Read on the DMN site where the Rangers lost no players in the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft today. We did, of course end up with Fabio Castro via the Royals (via trade for Esteban German). That’s good, as I was worried we’d lose some of our good players. We did add and lose some in the minor league phase, though. I’ll quote from Jamey Newberg‘s report on that one.
In the AAA phase of the draft, Texas lost utility man Cameron Coughlan to Oakland and added three players: outfielders Alexi Ogando and Jayce Tingler and lefthander Estelin Soto. Unlike the big league phase of the draft, the minor league phases don’t carry any roster requirements, and so Coughlan is lost to the A’s and Ogando, Tingler, and Soto are now Ranger property.

There’s a few articles out now with player response to trade. Pretty predictably, Soriano was sad about it, and Brad Wilkerson was excited.
Wilkerson’s reaction
Soriano’s reaction
Baseball America’s Reaction – has some good insight on Sledge & Galarraga.
SI’s Tim Verducci
Also, there’s an article where the Nationals expect Soriano to play the outfield. Good luck with that. Every time it was talked about him playing the OF either with the Yankees or the Rangers, he went into a funk, it seemed. Perhaps Frank Robinson can work on that, but I’d be surprised if he stays happy there all year. Anyone know if he was solely a 2B when he played in Japanese ball?
Additionally, you should check out the Official Nationals Message Board at mlb.com. Has some interesting fan reactions.

There were some reports this morning that the Rangers have traded Esteban German to the Royals for their first pick in the Rule 5 draft. I thought you can’t trade draft picks? Or is the Rule 5 draft different? I don’t know bout that.
Anyway, if it holds up, we’d have Rule 5 rights to a pitcher named Fabio Castro. Don’t know anything about him, although there’s some stats on him here and here. There’s a news story about it on the Royals site here. As of the writing of this, there hasn’t been any formal announcement, although Castro has been drafted by the Royals.
There’s another one about Kris Benson and his wife coming here for Juan Dominugez & Laynce Nix. Dominguez has kind of soured in the Rangers’ eyes – or so I was reading at the end of the season. Plus with Nix being hurt a lot and never making a big splash with his potential, they may want to move him, too. I can see it happening. Benson doesn’t excite me very much, but he’s not godawful, either. If he does come here, I wonder how fast the Ticket guys will fall all over each other trying to get his wife on their shows.
Mench to Dodgers for Jonathan Broxton?
Blue Jays want Brad Wilkerson now?
Rangers Captain to Philly for the Phanatic?
/me notices his head hurting.

Interesting take on the Soriano trade (which I feel more good about this morning than I did last night). The writer of this article says “Washington fans, you got ripped off”, as well as saying that Soriano for Wilkerson straight up would have been a bad deal on it’s own.
Check out the article over at baseballmusings.com. I’m not sure if I agree with the straight up being bad remark, but it does kind of feel like we got away with more than we should have with three guys coming back. Especially as you know Soriano won’t be happy playing the outfield, and he’ll only be a Nat for 2006.
I’ll be curious to see how this move (getting two OF back) changes our own OF situation, as we essentially have Mench in left, Matthews/Nix in center and nobody in right. Don’t think Mark DeRosa is the answer there, although he did play fairly well at the end of the season out there. I really would rather not trade Mench – I’d much rather us trade Matthews, although I don’t really want to do that, either.
There’s also a poll on the ESPN site where you’re asked questions about the trade. Given the nature of some of the questions asked, it appears like it was angled from a Nationals fan standpoint. Check it out.

Alfonso Soriano has been dealt to the Washington Nationals for Brad Wilkerson, Termel Sledge, & minor league pitcher Armando Galarraga. Brad Wilkerson is a good acquisition. Don’t know much about Termel Sledge, other than he has tested positive for steroids. Galarraga (no idea if he’s related to Andreas) was initially reported as a PTBNL, but now appears to be part of the main trade.

Links:

• Termel Sledge
• Brad Wilkerson
• Alfonso Soriano

Stats

Sledge’s stats are inconsequential – 20 games played. Wilkerson has nowhere near the power that Soriano does, but is a good outfielder, and should handle our last couple of year maliase (Jordan, Hidalgo) in RF nicely. He’s listed on the Nats site as a CF, though – I thought he played RF. If he is a CF, do we keep Matthews and put him in right? That still solves our RF problem, I think. I’m not sure how Sledge will fit into this, unless he sits in AAA as insurance against Nix not being able to come back from his surgeries. I am surprised we didn’t get a pitcher like Luis Ayala. Sledge apparently has spent most of 2005 hurt, but had decent numbers in 2004 (his rookie year).
Wilkerson has an OK OBP, but that’s probably because of all the walks he has. Still, it’s someting where he’s better than Soriano. Hopefully Wilkerson won’t have that 0-2 slider down and away swinging strike 3 problerm Soriano & Juan Gone had.
Update: DMN site says that the pitcher in question is supposed to be Armando Galarraga (link). His 2005 minor league stats are 6-8, 3.80 in 27GS for A & AA. Still, he’s not a major league ready pitcher. He’ll be 24 in January. Probably will play in Frisco.
Money Stuff:
Terrmel Sledge
1 year (2005)
* re-signed 2/05
* 1 year/$0.3M (2004) 2/04
* drafted 1999 (8-245), $7,500 signing bonus
* ML service: 1.000
Brad Wilkerson
1 year/$3.05M (2005)
* avoided arbitration 1/05
* 1 year/$0.375M (2004), renewed 3/04
* 1 year/$0.315M (2003)
* 1 year/$0.206M (2002) 3/02
* ML service: 3.081
Alfonso Soriano
1 year/$7.5M (2005)
* avoided arbitration 1/05
* 1 year/$5.4M (2004), avoided arbitration 1/04
* 1 year/$0.8M (2003) 3/03
* 5 years/$3.15M (1998-2002)
* signed as a free agent 3/98
* “retired” 3/98 after 2 years with Hiroshima in order to play in U.S.
* agent: Diego Bentz, SFX (formerly Don Nomura)
* ML service: 4.079
Wilkerson appears to be a salary arbitration player, as he made $3 Mil in 05, he’ll make what 4-5 million this year? Given the 10 that Soriano is likely to get, that gives us about 5-6 million in savings, hopefully to be used for pitching. We’ll see how it shakes out as we go forward.
Also wanted to take a moment and plug Cot’s Baseball Contracts site (link). It’s a great source for contractual information on players.

The Ticket just reported that John Wasdin has agreed to a one year deal to remain with the Rangers in 2006. The deal is a one year, $600,000 major league deal.
This is probably a good fit for us, provided he’s not one of the opening day rotation guys. I intially didn’t like Wasdin, but he’s been relatively stable in a number of roles, but I still don’t think that a regular rotation guy is one of them.
Edit: There’s a story on the Rangers site about it now. Link.

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Lots of scariness as the Winter meeting start.
The most likely free agent pitchers to come here are Byung-Hyun Kim and Brett Tomko. No excitement there. Tomko is bigtime flyball pitcher, if I remember right, and that’s death in our ballpark. Kim doesn’t really bother me, although he’s no savior. The scary part with him is that’s about the best we seem to be able to do.
Granted, with a projected rotation of Chris Young & Kameron Loe, we obviously need help. But Tomko & Kim? Bleargh. For some stupid reason, I honestly thought Paul Byrd would come here. I figured that was gonna be our big free agent signing.
I’d love to see Oliver Perez turn up here from Pittsburgh. But the Pirates are the third team I follow (besides the Phillies & Rangers). But I’d be absolutely stunned if the Pirates give up Perez, no matter who they get back.
More scariness would be trading for Adam Eaton of the Padres. Another fly ball guy. He probably benefitted from being in the big park they’re in. Likely wouldn’t translate well here. The rumour I read was Eaton for Adrian Gonzalez AND Gerald Laird. Way too high.
I obviously like the story that’s being talked about where we get Barry Zito, but I’d be surprised if Oakland would want to trade him within the division. He’s too big of a player for that, IMO. Don’t know what they’d want for him, but if he was to go inside the AL West, it’d be a lot, I’m sure. Plus Zito can be a free agent after the 2006 season, so I’m sure we’d want to extend him if we made the trade. And I don’t know if ZIto would want to do that. Maybe we can give him the $50k we didn’t give him when we drafted him originally as an extra bonus. :)
Kerry Wood, Todd Walker, cash & prospects for Kevin Mench & Alfonso Soriano. Do we really need Todd Walker? I’d probably still make that deal minus Walker. Walker has a team option for 06 for $2.5 Million, so one year might not be all that bad.
Another Mench rumour has him going to the BLue Jays straight up for Miguel Batista. I’ll do that one.
Don’t want Juan Pierre. We tried that idea a few years back with Tom Goodwin, Darryl Hamilton, & Damon Buford. Didn’t work offensively (although I really liked Hamilton’s defense).
I also don’t know what to think about the Manny Ramirez rumours.
Oh, and Hugh Hefner should give Anna Benson the million she wants. That’d be a great free agent signing.

Read this online tonight.

Update: Mesa has informed the Rangers that he’d be willing to pitch in a setup role for closer Francisco Cordero, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.
Recommendation: Wherever Mesa lands, setup duties could be his eventual role. Those with early deadlines in keeper leagues should take note.

As I also follow the Philles & the Pirates, I have to say this scares me. A lot. It will be Jeff Brantley all over again.

Since I last updated, there was the dalliance with Hank Blalock & Josh Beckett. However, there were a number of smaller (subjectively) news items that occured. I wanted to note them here.
Jon Leicester acquired: On Nov 16, we acquired Jon Leicester from the Chicago Cubs. I don’t know a whole lot about him, but Jamey Newberg called him a “decent prospect” back in August of 2004. That’s about all I know. He was acquired for essentially nothing. The old trade for “cash or a PTBNL” type of trade never seems to work out well. But it’s a low risk move, and if it works out, great!
40 Man Roster additions: We added four players to the 40 man roster last week. They are infielders Ian Kinsler & Joaqun Arias as well as pitchers Wes Littleton & Omar Beltre. With these guys (and Leicester) that brings the total on the 40 man to 36. It’s usually more crowded than that when the Rule 5 protection addtions are made. We did leave a decent number of good players off the list, but are unlikely to be selected. Some of those names are John Hudgins, Nick Masset, Drew Meyer, Vince Sinisi, & Ruddy Yan.
Juggling of Coaches: The Orel Hershisher/Dodgers dance ended with Orel staying here, but not in the way most of us expected. He resigned as pitching coach, and took a job in the front office as “executive director”. Sounds like a no real duties job to me – just training for his next job. Because of that move, Mark Connor was promoted from bullpen coach to pitching coach. Lisewise, Dom Chiti who was previously the ‘directory of player personnel’. Not sure why that qualifies him. I would have thought John Wetteland would make a perfect bullpen coach, myself.
Also, the times for all the regular season games as well as the spring training games were announced. I’ll have that update soon, as I’m still thinking about how I’m going to do 2006 game updates – the format will probably change from what I’ve done since the 1999 season, but I’m not sure how yet.

This afternoon there was a news report by Jayson Stark that said that the Rangers were not the frontrunner in the Beckett trade sweepstakes. Then late this afternoon the word came down that he’s not being traded to Texas at all, that he’s likely going to Boston.
We’ll wait for the final word, but it appears to be done.
Looks like the homies will remain. :)