Seattle first baseman Richie Sexson has been suspended for six games for charging the mound Thursday night. Texas pitcher Kason Gabbard was not fined or suspended. Seattle pitcher Felix Hernandez was also fined as were Rangers catcher Gerald Laird and pitcher Sidney Ponson.
Sexson should have gotten a few more games than that just for being a dumbass.
Thanks Foul Territory.

In a new award that I helped plug a few days ago, David Murphy was named AL Rookie of Month for April. This is a new award, I guess to complement the player of the month award. However, this one is voted on by the fans (hence my plug), and is sponsored (at least for now) by Gillette razors.
Given Murphy’s barely qualifying as a rookie in 2008 (due to him having 105 at bats in 2007 – as well as 22 in 2006), I wondered if fans of the runners up (Jacoby Ellsbury in Boston, Armando Galarraga in Detroit, and Greg Smith in Oakland) would whine about his “rookie” status. I took a peek at those teams’ official forums, and didn’t see anything.
Still, rookie status aside, you cannot argue with Murphy’s performance in April. It was fantastic. He played good defense, he was hitting the ball all over the place. It was the kind of performance you like to see out of veterans – not the kind you expect from your rookies & kids. This has turned out to be a great trade for us – Eric Gagne did nothing for Boston, and we got Murph, Gabbard, & Engel Beltre. Thank you Theo Epstein for that one.

I got this email in earlier today about a new Rookie of the Month award being run on MLB.com, so I thought I’d pass it along, as David Murphy is one of the candidates…

DAVID MURPHY ONE OF FOUR NOMINEES FOR NEW ROOKIE OF THE MONTH AWARD PRESENTED BY GILLETTE & MLB

David Murphy of the Rangers is one of four American League nominees for Major League Baseball’s newest major award in both leagues — the Rookie of the Month Award presented by Gillette (www.mlb.com/gillette).

In the American League in addition to Murphy, nominees for April (including March games) are right-hander Armando Galarraga of the Tigers, outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury of the Red Sox and left-hander Greg Smith of the A’s.

Fans get to decide the best starts by players starting their careers, and by voting become automatically entered in a drawing for a trip to see either the 79th All-Star Game on July 15 at Yankee Stadium or one of the 2008 World Series games. Voting will be conducted at the start of each month for the top rookie from each league.

In the National League, the four nominees are outfielder Kosuke Fukudome of the Cubs, right-hander Jair Jurrjens of the Braves, right-hander Kyle McClellan of the Cardinals and catcher Geovany Soto of the Cubs.

The online fan vote represents 20 percent of the overall balloting, with the remaining votes coming from team baseball writers and club broadcasters. Once voting is concluded, Gillette, MLB and Major League Baseball Advanced Media will announce the winning rookie for each league in a monthly press release and congratulate the winners at mlb.com/gillette.

That first announcement will be this Friday, after which Gillette will present the award winners with a Rookie of the Month trophy and make a donation to a charitable organization in each award recipient’s name.

Statistical criteria is provided on the site for fans to make their selections. For position players, it’s home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, runs scored. For pitchers, it’s wins and saves, strikeouts, ERA.

Usually when a guy is DFA’ed, you don’t hear much from them. But Jason Botts apparently wants out per this article over at the Ft Worth Star Telegram today.
Normally, I’m of the ilk of if a player wants out, get him out of here. But for some reason to hear the player actually come out and say it makes me want to bury him in the franchise somewhere so he doesn’t get a fresh start. Petty reaction, I admit, but my point is you usually don’t see quotes from the player saying this stuff.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up like Travis Hafner.

Saw an interesting link tonight which was a summary of stories about the possibility of Gerald Laird finally being dealt, now that Saltamacchia is back, and by all accounts will a) not be playing first, and b) is not going back to AAA. Laird’s been doing fairly decently this year, and could bring something back, but it seems a bit early in the season to push that button.
I suspect he’ll be dealt eventually, but my gut feeling is not this early. I didn’t expect to see that happen until June somewhere. I still think he’ll end up in Boston, but I don’t have any hard facts on that – just a gut feeling.
The Yankees could probably use him too, but what do they have that they’d be willing to give up that we need? Unless a trade is expanded beyond 1×1, I don’t see that happening, either.

What a shocker that is. Saw that remark on a piece over at Baseball Digest Daily. In it, Nolan talks about how few innings it takes to be considered a staff ace anymore. Check out the article here.

Saw a few minutes ago some official roster moves were posted to the Rangers site.
The first one was dated last night, but I was pretty positive I hadn’t seen that earlier this morning when I looked. The first one had Frank Francisco optioned to AAA, and Eric Hurley reassigned to AAA.
The second one came this morning, when Kameron Loe and Jarrod Saltamacchia were optioned to AAA. I touched on the “why” earlier this morning, but Kam was still a possibility for the pen. Not now, he’s been dispatched to Oklahoma.
None of these moves affect the 40 man roster, though. Just shuffling of existing 40 man players.
One other note. My roster page is being updated when these moves are officially made. As such, I still have guys like Adam Melhuse in the minors, even though they’ll be on the 25 man. Once these moves are all officially made by the Rangers, I’ll be updating my roster pages.

Before the game last night, several announcements regarding the roster were announced. They weren’t formally made, however, so the roster (officially) remains as it was. But several things were announced:
C.J Wilson was named the closer: This one is the most obvious. I know officially anyway, there was talk that Eddie Guarardo was going to challenge Wilson, but I don’t think anyone really believed that was a true competition. CJ seems like he could do the job after going 12-14 in save opportunities last year late. He doesn’t strike fear in people at this point though (like Papelbon, Mariano Rivera at his prime, and Ugueth Urbina when he wasn’t in jail), but he seems to be able to do the job. Hopefully he stays healthy and performs. It’s been a few years now since we haven’t had to change closers during a season.
Franklyn German makes the club: From the spring he’s had, this isn’t a huge surprise. He’s done a nice job, and assuming this isn’t a flash in the pan in spring training, this should be a good move. Hard to argue with giving a job to a guy whose ERA is 1.00. He has previous major league experience after being up with the Marlins in 2006, as well as with the Tigers from 2002-2005.
Jamey Wright makes the club: No huge surprise here. He did well for us in the pen last year, and that’s where he’s headed again. Should help out, assuming he doesn’t regress.
Frank Francisco to minors: Ever since the chair throwing incident, he doesn’t seem to have regained his total dominance he showed for awhile there. Shame, as I wanted him to succeed if for no other reason than to give the middle finger to Craig Bueno.
This leaves the bullpen with this roster: C.J. Wilson, Joaquin Benoit, Kaz Fukumori, Eddie Guardado, Franklyn German and Jamey Wright. There’s still two open spots. My guess for those spots are Robinson Tejeda (because of the options thing)
Some other announcements:
Jason Botts makes the club: Jason has had a decent enough spring, and reports seem to indicate he’s improved on his defense enough where he’s earned himself a spot. I think this is probably his last chance though – if he blows this, I doubt he’ll get through waivers.
Nelson Cruz to be DFA’ed: Several reports say that the Rangers will try and get Cruz through waivers, but I don’t think anyone expects that to happen. He has one of the better throwing arms, and even though given multiple chances, has not grasped the role of regular, because his offense is so all over the place.
Kevin Mench to minors: In another move that I think surprised nobody, Kevin Mench will start the season in AAA. His contract stated he would agree to that, so once that clause was in there, I think he realistically became “the insurance policy”. He would have had to have been miles above anyone else to make the club’s opening day 25 man. Still, it would not surprise me to see him up here before too long, unless everyone stays healthy.
Jason Ellison to minors: Jason Ellison was also told he won’t make the club, which doesn’t seem like much of a surprise. I wasn’t hearing his name a ton in reports and all that.
Catching:
Salty to AAA: This one came in right when I started writing this article, so I had to include it. According to TR Sullivan this morning, it was decided that Adam Melhuse would make the club as the backup to Gerald Laird, with Jarrod Saltamacchia going to AAA to get regular work. There also was some talk that Jon Daniels might still be trying to move Gerald Laird before the start of the season, but wants to get good value. He better, as while I don’t think Laird is the seriously long term answer, he does appear to be a good catcher, so you don’t want to just give him away.
A few notes, though. Franklyn German, Jamey Wright, and Adam Melhuse are NOT on the 40 man roster, and since ours is full, room will have to be made for them. The obvious candidate is Nelson Cruz, who is reported to be dfa’ed. That’s one. The others will probably be guys moved to the 60 day DL.
None of these roster moves were officially made, my guess is we see a big bomb of transactions all at once right before the actual deadline when we have to get down to our starting 25.

Rangers signed Sidney Ponson today to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training (Story) This on the same day that it was announced that Brandon McCarthy will start the season on the DL, being out 6-8 weeks or so. Coincidence? Probably not.
I can’t imagine there are any Rangers fans who are excited about the Ponson move. Will you feel good if he takes the mound in Arlington? I’d say probably not. There’s some minor rumblings that he’s gotten it together, and if so that’d be great for us. However, can you honestly say that you’re truly excited about this signing? I can’t imagine anyone thinking that. Even Jon Daniels would probably think “I hope this works” if he gets to Arlington. This really reminds me of the
I bet Josh Lewin will probably make a bunch out of the Aruba thing with him, I’d bet.

In a post over at the DMN Rangers’ blog this afternoon, it was announced that Nolan Ryan’s contract was officially signed, a four year deal. It runs through 2011.
Likewise, Jon Daniels got a two year extension as well. This runs both of them through 2011.
Of course, people can be fired anyway, but it’s nice to see an attempt at stable upper management, something we haven’t had in quite a long time. The true impact of Nolan Ryan on the club as President won’t be known for awhile, I’d imagine. To date, it still seems somewhat like a “figurehead” type of thing, but I suspect it won’t stay that way for long.
Despite the stupid Chris Young trade, which I’m still somewhat peeved at, I’d give thumbs up for Jon Daniels, so I’m glad to see these moves happen.