor and Dom Chiti, whom CJ apparently felt "understood" him - he and Chiti in particular apparently shared an of-field friendship.
Now, 8 months later we're presented with evidence that CJ is seemingly playing "lone ranger" (if you'll excuse the unintended pun) with adjustments to his pitching repertoire, without discussion or input from his coaches. I'd hate to be the one to make something out of nothing here (there's been enough of that done recently with the myspace quotes over on LSB, in the context of CJ's attitude toward Frank Francisco) but if this indicates that CJ's still not communicating with his new coaches, pitching coach Mike Maddux in particular, it might not bode well for his chances of rebounding to the form he flashed during his career-best campaign in 2007. As I've mentioned before, a healthy, and perhaps more importantly stable and cooperative CJ goes a long way toward helping the 2009 Ranger bullpen - so hopefully I'm simply now also guilty of making a mountain from a molehill here.
Now, speaking of the bullpen and bullpen lefties, Joey Matschulat has an article up today discussing left-handed relief, in which he iterates his lack of confidence in Kason Gabbard (which I have to say I share, BTW) as well as running down the Rangers other options for the role, now and in the future.
In other news, Evan Grant spent today discussing his man-crush on Justin Smoak (who's proved a bit of a sensation in camp this year) and focusing mainly on where the Rangers first round pick from last year's draft might be starting the 2009 season. Even discussed is the idea that Smoak could conceivably start the season in the majors - frankly, there's probably better odds on me winning the lottery, but I have to admit Grant's points on the subject aren't completely ludicrous. My guess is he'll start the season at AA Frisco (if only because people way smarter than me have told me that's the most likely scenario at this point).
The Rangers are going to have a very, very good problem on their hands within the next year as Smoak and Max Ramirez are inevitably going to join Chris Davis in the majors and in the 1B/DH slot. Though Ramirez is a catcher he seems to be third in line behind Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who, by all reports looks like the player his talent ceiling suggests he can be this spring) and defensive wizard Taylor Teagarden, possibly due to his reputation as a poor defensive player in the minors. At this point that would leave him ticketed to DH - only DH is going to be held down by either Smoak or Davis (or a rotation of both between 1B/DH) at some point if all goes well. Translation: unless Max somehow passes Salty and Teagarden on the catching depth chart (which he could, if Salty flames out - I don't have much confidence in Teagarden's bat justifying starting him over an offensive force like Ramirez, unless Max is borderline incapable of playing the position, but that's just my opinion) one of Davis/Smoak/Max is going to have to go. Max would seem the most likely for the ticket to trade fodder-land, although the fact that he's also probably the "least valuable" of the three could in fact work in his favor. Not only would Davis and Smoak command higher returns, Davis is represented by superagent Scott Boras, who notoriously doesn't believe in contract extensions and Smoak might be the one with the least professional playing time when the decision looms (which isn't in my eyes a reason to trade him, but you never know - sometimes the guy who has "proven" the least is the one the front office deems expendable). Suffice it to say that the winter (and perhaps even trade deadline) of 2009 is likely going to be a pretty exciting time for speculation (which seems to have been the running theme for this post, hasn't it? I think I'd best include it in the title.)
I'm going to leave you with that thought (which may or may not be because it's time for "24"out here on the west coast) - hopefully I've given everyone some food for thought and not reason to laugh tonight.
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