Just saw an announcement a few minutes ago that the radio coverage for the Texas Rangers is changing for 2009. All Rangers games have been on AM KRLD 1080 since 1995. That’s not going to be the case starting this season.
Effective with the 2009 season, all weekday Texas Rangers games will be on 105.3 FM (aka “The Fan”. According to the press release on the Rangers site, it is only weekday games (Monday through Friday) that are here. Saturday and Sunday games will continue to be on KRLD 1080 AM as they have been since 1995. The reason for this is unspecified “anticipated schedule conflicts”. The schedule lists 110 games on 105.3, and 52 on 1080.
This probably isn’t a big deal in the long run when you compare it to the confusion of TV coverage (given all the possible channel choices there), but it does take away that tagline KRLD has used for ages… “All the games, all the time”. Still, it does seem easy enough to wrap one’s head around. “OK, M-F is 105.3 FM, and Sat-Sun is 1080 AM – Got it”. I will be curious to see how the better fidelity plays out. On top of that, I wonder if the broadcasts will be geared towards HD-Radio, as KRLD-FM is an HD-Radio channel, from what I’ve read today.
One other bonus is that this will really increase the radio schedule for spring training games. Generally, spring training games were only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I asked aout that a few years ago, and was told that KRLD didn’t want to piss off the “Dr. Laura” audience by replacing that show with Rangers games. This apparently will bypass that limitation. The number of spring training games is now 18, versus the 12 it has been for awhile now. 16 of the 18 are on 105.3. Check out the Rangers press release for a list of the dates of the Spring Training games (I’ll have my site’s schedule page updated shortly).
UPDATE: I’ve updated my site’s schedule pages with the radio dates during spring training.

TR Sullivan is reporting this afternoon that the Rangers are likely to close a deal in the next day or so for Eddie Guardado to return to the Rangers for 2009. This is probably a move that isn’t likely to light any fires when it happens. It certainly didn’t last off season.
But he was pretty darned serviceable for us last year, and if he pitches in 2009 like he did in 2008, it should help. Will probably be a low dollar amount signing, so yeah, it’s probably a decent move to make.
This was probably pushed a little faster by the Benoit news from last week. Despite the fact that Eddie is a lefty, and Jack is a righthander, one has to figure that Benoit’s going down moved this forward, even a little. There was also rumblings about Eddie signing again before this, so who knows?

Those of you who like to stand in the ballpark and flap your arms like a bird when Marlon Byrd is up will be happy about this one. He and the Rangers came to terms tonight on a contract for 2009. His case was the last possible arbitration case the Rangers had on their plate. Actually, he would have been a Ranger in 09 anyway, it was just down to money.
Marlon had asked for $3.6 Million, and the Rangers countered with $2.7 million. They settled on $3.06 million, which is pretty much in the middle.
With the Byrdman signed, that resolves the arbitration possibilities for this offseason, keeping intact our record of not having gone to an actual hearing in about nine years now, the last being Lee Stevens.

Saw a story in the current Dallas Observer about the Texas Rangers, a fan, and the winter carnival. Along with the usual comments about “what about the pitching?”
The thrust of most of the article is about the fan Paige Skinner, and her (I assume it’s a girl) presumed slight by the players when she was at last season’s finale. Here’s a quote from the article:

“It was supposed to be Fan Appreciation Day,” Skinner says. “But the players didn’t toss us a ball, a batting glove, not even a smile or a wave. In fact, a security guard hopped up on the dugout and told us to go home. They treated us like we suck, and we’re the ones who’ve supported them through all these losing seasons. Without us, they’d have nothing. I was furious. Ticked beyond belief.”

While I do agree with her about security guards – they tend to be a bit overzealous in the “Get out” mantra (that should be worked on, really). I have an issue with the thrust here that the players seemingly owed her something. Particularly the comment “they treated us like we suck”. Using the words “They treated us” means there was an intentional desire on the players to make the fans feel like “they suck”. Somehow I doubt that. The specific comment was also made about not getting an item thrown to them. I don’t think so. Just because you attend a game, doesn’t mean you have the RIGHT to have something given to you. Even on Fan Appreciation Day.
There’s another comment that one could make about the fact that if you can afford to sit in the seats down by the dugout, you don’t need (much less deserve) freebies like that. Buy your own. If the players REALLY wanted to foster goodwill, take the balls and gloves and stuff up to Section 345 where poor families have to sit because they have zero chance of ever being able to sit in the seats down at the bottom and be “slighted” by the players.
Those fans would be far more excited I think over a freebie from the players than those who can afford to sit in the first few rows of Sections 31-35.

Saw a few minutes ago where it appears that Joaquin Benoit had surgery which will knock him out for all of the 2009 season. Shame if true, as he’s developed a nice career as a reliever, now that he’s finally figured out what works.
He’s the elder statesman on the Rangers roster, nobody’s been here on the active roster longer than he has.
I bet you it means we might get some movement regading the bullpen and the “Hot Stove”. Who would you bring in to replace him, or just use another kid from the farm?

The first year Buck Showalter was here, I attended a Winter Carnival before he had managed a single game. The date of this was February 1, 2003. I had gotten into a Q&A session with Buck which was held in that auditorium room behind the museum. So I get in there, take my seat, and wait for things to get started. I wasn’t doing much of anything, and it was then I realized that Buck himself had come over to me. I looked up, and Buck introduced himself to me with a handshake, saying “Hi, I’m Buck Showalter, Rangers manager”. I thought a second and said “Hi, I’m Joe Siegler… uh… FAN!” :) Anyway, Buck asked me if I preferred the red Rangers hats to the blue. I said I far prefer it to the blue, to which Buck said “Well, the coaches will be wearing the red hats in spring training, hopefully to give Mr. Hicks a few ideas”.

These ideas took a long time to take hold. Buck’s coaches did wear them in Spring Training, and I thought it was distinctive. You could spot a coach easily, since they were the only ones on the field wearing red hats.

Well, in 2009 we finally have red back in the uniforms. Oh, there’s been some minor red in trim areas, but let’s face it, red hasn’t been a real uniform color for years. There was a press conference today where the Rangers unveiled several new uniforms. It appears that every one has been changed up somewhat. I’ll get into the individual uniforms below. Just as a reminder, this was what the uniforms looked like the last time red was the primary color:

Here’s a quick refresher on the last couple of times there were any kind of uniform change or addition. If you’re reading this on an rss feed, you’ll need to click over to my website to see the rest of this story (it’s long, and I didn’t want that huge of a story on the front page).

[Read more…]

It’s been awhile since I offered any big opinions on anything, so I’m going to post about several of them all at once. Here goes:
Michael Young:
You know, as the Michael Young thing broke, I have to admit I didn’t know what to write. When it was first announced he wanted a trade, my first thought was “Wow”. I thought a bit, and couldn’t come up with something more profound than that, so I didn’t say anything. The details came out that Michael Young was “told” he was moving to third base. I felt a little bit that he should have been talked with about it, instead of talked “TO” about it. Granted, we don’t know the exact tone of the conversations, we weren’t in there, so we have just the news reports and the reporter accounting of the issue. None of which had first hand insight into the actual meetings as such. Then there’s the other issue. If I tried at my job to say “No, I don’t think I’m going to do what you told me to, I want to go to another company”, I’d be thrown out on my ass faster than you can say “recession”. So I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for multimillionaires who don’t want to do what their boss tells them. No, not at all.
Still, having said that, you don’t want arguably the biggest name on your team to be unhappy, so you start looking into the trade possibilities. The problem is, most of the money we were paying Michael Young was not for his performance on the field. He was paid to be the “face of the franchise”. Intangible money like that doesn’t translate well when talking about trades. Michael Young is a great player both on the field and off. However, when you pay someone for “off the field”, it’s hard to get another team to buy into that. If you look at it just on the dollars vs the on the field stuff, he’s overpaid – big time. Especially when we get to the back end of the contract. So yeah, it would have been hard to move that. Felt we had a very little chance of moving him, which probably would have meant an unhappy player.
Then the equally surprising move that Michael Young decided to accept the move to third came down the pike. Michael said all the right things when it was announced. It appeared that Nolan Ryan stepped in to work it out (as he should, he’s the team president after all), but one gets the feeling that Young still isn’t too thrilled about it. Provided this team doesn’t finish under .500 again, or Elvis Andrus makes 50 errors, and Young makes the transition well enough, this should be OK. The Rangers have Steve Buchele on staff, he can help Michael with that. What’s Dean Palmer doing these days? Give him a ring. Heck, he can even call his old buddy Alex Rodriguez, if he’s not too busy chasing down Madonna or just counting his money.
Bit of a sticky time here, but it seems to have worked itself out on the surface. We’ll see as we get into the season how it all works out.
Newspaper Coverage
Saw in this morning’s Newberg Report about a merging of the local beat writers between the Dallas Morning News & Ft Worth Star Telegram writers. Not just for the Rangers, but for other sports too. Now I couldn’t care less about the Cowboys or the Mavericks, but the Rangers & Stars I am interested in. That’s not entirely fair, I like the Mavs sometimes, but I rarely read about ’em in the paper.
Anyway, it appears according to this that the FTW guys are the only “beat” guys now. It would appear that Evan Grant & Richard Durett are out of a job covering baseball. Now I don’t know all the facts here. The only place I’ve seen this story covered is Jamey’s update for today – I’ve not seen it in the other two newsletters. I may have just missed that (which is possible, as I’ve had some family stuff going on this week), but it would appear that the FTW guys are going to just be the baseball writers in the Dallas Morning News.
To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me before too long if the Dallas Morning News & Ft Worth Star Telegram end up merging totally. Given the horrible state newspapers were in before this current economic mess, it wouldn’t surprise me to see them merge completely to stay in existance.
So long as Jean-Jacques Taylor and Randy Galloway stay out of Rangers coverage, I’ll be happy. Taylor seems to have a disdain for covering baseball almost as strong as Newy Scruggs does, I never like reading. Randy Galloway seems far too bitter to have any opinions that can’t be translated as “Screw the Rangers, they’re all losers”, that I don’t want to listen to him, either.
Omar Vizquel:
Word came out last night that the Rangers were trying to sign Omar Vizquel to play as a backup shortstop to the Rangers. My initial knee-jerk reaction after reading that was to think? Him? Middle infield in the fastest infield in the AL? Come on – what’s with that? I immediately IM’ed Jamey Newberg, and said this:

(11:15:02 PM) Joe Siegler: Omar Vizquel? WTF
(11:15:35 PM) Jamey Newberg: why WTF?
(11:16:04 PM) Joe Siegler: Just seems bizarre to me. Yeah, I know all the logical reasons, but you don’t go ancient for a backup, we have enough of our own kids to fill that role.
(11:16:20 PM) Jamey Newberg: c’mon
(11:16:22 PM) Jamey Newberg: like who
(11:17:10 PM) Joe Siegler: I would have started by not moving Michael Young from SS. I suppose I should write about all this stuff on my site. Get it out. :)

He’s right though – who would we have as a backup? As I said above, I would have never moved Michael Young in the first place. But he’s moved. So we need to do something. Secondly,I would have kept Ramon Vazquez as the guy. But he’s not here, and he really deserves to start (although I don’t think he’s going to win anything in Steel Town). When I made the comment to Jamey, I was thinking along the lines of German Duran, or Joaquin Arias. I mean, Arias was groomed as a big deal shortstop for awhile. But it seems, according to all the press I’ve read today that we’re going after Omar Vizquel. In his prime, he was a stellar player. At the tail end of his career here, he can probably help us in a backup role, and as well as mentoring. Not that Michael Young is a bad mentor (he’s great), but it can’t hurt to have another really knowledgable shortstop to help out.
So yeah, I was fairly prophetic in what I said with Jamey. Type it out, and I’l feel better. While I still think we’d do OK with Arias as a backup, I guess Vizquel won’t be horrible. I suppose I’m in the “Meh” category about this.
New Advertising:
It appears that the new advertising slogan for 2009 will be “Built for Fun”. The Official Rangers site has changed its masthead to show this.

For the last two years, it’s been “You could Use Some Baseball, and looked like this:

I rather liked the billboards around town for the last two years that were part of this campaign. I don’t suppose this makes a huge difference, but I rather liked “You could use some baseball”. I guess we’ll have to see how this new one plays out.
Don Zimmer:
Saw today that former Rangers manager and overall good guy Don Zimmer had a stroke. Strokes are never a good thing, but in reading about this one, it doesn’t seem too bad. Some of them are debilitating, and it appears he will be able to go to camp with the Rays. I met Zim once two years ago in spring training when the Phillies were playing the Rays. I’ve read both of his books. Always admired him, will be grateful for his recovery.
Josh Hamilton:
Saw this story where someone got mad that Sony picked Dustin Pedroia for the cover of MLB 09: The Show instead of Josh Hamilton. Check it out, it’s an interesting read.

I’m still pretty surprised by the Michael Young thing.
I don’t know what to say about it, which is why I haven’t said anything.

From the day it was announced that Victor Rojas was leaving the Rangers to go work for the MLB Network, you haven’t heard anything about a replacement. Or at least I didn’t. I was surprised at how LITTLE you heard about this. All I heard at the time was that both Victor & Josh were up for the TV job in San Diego with the Padres. I still wish that Josh would have taken that to be “Mr. San Diego”, then bump Victor to TV and bring in someone new for radio. Didn’t get that, but we did get a new radio guy today.
It was announced this afternoon that Vic’s replacement in the radio booth is a guy by the name of Dave Barnett. I don’t have much to say about him, because I don’t know who he is. I IM’ed Jamey about it, and he replied with the fact that he used to do Rangers TV back in the 80’s, and national work since. I didn’t move to this area until the 1992-1993 offseason, so that was before my time. Jamey did call the hire “fantastic” in the IM chat with me, so that’s encouraging. He also spooged about the dude in an email update a few minutes before I wrote this. :)
Check out the story on the Rangers site for more details about him. Hopefully he shows up at the Winter Carnival in a couple of weeks. Be nice to meet him and say Hi.
I did get a small chuckle out of this quote from the Rangers site story. “Nadel, who has been the lead broadcaster on radio since 1995, had significant input into the hire.” If they made this move without major input by Eric Nadel, that would be a massive mistake!
While the broadcast didn’t say anything about it, one would assume that Barnett would pull the double duty that Victor Rojas did and fill in for Josh Lewin on TV when he’s off doing Chargers games. Scratch that. According to this story on the FTWST website, he’ll be doing the same thing that Vic did subbing for Josh. I’ve updated my broadcaster history page for 2009 with Dave Barnett, and assuming the sentence above is correct. Check it out.
The FTWST article does have this quote:

“For the last couple of years I’ve been looking for a situation where I could work with a team again and still work with ESPN,” Barnett said from his home in Denton.

Does this mean that Barnett will also be leaving to do work for ESPN during the season? I don’t like that about Lewin, he should be there for all 162 games. I don’t like these disappearances.
After posting this article, and looking at the picture, he looks like he could be Howie Long’s brother. :)

The Rangers have decided to kick the tires of deposed Milwaukee closer, Derrick Turnbow.
Turnbow who spent the last four years in the Brewers organization comes to us after having spent most of 2008 on the shelf. He pitched just eight games this past season, so his numbers aren’t probably relevant. Which is good, as his ERA in 2008 was 15.63! :eek:
He’s obviously here because of our new pitching coach, Mike Maddux. A couple of years ago, he was quite the dominant closer in Milwaukee, and if he has healed, and can recapture that, it probably will help us. He was deposed before he got hurt and couldn’t play. So hopefully his signing isn’t a case of a pitcher forgetting how to pick (hello Rick Ankiel). Still, it’s a minor league deal, so he has to prove he can pitch to make the club. If he does make the club, his salary will be $925,000 plus another $300k or so in incentives. Not the worst deal from the Rangers standpoint if he does make the club and then stink up the joint.
We also signed two other guys to minor league deals. Casey Daigle and Elizardo Ramirez. Elizardo had a cup of coffee with the Rangers in 2008, but didn’t really distinguish himself. Daigle I don’t know anything about, so I don’t have a ton to write about here on these guys.
None of these signings make me want to jump up and down, but none make me want to go “D’oh!” either. We’ll have to wait and see what happens here in the spring.