Weekend Recap: Time to say Goodbye

Well folks, it appears my cameo appearance here at HWC is about up. As I get started tonight I'd just like to take a moment and thank everyone who's stopped by HWC this week for reading/putting up with me - I'm sure everyone is looking forward to John Paul's return tomorrow. Props are also due to my cowriter Thomas for providing some thoughtful balance to my beat reporter-style game wraps this week - I think we made a pretty good combination, myself.

I do of course have some notes of interest for you tonight, but before we dive into those I owe you a look back over the week's articles:

Saturday we kicked things off with a loss to the White Sox.
Sunday, Thomas talked about the rewards of player development for us fans, while the Rangers beat the Padres.
Monday I engaged in some random speculation, and Thomas provided us with a gem for the Monday Movie.
Tuesday it was Trivia Time, while I rethought my approach to the game recaps.
Brandon McCarthy impressed and Josh Hamilton bunted on Wednesday.
Thursday was come-from-behind win day.
And finally, on Friday Thomas talked about what lies ahead for us this season and I examined the visual evidence of why nobody goes bungee-jumping in the dugout between innings.

Today the Rangers ran their week-long winning streak to six, beating the Rockies 8-4 in Surprise. Minor League 1B/OF Chad Tracy (no, not the one who plays for the Diamondbacks) hit a go-ahead grand slam in the 7th inning after Kevin Millwood allowed 3 runs and struck out 5 in 6 innings and Willie Eyre gave up the tying run in the top half of the inning. Jarrod Saltalamacchia also had a big day at the plate, stroking 2 doubles and a walk.

The real news of the day however was Andruw Jones, who made an A-game appearance as a late-inning replacement, going 1-2 with a run scored and a double as the DH - something we could apparently be seeing more of in the future, as the Rangers have apparently reconsidered their thinking about finding a spot for him on the 25 man roster. Now, as Evan Grant reports, Jones could find his way onto the team as a right-handed DH should the team choose to eat the dead weight of Frank Catalanotto and his $6 million dollar contract. Apparently the Rangers are concerned about the number of left-handed hitters on the roster, and with Chris Davis' spring slump, and the thought is that Jones would DH against left-handed pitchers while either Davis or Hank Blalock would sit.

I've got a couple problems with this idea, the first being that I'm not at all certain it's necessary. Hank does have a reputation of struggling against LHP's, but has showed improvement against them (albeit in limited sample sizes) over the last two years, OPS'ing .796 against them in '07 (200 points better than what he did in both '05 and '06) and putting up a .903 against them last year, despite his BABIP being 53 points lower against lefties than righties. Again, those came in limited time (Hank had only 47 AB's against lefties in '07 and 83 in '08) but it's an interesting trend nonetheless.

Chris Davis on the other hand actually OPS'd better against lefties (.916) than righties (.866) in his 295 AB's in the majors last year and has historically more than held his own against them in the minors as well (.935 career MiLB OPS against lefties). Even if you're still worried about his chances against tough lefties, isn't affording him the opportunity to face them and adjust part of the learning curve for a young player like Davis? Or could it be that the club has really allowed their confidence in the 23-year old masher to be shaken by a slow spring training?

Perhaps my most significant concern here however is the Sammy Sosa redux factor. Washington seems to have a tendancy to latch onto and overplay certain veteran role-players, as he did with Sosa in 2007 when he gave him 293 AB's against right-handers despite the fact that Sosa put up a putrid 676 OPS against them for the season. If Jones, whose career OPS against lefties is 51 points higher than against righties (and was almost 200 points higher against lefties than righties in his horrid performance last season) performs well in his duties as a lefty-killer and endears himself to Wash like Sosa did, the chance for a repeat of Ron's 2007 lapse in judgement seems uncomfortably high.

It seems to me all this "Jones as the RH DH" idea is really doing is swapping one useless player (Catalanotto) for a player who could A) unnecessarily steal playing time Chris Davis and B) possibly wind up being grossly overused by our homeristic manager. Doesn't seem to me like the benefits (and likelihood of reaping them) can justify the problems/risks here.

On a brighter note, the Rangers have added left-hander Jimmy Gobble - whom I mentioned on Wednesday, ironically enough - as insurance for CJ Wilson and Eddie Guardado in the bullpen lefty role (CJ, by the way, fired a scoreless inning in the 9th today looking extremely sharp and K'ing two in his return from his blister problem). Gobble battled control issues and back problems last year, putting up a horrible-looking 8.81 ERA, but it's worth noting his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was almost 3 full points lower (5.85) and his splits against left-handers last year still looked good, indicating there might be cause for hope that he can still prove useful as a LOOGY if needed. 3/22 UPDATE: the incomparable Joey Matschulat has an all-you'll-need-to-know writeup on Gobble this morning at BBTiA - check it out.

Last, but not least as we wrap up tonight's newsreel, Mike Hindman has more insight from the backfields to enjoy, focusing on 19 year-old left-hander Geuris Grullon, along with Michael Main, Martin Perez and Joe Wieland. Exciting stuff, as always.

That's about all I've got tonight - thanks again for reading folks, and thanks of course to John Paul for the opportunity to write here this week. It's really been a blast. Here's to ever-forward progress for the Rangers in 2009.