The 38th Annual Texas Rangers Festival of High Expectations

The Texas Rangers take off from Surprise today, heading to Oklahoma for a couple of exhibition games before starting off the season on the road (AGAIN). Home opener is Tuesday, April 8 — or, on my calendar, New Year’s Day. Read more

Three Things You Need To Know About Ben Broussard

1) The Rangers picked up Broussard in a hot-stove deal with the Seattle Mariners for Tug Hulett. Broussard was arbitration-eligible, which is why the one-year, $3.85 million contract is a bit of a relief.

2) His bat’s a little anemic for what you would expect from a Rangers first baseman (.267/.328/ .458), but he makes up for it with great defensive chops.

3) If you go to BenBroussard.com, you won’t find a whole lot of baseball on the site’s front page. Instead, you’ll think you found a budding musician’s promo site. Broussard is a better-than-average guitarist and singer, and has been known to bust out the occasional charity gig or album on ya.

A Little Clarity

The Cowboys won’t know who they’ll be playing next weekend in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, as they wait to see whether Tampa Bay or the New York (football) Giants will be coming to Texas Stadium. They do, however, know who it won’t be.

The Washington Redskins looked flat for the first three quarters of their tilt with the Seattle Seahawks. Uninspired. That said, ask any Cowboys fan who watched the game about the ‘Skins and how that can all change in two minutes. Their 14-point surge at the start of the fourth quarter looked eerily like their comeback against Dallas on a Monday night back in 2005. Had Shawn Suissham not muffed a 30-yard chipshot field goal, there might have been a similar feeling on the Seattle sidelines tonight.

Instead, Todd Collins’ Cinderella ride came to an end with relentless Seahawk blitzing and a 78-yard interception return, which sealed the deal. For all of the talk of “getting back to Dallas” and winning it all for Sean Taylor, Joe Gibbs’ crew forgot one thing: you have to play the game that’s in front of you.

Sergeant Horse-Collar Heads To Hawai’i

Cowboys safety Roy Williams has been picked by the NFL to fill Sean Taylor’s spot on the NFC’s Pro Bowl defense roster. (This makes a mind-blowing twelve players from the Cowboys selected for the Afterthought Bowl, and you could make an argument that there should be more. Helluva year.)

That had to be a wonderful conversation in New York among the selection staff:

“Look, we suspended the guy two weeks ago for his fourth ‘horse collar’ tackle in two years.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And he’s on record saying he doesn’t know any other way to tackle!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you sure we can’t find anyone else to take his spot?”
“Look at it this way: at least we know the AFC will make a few more completions deep up the middle when he’s on the field…”

I Believe In Baseball Santa

Dear Baseball Santa:

Okay, look - I know people normally drop their letters to you before December 25th, but I have it on good authority that you spend your post-Christmas decompression period in Arizona. This means you’ll be close enough to Surprise to fulfill each of these wish list items for me (Since you didn’t come through on my original wish for my own nuclear silo / bunker complex, you can consider this a “make good,” Herr Jolly.).

As a Rangers’ fan, here’s my wish list:

Pitching. Like every beauty pageant contestant asking for world peace with their one wish, Rangers fans wish for pitching. So, there.

A muzzle for Tom Hicks. It seems like every time Tom Hicks has talked to reporters in the last six years, he’s said something that fans don’t want or need to hear. There’s a yearly mantra of “If you people would come to more games, we would get a higher payroll.” (We know how the economics of it work, Tom, but laying down that gauntlet won’t make anyone happy.) There was the comment of how much better Liverpool football fans were than North Texas hockey or baseball fans. There was the disclosure of how much money he had sitting on the table for Mark Teixeira to return as a Ranger, only to be shunned. Really, Tom, we don’t want to know. (If we can’t get Hicks a muzzle, can we at least get him a handler who stands over his shoulder and whacks him in the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper when he’s preparing to say something stupid? No? Okay, stick with the muzzle.)

Validation for John Daniels’ trade skills. I have defended Daniels to everyone who questioned each big move he’s made. I defended the Chris Young / Adrian Gonzales trade to San Diego, because it brought us Akinori Otsuka. I defended the John Danks trade to Chicago, because the scouts must have seen something in Brandon McCarthy that made him look like he was Danks, one year sooner. Now, I’m having to defend him again in sending Volquez to Cincinnati for Josh Hamilton. Hamilton’s not a pitcher — he’s a centerfielder, and time will tell just how good he is. (Don’t care about the battle back from drug abuse, or about his size 19 feet. If he stays clean and doesn’t step on my cat, I’m fine with him.)

Continued health and happiness for Michael Young. The whole Rangers world revolves around Young these days — which is great. Regardless of the accolades writers and coaches pile on him, I still think Young is one of the most undervalued player in the major leagues. You could start to hear the frustration in Young’s post-game quotes last year, including this gem around the time of the Teixeira trade:

“I’m not trying to guess what I think a rebuilding process is — I know exactly what it is. I’ve been a part of it.”

When Young is firing on all cylinders (which has been every single year he’s been in a Rangers uniform), this team has a better-than-zero chance of winning every game. Whatever it takes to make him happy, this organization need to do it.

A resurgent Hank Blalock. When Ron Washington came on with the Rangers, he said he was taking on Hank Blalock as a project. “Hank Blalock is mine,” Washington said. “I’ve got Hank. I’m going to make Hank better.” No one wants to see that prediction come to pass more than me. Whatever is off in Hank’s game needs to get fixed. If Young is the heart of this team, Blalock was once the soul. That needs to come back.

Real, dominant starting pitching from the farm system. We’ve heard from a lot of baseball writers the Rangers have one of the strongest farm systems in baseball right now. Time to see a good harvest. This does not mean power-hitting infielders, or “role-playing” relievers. It means dominant, hungry starting pitchers who want to come hard-charging out of the dugout and seven solid innings. (This may sound like I’m doubling up from the first item on the list. Sue me, big guy.)

A home post-season win. Okay, I know this may be the hardest thing to get the elves to manufacture, but one of my fondest memories as a Rangers fan was watching the Rangers beat the Yankees at Friday’s Front Row in 1996. Remember how that one win carried baseball fandom in this town for years? Imagine what it would do to see one here in town. (I could ask for more wins, even advancing in the playoffs… but I don’t want to seem greedy. It is, after all, Christmas.)

Texas Rangers Hot Stove Recap

First, here’s the short version:

• The Rangers didn’t sign Torii Hunter.

• They non-tendered Akinori Otsuka, who still doesn’t know where he’s playing.
• The word around the campfire is that Jon Daniels is building for 2009.

With those points in mind, I’m reminded of the off-season the Rangers had leading up to the 2004 season. I’ll get to that in a bit. Let’s look at who the Rangers did pick up, and quit focusing on the negative:

Kazuo Fukumori
Looks to step into the eighth-inning role Otsuka formerly occupied. Last year, for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Kaz was 4-2 with 17 saves and a 4.75 ERA in 34 games. His season was cut short when he had surgery to take out elbow bone chips. JD says the surgery was minor, and he’s made a full recovery.

One thing I like about Ron Washington is his reluctance to slot anyone in a role until after he sees ‘em in Spring Training action. Kaz has repeatedly said he wants the ball in the ninth inning, but that role goes to Zen warrior C.J. Wilson until further notice.

Milton Bradley
It’s never a good sign when writers use the term “ill-mannered” about anyone, especially baseball players.

Bradley’s had issues with anger management in the past, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when he got into a pissing match with an umpire at the end of the 2007 season. Padres Manager Bud Black spun Bradley to the ground to keep him from going after Mike Winters, and tore his Bradley’s ACL in the process.

When he’s healthy (and not being benched or suspended), Bradley’s got serviceable numbers — .273/.358/.439 in eight years of big-league work. He’s had a great rapport with Ron Washington, and that goes a long way with “troubled” players. More importantly (at least to me), Bradley’s got a lot of competitive fire — something a lot of people think is missing from the Rangers clubhouse.

Bradley insists he’ll be available to play on Opening Day. We don’t know if that will be as a DH or in center field.

Edgardo Alfonzo
It’s a minor league contract. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.

Alfonzo’s 36 years old, and spent last year with the indie league Long Island Ducks. He’s been in the bigs for twelve years, and was an All-Star with the New York Mets in 2000. Last year he hit .266 with 56 RBIs in 105 games. For his career, he’s .284/.357/.425.

If you see him at the big league level for an extended period of time, it’s not because the Rangers have thrown in the towel.

…
So, there’s the Rangers’ off-season (so far). Not a lot to get you to run to the Ballpark’s ticket office in February… and that’s fine. If you don’t want to think this team will do anything to distinguish itself from the rest of the American League, fine.

But every time I look at this roster, I think back to the build-up for the 2004 season. Our ace was Kenny Rogers; we had an unproven infield; we had just traded Alex Rodriguez to the Evil Empire. Everyone thought there was good reason to look forward to 2005, but ‘04 was a “rebuilding” year. Instead, they went 89-73, and might have made more noise had Frankie Francisco not launched a folding chair into Jennifer Bueno’s schnozz.

You never know what will happen from year to year (unless you’re a Devil Rays fan)… but I’m at least intrigued by the Rangers in 2008.