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It May Be Now Or Never For the Rangers Organization

Posted on July 31, 2013 by rowdycmoore

So two games into Matt Garza’s brief time with the Rangers?

Yes, so far I’m impressed.

Forgive me, it’s sort of become my nature to become cynical about players that come to the Rangers from elsewhere while being hopelessly optimistic about the ones that come out of their own system.

Still, in two starts since coming from the Cubs, the hero of the 2008 ALCS has only allowed three earned runs in 14 innings, bolstering what was already the second-best pitching staff in the American League. (Hey, remember when it was certain that the heat and winds of Texas meant the Rangers would never have good pitching?)

But what also impresses me was in the press conference following Monday’s game, where another poor offensive night cost him a chance at a win and needed two home runs in the ninth to salvage a win for the team. He kept going on and on about, “my team, my teammates.” That automatically makes him light years better than Great God Cliff Lee in my book.

So while Garza can’t carry this team alone, he may just be the addition needed to rescue the season.

Even after their second straight walk-off night where they trailed in the ninth, the Rangers remain five games back of the Oakland A’s in the West. Of course, with nine games remaining against the A’s this season, starting with three this weekend in the toilet that is the I-Forget-What-Company-Name-Is-On-It-This-Month Coliseum, this season still remains far from over.

Which is good, because this has officially become an all-or-nothing season for the Rangers. If they aren’t hoisting the big trophy at the end of the year, they may never get another chance again.

I don’t want to say something like that. But the is organization has already mortgaged its future big time and may not be done doing so.

The Rangers really flushed out their farm system, dealing Nick Tepesch, Justin Grimm, Mike Olt and C.J. Edwards to get Garza. As I type this, they may very well be on the verge of unloading even more to bring in Hunter Pence (though seeing him in a Texas jersey would be sweet) or even bring back Michael Young (is Jon Daniels ready to tuck that tail between his legs?)

It’s exactly the kind of moves you don’t expect JD to make. Just six years after committing highway robbery by getting the foundation of this Rangers team from Atlanta for Mark Teixeria, Daniels has put himself in the position to be on the other end of such a trade.

Not that he may have already done that, as one of the teams the Rangers are battling for a playoff spot in Baltimore is doing so with a plethora of former Rangers

What I’m mainly getting at is, if you were worried about this team’s chances this year with the lack of off-season moves, it may be even worse after this year.

Let’s get this out of the way: Garza isn’t staying with the Rangers after this season. Nellie Cruz, who may or may not play another game for the Rangers after today with a Biogenesis related suspension now looking like a certainty, isn’t re-signing either. Baseball players don’t stay in a football town.

That’s also why no big name free agent, whoever may be on the market this year, is going to sign either. When you’re in an area where Tony Romo sneezing is ogling to get 100 times more press than the Rangers winning a pennant, yo have to money whip a guy to get him to come here. And JD and Nolan aren’t driving this team back into bankruptcy doing that again.

So the only place they can restock the team next year is from within. And that place just became a great deal thinner.

Especially since they’ll be looking for another catcher again after this year. And that position has sadly become bare in the organization, even before the purging.

Not to mention that the can’t miss prospect Jurickson Profar isn’t lighting it up as much as everyone said he was going to. Granted, that can just mean what we all should know – that rookies usually struggle. Hopefully it’s that and not what a number of his coaches were saying going into this season – that he was being rushed and just isn’t ready.

The point is that if the Rangers have any hope in 2014, Profar will have to find a place to play full time while he and Leonys Martin take a big step up. Derek Holland needs to prove this year isn’t just a fluke and that he has become the frontline pitcher we all have hoped/believed he can be.

And someone else from what remains, like a Ryan Strausborger, is going to have to come out of nowhere.

That may be too much to hope for. So we gotta accept that all the eggs are in this basket and hope for a Giants/Cardinals type rally for this season in Texas.

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Juan May Be Missing, But He Won’t Be Forgotten

Posted on July 23, 2013 by rowdycmoore

The extreme disappointment of the Rangers getting swept at home at the hands of the Former Rangers, AKA the Baltimore Orioles, had only one silver lining. And that was the celebration of one other former Rangers.

Ivan Rodriguez took his place in the Rangers Hall of Fame Saturday night. We can only hope now that soon number 7 will be off David Murphy’s back and on the Ballpark’s left field facade where it belongs.

But if there is one downer to the ceremony, it would be that one other Ranger great was not there to be enshrined with Pudge.

While The Magnificent Seven was being honored, his longtime fellow Puerto Rican, known to his countrymen as Igor, seems to be fading into obscurity. Some younger fans might not realize just what an unbelievable player Juan Gonzalez was in his prime. He wasn’t putting up the power numbers the likes of McGwire and Sosa were, which many wanted to blame on The Ballpark’s deeper left field power alley compared to Arlington Stadium’s, but he was still one of the most feared hitters and RBI men in the game. Having Chuck Morgan play the Star Wars Imperial March when he came to bat just fit; He was simply intimidating when he stood in the box during those years in the 90s.

When the Ranger strafed Juan primarily for Justin Thompson and Gabe Kapler (plus others), my gut feeling said they were going downhill. I was sadly proven right. Thompson never stared a game for Texas, Kapler did absolutely nothing outside of homering in his first two Ranger at-bats and setting the team’s hitting streak record, and the Rangers would be out of the postseason for 10 straight years.

Even I could tell Juan just never seemed to fit in within the United States. His thick accent always stuck out. He always seemed to be a loner. And because of that, he perhaps received the most criticism for things like not wanting to be an All-Star in 1999 if he wasn’t starting or sitting out of the Hall of Fame game because his baseball pants didn’t fit.

And so, just as I suspected, Juan has chosen to go his own way with his baseball career behind him. He has gone back full-time to his native island, reportedly teaching youth baseball while leading a pretty quiet life.

And even though multiple representatives of the Rangers contacted him about induction, including Eric Nadel, he turned them down.

We may never know if there is any specific reason why Juan has chosen to distance himself from the organization that helped make him a star. The common assumption is that he became permanently soured when The Large Rodent, AKA Tom Hicks, accused him of using steroids in a supposed tirade about Juan’s lack of production when the Rangers brought him back in 2002.

I get the feeling a large number of fans and media members will more remember the gripes and controversy. Me, there will always be one moment I’ll remember above all else.

It was the last game of 1998 before the All-Star break, when he hit his second home run of the game off Randy Johnson to hit the 100 RBI mark for the year. The crowd gave him a standing ovation, and then another one when he came out to right field the following inning. He could not hold back the tears.

But maybe that’s just me – trying to remember the good times above all else.

I also remember TR Sullivan’s column when Juan won the 1996 AL MVP over Albert Belle, saying, “That shows you there is justice in the world. Character should count for something.”

I never got to meet Juan Gonzalez, but I don’t think he was ever a bad guy – just one who struggled to fit in and had his own way about him. So maybe in that way, I can relate.

I wish that one day, Juan will have his plaque in the Rangers Hall of Fame. Time ca heal all wounds, we can only see.

But if this is what Juan truly wants, then I can step back and accept that. And choose to remember the good times of Igor knocking balls all over the Ballpark.

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Finally, Pudge Gets His Day

Posted on July 20, 2013 by rowdycmoore

Most people have that one personality that they remember being able to see more than anyone else.

For me, it was the short, stocky Puerto Rican who manned the plate for the Texas Rangers for more than 12 years.

And that’s why it’s going to be an honor tonight to see Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame.

Hopefully it will soon be followed by David Murphy accepting a new jersey number so #7 can hang from the left field facade where it belongs. But that’s for later.

For now, it’s time for North Texas to show appreciation for one individual who’s greatness wasn’t truly appreciated when it was there.

Pudge was known more than anything for that Howitzer of a throwing arm that made him they guy simply no one wanted to run on. Teams that relied on base stealing – yes, there were still some that existed even in the power ball times of the 1990s – would come to Arlington and find themselves effectively shut down.

It was more than just the arm, however – it was the reflexes. He would get the ball, and within a split second, he was up and in perfect position to throw. Maybe this is just my own nostalgia goggles, but I can almost remember him regularly going crouched position to cannon fired in about half a second, whereas most catchers would take close to a full second.

And the defense was only part of the game. I doubt anyone can fully understand how hard he worked to become one of the best pure hitters of the game.

The term “contact hitter” usually describes someone willing to take borderline pitches to force an even better one. But Pudge was the type of guy who would go after this outside pitches – not because he was undisciplined, but because he could hit them.

I’ll always remember two at-bats above all else when it comes to Pudge. The first was in a June 1995 game with the winning run at third. After swinging and missing at two high fastballs from Lee Smith, you knew he was getting another in the same location, and logic dictates he should hold back. But instead, he finds a way to get the bat up high enough and knock the third fastball at the letters into center field to win the game.

The second was back around 1998 when he hit a line drive shot into right center field for a home run. That was the deepest part of the park at more than 407 feet. And going the opposite way for him.

It all amounted to a total package that was sadly taken for granted. To many in the area, none of what he did on the field mattered as long as he couldn’t somehow guide the team’s young pitchers into Cy Young candidates. It was why so many begged the Rangers to trade him in 1999 to bring in the Great God Roger Clemens. And why when they finally let him go after 2002, newspapers quickly praised the supposed leadership abilities of Einar Diaz.

But as the Rangers headed to another last-place finish in 2003 while Pudge helped carry the Florida Marlins and its young pitching staff to a championship, that claim that he couldn’t work with pitchers was thrown right back in his critics’ faces. Turns out maybe lack of talent on the mound was more to blame in Texas.

Only then did the phrase “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” truly sink in. And while the Rangers ultimately managed two pennants with Bengie Molina and Mike Napoli behind the plate, the revolving door of catchers goes on.

Sadly, Pudge may never be remembered for being the best at what he did perhaps in history. Historians want to be locked down on the past and treat certain individuals, like Johnny Bench, as untouchable in that regard. And of course, there is the likelihood that baseball’s “moral guardians” will try to lump Pudge in with everyone in the so-called “steroid era”of the 90s and keep him out of the big Hall of Fame for as long as possible.

But for now, Ivan Rodriguez will be honored among the people who will appreciate what he did. Finally.

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For Many Rangers Fans, The Seaon Might as Well Be Over

Posted on July 17, 2013 by rowdycmoore

The more things change, the more new Rangers players take part in the All-Star Game, the more they stay the same.
The Rangers prepare for the second half sitting just two back of the Oakland A’s at 54-41. But to hear the cries of the “fandom,” that record might as well be reversed with them being 22 games back.
Hit the panic button! Rangers aren’t in first! Season’s over! When does Cowboys training camp start?
Forget the fact that the Rangers have the second-best ERA in the American League despite having to run multiple rookies into starts due to injuries. With Rangers fans, it’s always about how bad Justin Grimm has been instead of how great Yu Darvish is.
Heck, I’m surprised the cries of “Yu Darvish isn’t a true ace after all,” haven’t started all ready. After Darvish inexplicably went more than a month without a win, talk hosts, writers and pundits scrambled for a reason and latched onto the fact that Yu had been throwing more breaking balls recently instead of trusting in his fastball. Yu’s response was to basically say he doesn’t listen to what the media tells him to do.
I knew there was a reason to like that guy.
Thus, despite having broken through and made the World Series in consecutive years, nothing has changed among the observers in Arlington. This, to just about everyone, is a team doomed to failure and thus nothing more than a novelty meant to keep us briefly entertained and distracted until the REAL athletes show up in Oxnard. (I’m still trying to figure out exactly who on the radio said that.)
And of course, if the inevitable collapse of their pitching staff doesn’t get them, the inevitable implosion of their lineup from Nelson Cruz’s certain drug suspension will.
Never mind that, as I pointed out earlier, these suspensions are not definite – especially since no player will immediately miss games upon filing a grievance. In fact, the players union is now suggesting that, given the time the MLB office has taken and the time a grievance hearing would then take. it likely won’t be until next year that any penalties would actually come, even IF MLB wins its case.
If there’s one thing I’ll admit I’ve liked since giving 1310 The Ticket one more chance, it has been Norm Hitzges, the calming presence of the media. Constantly bringing up the ungodly amount of injuries and how this team has still managed to weather the storm for the most part, Norm has steadfastly begged Ranger Nation to do one thing: Enjoy the ride of a team that has been constantly in the picture since 2009, which seemed impossible at one point.
Sadly, that won’t cut it with the sports market that’s only happy when it’s dominating.
I doubt even the wisdom of Norm will be enough to calm the whining masses. While they point to the fact that the Cows were just a few inches away from making the playoffs multiple times last year and thus are certain to break through this year, the near misses the Ranger shave are proof positive to them that they have no chance of coming out on top.
That’s the most frustrating thing about this whole situation. There is truly nothing this team can do to make people satisfied. Heck, even if they were 12 games up at this time, the social media would be loaded with the likes of “Does the collapse begin now?”
It’s the same old story. If they aren’t dominating, their support shrivels up.
The Rangers’ drop in the standings from where they were in May has already caused those top-ranked attendance figures North Texas was trumpeting to plummet. If they’re even a single game out by the time training camp rolls along, the turnstile count could get even worse.
Until, hopefully, they get everyone healthy, steamroll their way through September and lo and behld, find their way in the postseason for a fourth straight year.
And then everyone will say they knew it all along.

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Five Worst Baseball Trades

Posted on July 13, 2013 by rowdycmoore

I’ve decided to hold off any more talk on the Maverick’s off-season moves until it looks like everything has completely died down; that is to say, until one or two specific players have signed. So in the meantime, I’ve decided to post this video that I uploaded a year ago. The opener may be a little dated, but the main body of the video is still relevant for me:

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