Several reports today say that a deal is in place to trade Hank Blalock & John Danks to the Florida Marlins for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell. My guess is the Rangers have soured on Blalock given the fact at how badly he slumps in the back end of the season. Lowell I’ve always liked. He had a terrible year in 2005, hopefully that’s not where he is headed career wise. Josh Beckett can certainly help us, that’s for sure (provided he stays healthy). Danks is unproven of course, but you never want to give away stud pitching.
As I write this, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, so I haven’t had time to digest it. Don’t want to give up one of our young players, but if we need pitching, then you have to give up something, it’s just my gut says that Blalock and a stud pitcher is too much. We’ll see what happens. I just hope that we get some cash back as Lowell is owed $18 mil over the next two years. You put that with the money we’re paying the Yankees for Arod ($6 Mil), and the money we owe Phil Nevin in 2006 ($12 Mil), and that means we’d be on the books for $27 million for Nevin, Arod & Lowell. That’s a lot.
It appears that this is supposed to happen “by Monday”. If this goes down, I guess Hank’s Homies are done.
News Stories:
Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News #2 (Monday morning)
Ft Worth Star Telegram (Sat Night)
Ft Worth Star Telegram #2 (Sun Morning)
Texas Rangers Site
Fla Marlins Site
Sportsticker via SI.com
There’s been a few moves the last couple of days, mostly procedural, some coaching – I’ll catch up on Monday most likely.

The AL MVP was announced today. Arod won. Don’t care about that.
Two Ranger players were in the results. Mark Teixeira came in seventh and Mike Young came in 11th. Tex got one vote for third place, which was the highest either of them got. Mike Young’s highest was two votes for sixth place. I expect Tex to place much higher than that over the next couple of years, as would Mike Young.
Here’s a page on mlb.com with the complete tally of votes.

Well, today is the day that free agents can talk money with other clubs, as the “exclusive negotiating” period has ended. That means the following players are now no longer Rangers:
John Wasdin, Kenny Rogers, Sandy Alomar, Steve Karsay, Doug Brocail, Greg Colbrunn, & Richard Hidalgo.
I suppose technically we can still claim some sort of minor hold on them through December 7th, which is the last day to offer a player arbitration, but for all intensive purposes, they’re now “former Rangers”. Kind of surprised to see John Wasdin turn up there, as I thought he wanted to stay, as did Sandy Alomar. The rest don’t bother me in the least, we can take care of their spots in some other way.
I’ve updated my roster page with all these changes (and rather easily too, a nice side benefit of the blog software I’m moving most of the site towards.

All the various team sites are running their polls for the Play of the Year. The Rangers site is no different. If you head over there now you can vote on 6 plays nominated for the best Rangers play of the year. They are:

1. Barajas’ Grand Slam – 4/20 at TB – Rod Barajas hit his first career grand slam in a 12-10 victory
2. Teixeira’s All-Star game homer – 7/12 vs. NL – Mark Teixeira hit a home run at the All-Star Game in Detroit
3. Blalock’s dribbler – 8/28 vs. MIN – Hank Blalock hit a walkoff dribber in the ninth inning to push Rangers to a 2-1 win
4. Teixeira’s 100th homer – 9/6 at MIN – Teixeira hit a home run in the 10th inning, which made him just the fifth player in Major League history to hit 100 or more homers in their first three seasons.
5. Mench’s winning RBI – 9/14 vs. BAL – Kevin Mench hit an RBI single in the 10th inning to propel the Rangers to a 7-6 victory.
6. Young’s 200th hit – 9/15 vs. SEA – Michael Young became the 22nd player in Major League history to record three consecutive 200-hit seasons

If you haven’t done it already, head on over and vote. If nothing else, you can watch a video clip of the six plays and have a little Ranger baseball for now. ;)

That’s everyone. Richard Hidalgo filed for free agency on Tuesday.
Now all of our eligible free agents have filed.

Mark Teixeira & Kenny Rogers both picked up 2005 AL Gold Glove awards on Tuesday afternoon.
For Kenny Rogers, it’s his fourth. Say what you will about his camera fracas, but he could still field his position like no other player who has worn a Ranger uniform. He deserved that award.
Mark Teixeira won his first. And probably really far from his last. Again, we need to sign him long term. If we’re not willing to spend the money to lock up Teixeira, who will we be willing to spend the money on? 10 years, $125 Mil. :)
Here’s the complete list of AL Gold Glove winners.

In other Rangers news, a few more players have filed for free agency. They are:
Kenny Rogers (no surprise there)
Sandy Alomar Jr (I thought he wanted to stay in 2006)
Steve Karsay (no surprise there, either – would have been shocked if he stayed)
If I’m right, the Ranger players who can file for free agency and haven’t yet are Doug Brocail, Gregg Colbrunn, & Richard Hidalgo. I’d be STUNNED if Colbrunn & Hidalgo are back. Brocail wouldn’t surprise me, although I’d rather move in another direction there.
Edit: Later in the day Doug Brocail & Greg Colbrunn filed for free agency. That leaves Hidalgo by my research. He’ll file too.

The 2005 Silver Slugger awards were announced today, and Mark Teixeira (1B) and Alfonso Soriano (2B) from the Texas Rangers won the awards in the American League. This is the second year in a row that both players have won the award, which is given to offensive “excellence” at each position on the field. Here are the final season stats for both players:
Mark Teixeira:
H: 194 2B: 41 3B: 3 HR: 43 RBI: 144 BA: .301 SLG: .575 OBP: .379 SB: 4
Alfonso Soriano:
H: 171 2B: 43 3B: 2 HR: 36 RBI: 104 BA: .268 SLG: .512 OBP: .309 SB: 30
Congratulations to both. There’s more to read about this situation over on the Rangers site here.

We have our first Ranger to file for free agency this offseason. It’s John Wasdin.
According to this link on mlb.com John Wasdin was one of 62 players to file on the first day of eligibilty, that being the day after the World Series.
And so it begins. I used to hate the offseason, but in the last 3 years or so, I’ve gotten to really enjoy all the movings around.

AAA Manager Bobby Jones has been promoted to the major league coaching staff. He will coach first base and work with the outfielders, replacing DeMarlo Hale who has gone to Boston.
Jones was our first base coach for a short while a couple of seasons ago – he was Hale’s predecessor, if I remember right.
Bobby Jones has been with the Rangers organization for a long time in various capacities, going back to the franchise’s time in DC as the Senators. He was drafted by the Senators originally in 1967, and finally broke into the big leagues with the Rangers as a September callup in 1974. He played here in 75 as well, and then went and played for the California Angels for a couple of years. He returned to the Rangers for the 1981 season, and stayed until 1986, when he finished his playing career. He’s been some sort of Rangers coach somewhere ever since.
The man is a Ranger. That’s for sure. :) Welcome back, Bobby!