Friday Happy Hour at the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill
Welcome to the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill, where a cold one always awaits Wayne Krivsky and his terrific wife Linda.
* C.J. Wilson: "Detroit is one of the best heckling cities and Toronto has some of the least original hecklers. Detroit fans are original. They called Eric Gagne last year the French Tickler. They are equal opportunity. They pick on everybody. Toronto picks on one guy and says the same thing over and over again."
* Coming to a cable system near you: the MLB Network. It launches Jan. 1, 2009.
* The Rangers are hitting .194 with runners in scoring position. That puts them last in the Major Leagues. The Giants are 29th at .220. The Rangers are hitting .187 with runners in scoring position and two outs. The Angels, who lead the American League West, are hitting .317 in those situations.
* There are 16 players in the American League hitting less than .190 with runners in scoring position. The Rangers have four of them: Hank Blalock (.158), Michael Young (.150), Milton Bradley (.111) and Ben Broussard (.067).
* There are 23 players in the American League who are hitless with runners in scoring position and two outs. The Rangers have six of them. Bradley is hitless in 12 at-bats and Blalock is hitless in nine at-bats with two outs and runners in scoring position. Those are the highest number of at-bats for a player without a hit in those situations. The others are Broussard (seven at-bats), Marlon Byrd (four), Ramon Vazquez (three) and Jason Botts (three).
* Josh Hamilton on the Rangers: "It's part of baseball. Every great team goes through stretches where they don't win. There are things we can do better and things we're doing well but we have to have consistent games where we're doing things extremely well."
* Hamilton swings at the first pitch 47.7 percent of the time, the second highest in the American League.
* Brad Mills, who was Nolan Ryan's record-breaking 3,509th strikeout victim: "He was special. What a class act. When he retired, they had a dinner for him down in Texas, a special day. He invited back all the memorable strikeout [victims] and their wives, for the weekend. My wife and I flew in there, I want to say it was '93 or '94, I'm not sure, and my wife and I flew into Dallas and we all went to dinner and it was kind of a big thing. It was neat."
* Ian Kinsler on Tigers catcher Ivan Rodriguez: "I think I've tried to steal once off him and it was third base. He's Pudge. He's a Hall of Famer. He's still a great catch-and-throw guy. Always has been, always will be."
* Just for the heck of it: Tom Henke
* On the list of notables for Wrigley Field was the first organ. That was in 1941.
* Rangers bullpen coach Dom Chiti was just three when the Indians traded his dad to the Mets on April 26, 1962 for a player to be named later. The deal was completed in June. Chiti went back to Cleveland as the player to be named later.
* Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia on his terrible start: "The way I was pitching, I wished something was wrong. I was hoping something would be hurting. But that wasn't the case."
* Former Rangers pitcher R.A. Dickey on being sent down by the Mariners when closer J.J. Putz was activated: "It's been tough. I'm thankful I'm a little older. I'm able to deal with it. My family is here -- that's one of the hardest parts. They flew in [from Nashville] to stay with the team during the homestand here. It's harder for them than it is for me."
* Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte on the struggles of their young pitchers: "These guys have a great idea how to pitch, but they're figuring out that this is a very difficult league to pitch in. They're going to have to continue to go out there and figure out how to do it. We can talk to them and tell them how to do it, but you have to go out there and be mentally tough enough to get through certain situations."
Anyone else out there enjoy the Rangers reference from Peter Gammons this morning on the radio while discussing the resurgence of the Tigers? "Well they were playing Texas, which is (like getting) a Christmas present." Does anything else need to be said on this topic?
It should be interesting to see how many folks take in a game on this homestand (I'll be there Sunday - but again using free passes obtained last season while watching meaningless games in August). Will the paying fans stay away enough to convince the team that the business side (ticket sales) perspective can no longer win against what I believe to be the proper perspective - rebuilding.
It is my hope that we do not have to wait until the ASB to begin casting off the retreads like Broussard, Guadardo and Cat which are weighing this team down and using up roster spots. They have zero market value - let's cut our losses and move on. Let's start making room for youth regularly in the lineup.
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I have a question for you TR (or anybody else who knows.) Could David Murphy be the Rangers Rookie of the Year 2 years in a row due to him technically still being a rookie?
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That's a really good question, hefe. I've been wondering about that myself. So far, he's certainly deserving.
Briant77 - Ditto on your last paragraph. If we're committing to youth, let's really do it. It's worked for Oakland this year, and I sure didn't think it would.
http://baseballismyboyfriend.blogspot.com
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Their was an article in the Star-Telegram today by Jeff Wilson, and i doth quote " 3 weeks into the season, and the the Texas Rangers Philosophy of building for the future has clashed with the fan's desired to win now." Hey TR, is this why you no longer work over there? Is it the fan's fault that the Rangers aren't winning. Please tell me when the Rangers #1 have had a philosophy of rebuilding or a philosophy at all? This years team has some young players, mainly Ham, Murphy and Kinsler, but this team was built to attempt to compete and win this year, Broussard, Bradley, Jennings, and Guardado are those moves consistent with a committment or philosophy of building for the future? This is what Dan and Wash wanted. It has been a Titanic failure and now they are printing in the newspaper that they wanted to rebuild all along? What a joke. If you are rebuilding isn't Salt on this team out of spring training. Isn't Cruz, Isn't Duran, maybe Andrus, maybe Mathis, Hurley and any other young player. Most of the fan's on this blog have been screaming for a committment to total rebuilding job..... Ham swings at 1st pitch 47.7 percent of the time, does it really matter? We are 7 games out, 9 games under .500. Just shows that Ron's philosophy of working the count, isn't being adhered to. Hey Ian, that Pudge guy he used to play here until he asked for too much money. We were told by my boy Melvin that Pudge wouldn't catch another 10 years and that he was done as a catcher, wow 2 world series appearances and one victory. Way to go Pudge. Don't go into the Hall of Fame as a Catcher with a Rangers ballcap. Tell them to kiss your retired donkey! Hey Petite, maybe those guys just need a little HGH to help that mental toughness. Can't believe that guy is even opening his mouth about anything. Nolan was great, he did awesome things. But the greatest thing Nolan can do now is step up to the plate, jack one out of the park and flush Wash and Dan down the toilet. Desperate times call for desperate measures! I love the fact that the Rangers are going to be forced to do something, that they should have done all along. Hicks or whomever should have stood up and said, hey we aren't spending any money on free agents, we are going with the utes, they are hungry. We are planning for the future. Which is now probably 2012 or 2013. The last time we did this, we got Young and Blalock out of the deal. I want to see the utes, Salt, Davis, Duran, Boggs, and any other prospect that is close that are our future. Now if and when Daniels is fired you won't hear anything about his bad trades. But really now how terrible do those deals look? Ok Ham is a player, but i believe that you still don't trade young pitching. It looks like Volquez is going to win 15 games if he stays healthy. Danks, Young, Volquez as the front three with Gonzales at first base looks a whole lot better than what we have now! If we lose tonight, then we will be in the .20 percentile. Grover, Grover, Grover, Grover.......
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Broussard, Bradley, Jennings and Guardado are all on 1 year deals and aren't blocking anybody. If you seriously think this club was built to compete this season it's no wonder why your posts are so full of ****. You're dillusional. You're obviously confusing rebuilding with rushing prospects who are ill prepared up to the big leagues and calling them the same thing. Rebuilding and rushing kids up are not the same thing. I'm going to repeat that again so maybe you can grasp it: rebuilding and rushing kids up before they are ready are not the same thing.
Elvis Andrus is putting up a sub .700 OPS at double-A. He gets a pass on that from me because he's a teenager playing against 23 and 24 year olds, but just because he's major league ready defensively is no reason to rush him up to the majors. See: Benji Gil.
Duran and Boggs before this year had no triple-A experience and Mathis in his stint at Oklahoma last year got killed. Hurley hasn't pitched well enough at triple-A to warrant being here. If these are the guys you want in the big leagues now, then why even have upper levels of the minor leagues? Lets just shut down Frisco and OKC and promote straight from Bakersfield now, because the brilliant Dgod is getting impatient.
Salty is a sure fire lock to be back up here this season, barring injury. If not this week, then later in the summer. Getting him some time at a level he skipped to work on his footwork and throwing isn't going to hurt anything, but it will cut down on his service time, making it later that he'll be eligible for arbitration and free agency.
It's the same for all these kids. The sooner they get here, the sooner they have the option to leave. For someone who whines so much about player retention it looks like these are concepts you'de be familar with, but I guess not.
Why call Elvis up now and have the 6 years he's under club control start while he's 19 years old instead of giving him a full year at AA, a full year at AAA and then having him in the big leagues for an extra year in his mid 20's instead of when he's a teenager and the club isn't going anywhere anyway? It makes zero sense to call him up now. Zero.
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Agreed... you bring those guys up too quickly, you risk losing them to avarice and greed (I think that comes under the headers of Yankees and Red Sox?).
Also, without veteran leadership, how do you expect these guys to learn how to play the game the right .... er... hmmmm....
Leadership is extremely important. When Hank Blalock lost Lee Stephens, he lost his exuberance. From that time to now, Hank has been lost at the plate. He's tried to pull EVERYthing trying to become the next Babe Ruth. He was at least on his way to being the next George Brett.
Lee challenged Hank. He thrilled over Hank's successes in a way that made him want to do more. Then he was gone.
Michael Young is not a leader. He is a doer. He doesn't bring the younger players to focus on what they are doing right. He doesn't expect he should have to do anything at all - except play. And, that's ok - except the sTRangers don't have another body there that DOES. So, Michael becomes the de facto leader and his subdued approach leaves those younger guys floundering. And, fumbling. And, fuming.
We aren't just losing fans, folks - we're losing the young guys who need to be excited about where they are and what they are doing. They need to be energized so that, when they take their gloves out onto the Major League Baseball Field, they can't wait to make that next great (or even really good) play.
Again, I say we need someone of character who can energize this team. David Eckstein may be the most inspired signing Toronto ever made. He's a ball of energy and his teammates feed off him.
Paul O'Neill drove the Yankmes to Championships - even tho his energy was more often negative. Will Clark even got the sTRangers to the playoffs, for cryin' out loud.
We just don't have a spark and that isn't JD's fault. And, Wash isn't the kind of manager who can manufacture it. He isn't even the kind of manager that causes the players to just get mad and go do it themselves (see Earl Weaver and, even, Buck Showalter).
Maybe Bobby Valentine?
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The guy who I believe can help give this thing a jolt of energy is already on the staff.
Matt Wallbeck is that guy.
He has experienced success as a manager with young players through the Detroit farm system. Once it was apparrent that he was available, the Ranges moved quickly (and without RW's input, apparrently) to bring him in. He is the 'Jason Garrett' (if I may) of coaches in baseball. A guy who, around the league, is respected and is regarded as an outstanding manager-in-waiting.
He is enegetic. He is patient with youth. He is a winner.
He is our manager in the upcoming shakeup.
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I'm with you, Briant, on Walbeck. If (when) Washington gets his walking papers I hope they don't go with a retread guy like the Reds did when they hired Dusty Baker. Walbeck's an up and comer and I think they'd do well to keep him in the organization. I wouldn't be upset to see Conner go, but it may be an okay idea to keep Art Howe around.
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Murphy is a rookie still
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Spot on, hefe. But you're whistling in the wind if you expect D"I hope they lose another 10 straight"god (and his various alter egos) to recognise it. But he's probably right about one thing, in that Ron W will get fired. Not because the team's problems are his fault, but because that's what baseball organisations do. Perhaps Dgod should be appointed-at least it would stop him posting here....
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D'god not only are your repetitious posts full of bs and phoney facts but your latest is downright offensive. Tell ya what buddy why don't you give us a break and cool it for a couple of days? It's your right to post whenever you want but right now you're beginning to highly irritate people.
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What irritates me is the "product" the Rangers put onto the field. Does anyone here believe that Ron and John weren't trying to win this year? Come on, now they were rebuilding all along? Come on. We are rebuilding now because we are in the 20 percentile of winning percent. Not sure what you find so offensive about the truth, but i also really don't care. Cut and paste, justification is all they ever do. Cruz, Botts, Salt should have made this team out of spring training if we were rebuilding. Michael Young isn't going to want to be a mentor to these players, Mike wants to win and will probably re-structure his contract in order to accomodate a deal. That guy is going to want out of here as in like yesterday. WE are going to lose 10 straight, then and only then will hopefully something be done. Fire their butts, and lets truly rebuild. But first you must be willing to say the word REBUILD. Re indicates that they ever built anything in the first place. What is happening on the field isn't a pretty sight and the manager and gm should have to pay the price for it.
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To all those complainers about the Rangers losing and they should play all rookies and fire the GM and Manager, my impression is that if the Rangers were playing all rookies and had the same record (highly likely) the same people would be wailing that the Rangers should have signed free agents and not relied on unproven rookies.
Their cry would have been fire the GM and Manager!
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"Does anyone here believe that Ron and John weren't trying to win this year?" - Should they have forfeited 162?
"Cruz, Botts, Salt should have made this team out of spring training if we were rebuilding." - Botts DID make the team out of spring training. Cruz is clearly a washout and Salty is here before the end of April.
"WE are going to lose 10 straight," - better luck next losing streak.
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