Around the Horn: Thursday (Night)

Rototimes.com gives a fantasy-oriented preview of the 2009 Rangers. Its the usual scouting report for the team: stellar hitting, abysmal pitching. The notes about the individual players make are interesting to read, however, and are backed by interesting stats and analysis.

Baseball Time in Arlington breaks down the five best and the five worst rightfielders in Texas Rangers history. The "best" list includes the usual names that you might expect; what I found most interesting were those fortunate enough to make the "worst" list.

Mike Hindman dissects Elvis Andrus and discusses other Rangers prospects to skip several minor league levels to get to the bigs. He concludes that the Rangers haven't been so successful at this game: Laynce Nix and Benji Gil being the most recent (Gil actually remained in the majors until 2003, and was spotted in the Mets system as late as 2005). This excerpt from the article shows what kind of season Andrus is likely to have, based on his performance last year in AAA:

"As the league's youngest player, Andrus hit .260 / .302 / .310 in April. He improved to .278 / .343 / .322 in May, upped it to .309 / .385 / .397 in June and peaked in July with a .333 / .382 / .423 line before regressing just a bit with a still very fine August (.303 / .351 / .393). Yes, he made 32 errors last year, but more than half (17) came in the first two months of the season and he made just three errors in August."

There is talk of the team's desire to sign Josh Hamilton to a long term contract during Spring Training. This is a no-brainer. Do it. My desire to get this deal wrapped up quickly stems not only from Hamilton's value as a baseball player, but also from the fact that I recently received a Hamilton jersey as a gift.

And Jim Reeves gives an appropriate response to Tom Hicks.

14 days until Spring Training!

Texas Rangers: "Steroid Sluggers"

I am growing weary of digging around for Rangers news and finding only clippings about steroids. So I am going to write about all the steroid issues in a single post, and, barring some other future steroid-related embarassment, I'll be done with it.

As expected, the news about Alex Rodriguez has everyone spouting off and casting doubt upon the Rangers teams of the early 2000s. An article, entitled "Rangers Organization at Heart of Scandal" just warms me up on these cold offseason days. Lucky for us, accusations towards the teams of the early part of this decade are easy to shrug off, since those Rangers teams sucked anyway. It was much more difficult to swallow when the buried truths about players like Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, and Rafael Palmeiro started to be unearthed--those teams included the only three playoff teams in Rangers history. To make sure to rub this in, the Dallas Observer comments on the Rangers "steroid sluggers".

Unfortunately, some people are starting to ask questions about players that played with A-Rod. A particular theory out there says that since Hank Blalock played next to Alex Rodriguez and is having a tough time with injuries, that he must be on steroids. This is frustrating to me. Blalock may very well have used steroids, we don't know. But the fact that he's drawing speculation because played 40 feet to A-Rod's right? I don't buy it.

Tom Hicks also claims to be irate, commenting that he is "shocked" about Rodriguez. I think this is a classic case of an owner trying desperately to convince everyone that he was as clueless as the fans about the whole steroid issue. The question is, does anyone really believe him?

Perhaps the most disappointing facet of this entire debacle: we are considered by many to be one of the most steroid-infested organizations in this era, and we don't have anything to show for it. That's it: the Rangers aren't even good at cheating.