Hey. I’ve been out of it the last week with some personal stuff relating to attempting to get work again (unemployed for seven months SUCKS).
Anyway, ran across this article today on Chuck Greenberg and the Rangers. It’s written by my friend Maury Brown over at bizofbaseball.com, and sizes up how the sale of the team finished. Yeah, I know, it’s not “finished”, but I’m referring to the bidding part. Make sure and read it, it’s got some lovely goodness in there. Plus a picture of Greenberg with Penguins star Sidney Crosby. Heh. :)
I’ll be back before Christmas with some updates.

Well, Kevin Millwood was traded today. He was our “Number 1” starter for a couple of years now, and spent four seasons in a Rangers uniform. I always liked Kevin from his days in Philadelphia, and while he was never a guy who would mow down everyone, he was if nothing else a fairly regular pitcher. Oh, he spent a little time on the DL, but for the most part he was a pretty consistent pitcher. I won’t say I’ll lose sleep over him leaving, but I won’t exactly try and kick him out the door, as I know some people wanted to do. So Kevin was moved to Baltimore, who from what I can gather will serve as their veteran “mentor” starter. Kind of what he was like here. I also thought his “southern drawl” fit in well here, too. Don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’m originally from up North, it just worked for me.

When I first heard about this trade, my thoughts were “Uh, does that make Scott Feldman our #1? After just one really good season like that it seems a bit dicey, doesn’t it?” Then the word came down a little while later we were bringing in Rich Harden. I’ll talk about Harden more in his own post after he actually signs, so I’m not nearly as panicy as say oh, I don’t know Kurt Cockran might have been about that. Sorry Kurt. :)

We get Chris Ray back. Ray was the Orioles’ closer not too long ago. Did some nice work for me in a fantasy league one year. But he had surgery and was out all of 2008, and was horrible in what he did on the field in 2009. I see this as a pure salary dump so they could get Harden in here. If Ray doesn’t work out, no big deal. We also get a PTBNL as well, who will be the guy the Orioles select in the Rule 5 draft tomorrow.

Anyway, I’ll be sad to see Kevin go. Always liked him, but it definitely was the first cog in several other moves being talked about in Indy. Those other ones are the signing of Rich Harden (likely announced tomorrow – $6.5M & 3.5M in incentives, plus 11M option for 11 with $1M buyout), and some talk of us sending Max Ramirez to Boston for Mike Lowell (and a boatload of cash, I assume).

More tomorrow on these other moves.

One final thing about Kevin Millwood. My contract notes for him state that he’s due a $15 million “signing bonus”, which is payable from 2011-2015. We’re rumored to be sending $3 Million to Baltimore for Kevin’s 2010 salary. I wonder how much of the $15 million bonus money we’re still on the hook for? Anyone with more knowledge than me know? Jamey? Evan?

Today I read an article showing in detail what all the players playoff shares are. You see team names on there you’d expect. Yankees, Phillies, Dodgers. Those all make sense.
But at the bottom of the list is the Texas Rangers. Apparently finishing second in your division (and being a non Wild Card team), also affords you a playoff piece. Granted, it’s way smaller, but it just seems weird to see the Rangers pop up in the list of playoff share money. Just seemed weird.
Anyway, here’s the numbers for the Rangers…
(Share of Players’ Pool: $590,731.16; value of each full share: $9,276.38) – The Rangers awarded 58 full shares, 5.25 partial shares and 4 cash awards.