Poor Toby's Almanac...The Rangers will contend if:

Nice format...I guess that's why MLB kept us from posting for a while.

At least we didn't give up much for the new guy...a retred outfielder now pitching in a/aa. It sounds like his control is all over the place but that he has blazing speed. Makes you tink of Ryne Duren in my youth and the Charlie Sheen character "Wild Thing". Did anyone else notice that he had been ranked as a prospect in the same general area as Danks and Volquez. I wonder what that means for us.

Wonder if Littleton and Feldman would be better tna the new guy and Gabbard?

Can't disagree with any of your indicators for a good season. I hoped last year for 65 wins from the starting staff. We can always hope again. Would love to see some little ball l(bunting and stealing).

See you at the home opener which should have made your list!

It's all about the pitching, as always. If this starting rotation fails to eat up innings, lots of innings, I don't believe this bullpen staff can survive the season.

"Five Seattle Times staffers made their A.L. West predictions in Saturday's editions and three had the Rangers finishing last again."

With due defernce to your media brothers, surely you realize they know as much about baseball as those writers who work in the Rangers' media market, i.e. nothing.

Who is more likely to get 47 victories, have 70 starts with 630 Innings pitched? Danks, Volquez and Young or Millwood, Padilla and Jennings? I vote for the first group that would also have given us a future. Galloway said it today, Danks pitching in a White Sox uniform in Arizona made him sick. Until Rangers Management gets that attitude nothing will change. Murphy may give us the 80 to 90 RBI, Byrd did it last year so there are the other two. The less than 100 errors and the starting pitching staff scare the heck out of me and i will take the bet that they #1 won't stay healty, which thereby encumbers them from pitching all those innings. That averages to 15.6 wins per Millwood, Padilla and Jennings. It is "fools gold" to count on Millwood, Padilla and Jennings for 70 starts. They probably will get about 40 to 45 due to injury.

Galloway was in favor of the McCarthy/Danks trade when it happened. How quickly the blow-hard forgets.

My first blog entry over a year ago was concerning this trade. I favored it.

Reasoning: McCarthy WAS a Major Leaguer, had had some degree of success at the Major League level, is young, and the White Sox had a glut of top-flight starting pitchers; Danks was seemingly a top prospect, a lefty, and who had ZERO Major League experience or success at that level.

Now......a year later: McCarthy (when healthy-rare, I know) pitched rather well here in the last part of the season. Danks stats for the year were not too good overall. As of last year, the trade was a wash. If McCarthy would get healthy, I feel the trade would be a net wash, or even slightly to McCarthy's benefit.

Regardless of whatever someone thinks NOW, as they sit here a year later and if they were honest, it looks like giving up Danks was a mistake, ONLY because McCarthy has been gimpy and not producing. Of course, Danks has not excelled at the Major League level either....so, to me, the jury is still out.

No one could have foreseen McCarthy's injuries. Suppose the injuries were to Danks and not to McCarthy--we would have thought we were the ones who got the best of the deal.

Bottom line: Let McCarthy get well for Heaven's sake! If he shows some semblance of what he did early with the White Sox, I think McCarthy has the better upside. Danks might well blossom; but we have McCarthy. So all you doubting Thomas's and others I won't mention, best hope McCarthy gets healthy and produces. I do.

Don't we all? Or are we just going to sit around whining about something that' already done? We have McCarthy, not Danks. I pray for his return to health. No second-guessing and armchair quarterbacking.

Go Rangers!

Right on, bingo. We can argue for eternity about this trade and that trade but, what good does it do. The reality is that we're stuck wwith the players we have regardless of our second-guessing. That's why JD is the GM and we're a bunch of wannabes.
My opinion about this trade is that I was puzzled about it because they said they thought Chris Young was too frail to make it through a full season. If Chris Young is too frail then surely BMac is also.
As for all those IF's:
All the offensive IF's are fairly likely as long as Blalock and Hamilton stay healthy. Unexpected production from others such as Cattalanotto and Botts will be a plus.
The pitching IF's are pretty unrealistic. Especially all those innings from the top 3 starters. Don't see CJ being that successful with 40 saves in his first full year in the closer role. Actually, I can see a switch to Fukumori and/or Guardado and/or Benoit at some point. I hope I'm wrong about that. Another thing they've got to do is win more games on the road. They were the absolute worst road team in baseball last year. Not sure why, probably because of inexperience but they have got to turn that around. It's opening day!! Go Rangers!!

You guys are right no sense in crying over what has been done in the past. Except.... That the past seems to repeat itself every year, again and again. I personally would rather have Danks, Volquez and Mendoza over Padilla, Millwood and Jennings. I will be happy when, if it ever comes, when we draft pitching, spend some time developing it and then put it out there for the major league team to benefit from it. Our major league team. Danks is going to be a better pitcher than Mc Carthy ever thought about being. Danks was a first round pick and you just don't trade your first round picks when they are 20 years old. I am not crying, i am just stating the obvious, yet we continue to do it. If Volquez wins 15 games a year for the next 10 to 12 years, and Hamilton is Mickey Mantle, that is still a bad deal. Pitching is a lot harder to find than a CF. Tell me i am wrong.

You guys are right no sense in crying over what has been done in the past. Except.... That the past seems to repeat itself every year, again and again. I personally would rather have Danks, Volquez and Mendoza over Padilla, Millwood and Jennings. I will be happy when, if it ever comes, when we draft pitching, spend some time developing it and then put it out there for the major league team to benefit from it. Our major league team. Danks is going to be a better pitcher than Mc Carthy ever thought about being. Danks was a first round pick and you just don't trade your first round picks when they are 20 years old. I am not crying, i am just stating the obvious, yet we continue to do it. If Volquez wins 15 games a year for the next 10 to 12 years, and Hamilton is Mickey Mantle, that is still a bad deal. Pitching is a lot harder to find than a CF. Tell me i am wrong.

I agree that trading young pitchers is risky business. They traded Volqez to fill an immediate need and got a very good player in return in Hamilton. EVERY team is faced with having to part with young pitching to fill other needs. I wouldn't call your Volquez for Mantle deal bad or good. It's just a risk that teams have to take. I also agree that Danks will be a pitcher we wish we still had for a long time. I know you like criticize JD for these bad trades but you have to give him credit for the draft, and trades he made last summer for Tex, Gagne and Lofton. They have drafted and traded for young pitching the last couple of years. It's definitely there and, I'm like you, let's get it developed and here in Arlington, not somewhere else.