Hello, and welcome to the first installment of Ranger History. I am Jeremy, and Joe has been gracious enough to make this a regular gig for me. I hope that you all enjoy this edition to this wonderful site. I plan on talking about a whole array of things here and have many things in mind to get you through this horrid season and into next year. I hope to have this section of the website updated at least once a week, maybe twice. At this time, Joe and I have quite a few things in mind for this section. I hope that you all tune in daily to catch any updates that occur to this section of the site. One thing that will be a constant in all of articles will be the Player from the Rangers Past. This is where I will bring up a Ranger from yesteryear, and hopefully, provide some insight on these players.
In today’s installment, I plan on starting the first in a 10 part series. I am going to break down the 5 worst and best trades in Ranger history. Today, I will start with the 5th worst exchange since the Senators moved to the old Turnpike Stadium.
On July 13, 1993, the Rangers were in their first year of the Kevin Kennedy administration and were in a heated pennant race with the White Sox. The Rangers seemed to be held back on a continual basis by their horrid bullpen. Players such as Brian Bohanon, Mike Schooler, Craig Lefferts, Matt Whiteside, Bob Patterson, Jeff Bronkey and Todd Burns all made regular relief appearances for the Rangers at this time. The Rangers had a pretty decent starting staff at this time with Kenny Rogers, Kevin Brown, Roger Pavlik, Charlie Leibrandt and Nolan Ryan (before injuring his hip). Kennedy was becoming very frustrated with the gap that he had from his starters to Tom Henke (the closer at the time). The Rangers felt that it was imperative that they upgraded their bullpen if they were going to make any kind of stretch run for the AL West crown.
So on July 13th, the Rangers sent Robb Nen and Kurt Miller to the Marlins for Chris Carpenter. At the time of the trade Miller was in the minors, Nen was a rookie starter who was brought up to take Ryan’s place in the rotation, he battled a groin injury and was sent back down after posting a 6.35 ERA. Carpenter was a 28 year old reliever with a 2.89 ERA for the Marlins. The Rangers praised themselves for this trade. Nen had never showed the Rangers much in the minors as a starting pitcher, he was 13-22 with a 4.69 ERA. Miller was a throw in and Carpenter was going to come in and provide an immediate band aid to the bull-pen woes.
Carpenter was still the best gap between the starters and Henke when he joined the club. In fact, the Rangers used him in 27 games over the 2 and a half months that he was with the team. Chris still wasn’t what the Rangers were hoping. His ERA with the Rangers was 4.22 (1.33 higher than with the Marlins) and he allowed more than 13 runners per nine innings pitched (3 runners more than with the Marlins) The Rangers finished the season at 86-76, 8 games behind the White Sox.
Miller was a non-factor in this trade. He made only 44 appearances in the Majors and posted a 2-7 record with an ERA over 7.00 with the Cubs and Marlins. The Marlins began to experiment with Nen as a closer in 1994, and he saved 15 games that year with a 2.95 ERA. From 1995 to the present day, Nen has been one of the best closers in the game. Since the trade, he has posted over 200 saves and an ERA of 3.15. Carpenter returned to the Rangers in 1994 and appeared in a team high 47 games, posting a 5.03 ERA. He then left the club after the strike shortened season and resurfaced with the Brewers, briefly, in 1996.
The bottom line is, the Rangers dealt one of the three or four best closers in the 90’s for a middle reliever that went 6-6 in 74 ballgames with the club. The Rangers didn’t even have a championship to show for it. Can you imagine what might have happened if the Rangers had Robb Nen in their pen during the 96 playoffs? Many people have said that if the Rangers had Wetteland in ’96, they win the World Series. I don’t know if having Nenn on the roster in ’96 guarantees a WS title, but I do believe that they get past the Yankees.
Remember the Rangers!
Jeremy Northrip
rangerhistory@hotmail.com