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Site Update – May 2015

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If anyone is still looking here, you’ll note I changed the theme again.  I was having some technical problems with the old one, and wanted a new “coat of paint” so to speak.  I’ve kind of let most things slide here.  I stopped the daily updates in the 2013 season, and I kept with the transactions through the end of the 2014 season.

One thing I’m still doing that I’m VERY proud of is the uniform number history section.  I’ve gotten some nice compliments from Victor Rojas (when he was here), and Eric Nadel himself has told me he’s used it as a reference on air.  That’s the highest compliment I could get as a Rangers fan.  No way am I letting that go!   I’m also fond of the “How many in 201?” series I’ve done for the last few years, am keeping up with that.

Lots of places might look strange, but I don’t want to just jettison all the work I’ve done over the years.  I’m still mostly hanging out on the Texas Rangers Facebook Group these days.   If you are on Facebook, come join us.

Baseball Trade Rumors App

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As we head into the off season, we begin a phase of the baseball season that was never as fascinating to me when I was younger, but in the last decade or so, I became enthralled with all the movement of players and contracts and whatnot.   Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing as great as the game itself, but I’ve found my enjoyment of the process almost as great as the games themselves.  But not completely.  :)

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Main Unsorted News Page

I think social media has played a big part in my interest in all of this.  However, with all the official sources, the beat writers, players themselves, and just regular bloggers all in the mix, it can be a bit of a cacophony to keep track of without going nuts.

Enter “MLB Trade Rumors”.   This is a website that I’ve been following for years, and if you’re at all interested in baseball transactions, I can’t recommend them enough.  The website is available here, for free: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com – that’s been that way for awhile, and is a valuable tool.

However, we can’t always be around our computers, and there are mobile apps available for iOS & Android.   Those aren’t free, but are WELL worth the cost of the app.   The app costs $2.99, which is pretty darned cheap given what you get with it.  Officially the app is known as “Baseball Trade Rumors”, and not “MLB Trade Rumors” like the website is.  I suspect that has something to do with the name “MLB” and licensing, but that’s a non issue.  Ionly point it out in case you went searching for “MLB Trade Rumors” for the app name, you won’t find it that way.

The app is HUGE around certain times of the year (Winter meetings, Trade deadline, etc).   This is a great way to keep up with “up to the second” transaction rumors and whatnot.  There’s other ways to get this info for sure, but I’ve found given all the hard work it is to keep track of it all, these apps do a great job sorting it down to the individual nuggets you’d want.

Now, I have an iPhone and an iPad, so how the Android version works specifically, I can’t say.  My brother has that, and from what I can gather it is mostly the same – but I can’t speak from first hand experience there.  I can speak from the iOS app.

You can get notifications on your phone by team, by individual player, and by league.  You can also tell it to notify you of actual transactions and not just rumours, also sort by just one team set of news, the info is quite flexible in the app.

The notification system is the strongest point of this app for me, because otherwise it’s an app version of a website, and I could just look at the website for the same info.  But the notifications are the reason I bought this app.   In the screenshots below you can see a few examples of the ways you can set up things to be notified about.

This is a universal app, and works on the iPad too, but is one of the rare apps that I don’t like the iPad interface, and wish I could run the iPhone interface on the iPad just double spaced.  There is only one other negative thing I have to say about the app.  You can’t use it to send stories to your friends (via text msg, email, or Facebook).  The only thing you can do with individual entries is tweet them.  Which is fine, but I don’t always want to do that. Hopefully that gets changed in a future version.  But this is a minor quibble, and isn’t a dealbreaker for me.

Baseball Trade Rumors is probably my second most used iPhone baseball app (the first being the MLB At Bat app).  Mostly because this keeps track of trade info all the time, and I make use of the track by player feature, so I get notified on my phone when something happens with those players.   I don’t have very many apps in the Notification center on my iPhone to help conserve battery power, but this one definitely lives in the notification center!

If you’re a fan of transactions, I STRONGLY urge you to look into this.   Very useful tool.

$2.99 – [ App Store Link | Google Play Store ]

New Texas Rangers Logo

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TEXAS RANGERS RELEASE NEW LOGO

10455262_726573514053086_2153860029257373126_nArlington, Texas – July 29, 2014 – In order to properly reflect the current status of the Texas Rangers, the club has today released a new logo. This logo, while very similar to the most recent logo, does contain one new section.

This is a bandage over top of the Texas Rangers logo, which will be sponsored by Band-Aid™ brand adhesives. Rob Matwick, Executive Vice President, Business Operations says, “The money brought in by this new sponsorship will help improve the already extensive medical facilities already deployed (by necessity) by the Texas Rangers”.

Matwick continues, “The Band-Aid brand is one of the most respected brands in American business history, and for the Texas Rangers to align themselves with a much respected business icon can be nothing but beneficial to the long term stability of the Texas Rangers.”

New caps, jerseys, and other merchandise bearing the new logo are available immediately at the Texas Rangers Team Shops at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

About Rangers Baseball LLC: The Texas Rangers are a professional US baseball team and are owned by Rangers Baseball LLC, a consortium of various owners, headed by Ray C. Davis & Bob R. Simpson. The team is part of the Western Division within the American League of Major League Baseball. The team plays its home games in Globe Life Park in Arlington.

About Band-Aid Brand Adhesive Bandages: BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages, leading iconic brand of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc., have long been a staple in a family’s first-aid kit as a source of healing, comfort and protection, and as the brand has expanded over the years, so too has the technology and innovation behind it. BAND-AID® Brand has moved from offering strictly bandages to becoming a brand that offers a wide variety of products to meet the diverse needs of today’s active families and their lifestyles. For more information visit www.band-aid.com and “like” BAND-AID® Brand on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bandaid.

Contact:
Rangers Captain
thehorse@texasrangers.com
1000 Ballpark Way Ste 400
Arlington, TX 76011
Ph: +1-817-273-5222

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Siri and 2014 Season

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Well, Siri on my iPhone finally knows about the 2014 season. I asked it tonight what the next Rangers game was, and it said this.

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Season is Over

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Well, the season is over.  We got eliminated in Game 163, the tie-breaker.

I’ll probably write something about all this shortly.   Today’s news however, is that Bench coach Jackie Moore and coach Dave Anderson will not be back in 2014.  That was announced today (Oct 2nd).  [ Link ]

There was some noise today that the team wanted to get rid of Moore after the 2012 season, but Wash talked them into keeping him.  Not sure what the deal with Dave Anderson was at all.    If you ask me, and you haven’t, I’d bring up Steve Buchele to be bench coach.    If they do bring up Buuuuuuchele, it might set up some sort of situation like Philly had where Charlie Manuel had Ryne Sandberg hanging around.  Charlie had been there for awhile, and the team was struggling, so it kind of seemed to me as a Phillies fan that Sandberg was hanging around waiting for Manuel to get fired.   If the Rangers make Buchele Wash’s bench coach, there will probably be a lot of talk about “How long will Wash keep that job until they replace him with Steve Buchele?”

I am NOT in the camp that says we need to get rid of Washington at all.  I like him.   But he probably needs to show some sort of improvement in 2014, or he probably will be suspect.  I believe his contract is up after 2014.

Most importantly, who will Ron Washington hug after wins next year?  :)

Alex Rios

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Well, the Rangers went and traded for Alex Rios.   This strikes me as a move that was made more out of necessity due to Nelson Cruz being suspended.  I think they probably would have tried to move forward with kids from here, but when we could get Rios, we did.   This strikes me as more of a “best player available”, kind of thing.   It’s not like Rios is bad.  He’s decent enough.  Not going to light the world on fire, but a good, solid player at a time when we could use one of those.

We were trying to get him before the deadline, and the Sox apparently wanted some big major league ready guys, so we backed off.  In the end, they took merely a PTBNL or cash.   The rumours are that they wanted Leury Garcia in return .  Garcia is a guy I’d like to hang onto, so as with the Garza trade, we’re sending decent, if young/unproven pieces back for a veteran.   At some point we’re gonna run out of pieces like that to send.  But I guess it depends on how Rios does here.

The White Sox also sent $1M in cash too, this covers two clauses Rios had in his contract that escalated the value of his 2015 buyout, and his 2014 contract by $500k each.  So basically the White Sox covered the increases in his salary due to the trade.

I’m looking forward to see how the Rios bat affects our lineup, which has been surprisingly potent the last couple of weeks.  Speedy as well.  After the Cruz suspension, it seemed like the “need to steal more bases” light went off.