Read an article this evening saying that Hicks might have six offers for sale of the Rangers. This is not surprising, as all indicators seem to be that the team will change ownership hands this coming off-season. Assuming that’s legit, this would just be part of that process, and itself isn’t newsworthy, but I haven’t seen any hard news in a little bit since that bru-ha-ha I started by reporting what I heard on XM about MLB loaning Hicks money for payroll.
Anyway, the only offer I care about is the one from Nolan Ryan, or at least the one that Nolan Ryan is involved in, and the one that will result in Nolan Ryan being the primary owner.
This is all amusing timing, as I got an email this morning from Ranger fan “Darren”, asking me this.

Joe, They (Dunham & Miller) have been talking about moving the Rangers this morning. Are you hearing it?

I wrote him back saying that I had not, as I don’t care for the Ticket at all, and never listen. Did anyone else hear this? Since I did not, I can’t directly comment on what they said. I wonder if it was actual talk about the team moving (like news), or was it just them speculating on what might happen if finances don’t get any better? Let me know what happened here.
To top this all off, it’s interesting to add that I heard on the radio yesterday driving to the doubleheader a report saying that AAA Round Rock might become the Rangers new AAA affiliate once the contract for RR & OKC expire after the 2010 season.
Gee, would that work out for Nolan Ryan owning the Rangers and owning one of their minor league affiliates, eh? :)

I think most people expected this to be the last time we saw Pudge in a Rangers uniform.

That picture was from his last Rangers home game where it was expected by everyone (if not officially) that it was the end of his Rangers tenure. Well, that’s not the case. After spending time with the Florida Marlins, the Detroit Tigers, the New York Yankees (shudder), and the Houston Astros, the Rangers re-acquired him today in a trade with Houston for two “mid level” prospects. As I write this (1:44PM), the prospects haven’t been named yet. We’re also apparently responsible for the remainder of his $1.5 million salary for 2009. A pretty good bargain.

UPDATE: Several unconfirmed stories are now saying that it’s an A-ball pitcher named Matt Nevarez plus a PTBNL.

UPDATE 2: It’s apparently Nevarez and Jose Vallejo, although Vallejo is technically being classified as a PTBNL, due to some waiver technicalities. Furthermore, Jamey Newberg is saying that if the Rangers make the playoffs, we’ll owe the Astros a third PTBNL player.

All the stories I’ve read have said that Pudge has been told Taylor Teagarden is the #1 catcher, and Pudge is being brought in as a backup. That probably will work out fine, and when he’s added to the roster, one would expect Kevin Richardson is headed back to the minors.

While the romantic Rangers fan will love this move, I can’t expect it’s for any more than this season. Yeah, the veteran leadership issue will be well covered with this move, but in 2010, I can’t see where Pudge will fit, so we’d better win the World Series now, as I cannot imagine why Pudge would re-sign here next year, nor why we’d make him an offer. Enjoy the last couple of months Rangers fans, as this is likely it for Pudge with the Rangers.

Having said all that.. I hope he is catching on Thursday night, as I’ll be at the game. I want to see him again! :)

He got to see Feliz in action. Then got sad. Check it out.

So, Vicente Padilla was designated for assignment. I think most everyone assumed he’d be here through the end of the season, and there’d be zero chance they’d pick up his option for 2010. He was out of here at the end of the season. However, his actions in the Oakland series probably sealed his fate.

With his favorite beanball target of a team coming up (Anaheim), I suspect the move was made to get rid of him before anything worse happened. During his time here, he developed a reputation of being a headhunter. It’s known I follow the Phillies too, and I don’t recall him being a beanball pitcher there. No idea what he was like in Arizona. I went back and found this article (and this one) from Beerleaguer (one of my fav Phillies sites) about Padilla being moved here, and while the gist of it was “good riddance”, I can’t find any specifics about why he had worn out his welcome in Philadelphia. I remember hearing at the time it was a “we don’t care if we get a bag of beans for him, move him out”.

So he comes here, is decent, if not stellar, and as time moves on, seems to have developed a reputation of throwing at guys. I know there’s a lot made out of players who will “defend their players” and all that, but Pidente down here seems to be the guy who starts it, not the guy who retaliates.

Read this morning a lot of quotes from players saying it was a good move. Marlon Byrd came out and said “It’s about time”, and the DMN’s article talks about how several players were thanking GM Jon Daniels in the clubhouse after it had happened. I didn’t realize he was quite THAT unliked in the clubhouse.

From a baseball side, he had one good month this year – May. Since his waiver move awhile back, he hasn’t been lights out, except for maybe the first start after that. Since the All-Star break, I read where his ERA is over 6. We’re putting Dustin Nippert in the rotation in his place, but Nippert or anyone else we might throw in there won’t do any worse, and the headgames Padilla can bring is probably something we could do without. Again, Daniels portrayed him as a bad teammate, so conjuring up memories of Sidney Ponson, a pitcher that was not pitching THAT poorly was moved out for the good of the team’s “chemistry”. But with us having a decent shot at making the playoffs, we figured we were better off without him. Ouch.
Heck, even his name doesn’t get respect. The DMN article this morning printed his name as Vincent Padilla, and last night, Fox Sports Southwest in their news crawl had his name spelled as Vincente Padilla. Of course, that doesn’t compare to the old Harry Kalas story. One time the late great Philly broadcaster referred to him as Vicente Pidente, which is the reason I called Padilla that. This is probably one of the last times I’ll ever get to use the word Pidente on this site, and that alone is a reason I’ll miss him. But probably the only one. hahaha.

One last thing. I know still pictures taken of a very moving event can lie. I am well aware of that fact. However, in looking for pictures of Padilla, I ran across the brawl pictures from Sep 16, 2007 with Oakland. I ran into this one. It looks like that even during a brawl that Pidente seemed on the outside not with his teammates (yeah, I know that’s not really what is going on, it just looks that way).

UPDATE: After I wrote all this, I saw an article with remarks from Padilla saying he was “disappointed” in the move. What pitcher would say “Yeah, it’s probably good they got rid of me”?

Saw a comment on another baseball blog about Vicente Padilla having swine flu. The remark the guy made at the bottom made me laugh. Check it out:

Nolan Ryan is probably on the phone to him right now telling him to suck it up and pitch through it.

hahahahahahaha. :)

I was driving around today listening to XM’s “MLB Home Plate” talk shows, and heard something that seems like epic level news. A caller called in and mentioned that Tom Hicks & the Texas Rangers failed to make payroll yesterday. They said that MLB had to step in and give the team $15 million to make payroll. Whether that was office payroll or player payroll, they weren’t clear.
But Kevin Kennedy who was the host said he had several personal ties in the orginazation, going back to his days here (so he said). He claimed he knew something about the situation, and was quite sure that the team “would be in different hands this coming offseason”.
Now we knew Hicks was trying to sell controlling interest (PLEASE PLEASE – Mr Ryan..), but this was the first I heard of real money problems like not being able to make player payroll. Kennedy said this wouldn’t affect day to day operations, because MLB has a fund set up for things like this, but he did say it probably would affect who could be brought in at the trading deadline, that we couldn’t take on much (if any) salary.
This is the first I’ve heard of it. Either I missed something bigtime in local reporting, or nobody’s talking about it. Surely I’m not the first person in DFW to mention this?

This story surprised me. Read this morning an article about Marlon Byrd getting supplements from the guy who used to run BALCO.
The article goes on to mention Byrd has not tested positive for anything. The article also mentions Scott Feldman by name too, but nothing wrong there either.
I have to wonder why someone would get involved with the BALCO guy given Barry Bonds, Game of Shadows, and all that stuff.

Don’t know if you’ve seen these before, but I was just told about a few cool stories.
One is from the print magazine Guideposts, and it’s a cover story about Josh Hamilton. It’s a story any Rangers fan will already know, but it’s a great story and is worth checking out again. Gotta praise God for that story!
The other is an interview with CJ Wilson done by the site “The Hall of Very Good“. You can check that one out here, which includes the fact that CJ doesn’t use an iPhone, which is a bit of a surprise to me.
The Hall site also recently ran a nice article looking at the career of Omar Vizquel. Check that out, too.

As those who read my site know, I’m not the most knowledgeable about the minor leagues. I know some names, but I don’t get into the minutae of every prospect that comes down the pike. Still, here’s who we got on Day 1:
1 – 14: Matt Purke, LHP (same school as David Murphy)
1 – Supp: Tanner Scheppers, RHP (Pick awarded for loss of Milton Bradley)
2 – 62: Tommy Mendonca, 3B (Fresno? Nobody goes to Fresno anymore!)
3 – 93: Robbie Erlin, LHP
As for the details… I will defer as usual to Jamey Newberg. He’s the Rangers minor league guru, and if you haven’t read his report on yesterday’s draft, you need to. You can get to it here:
http://newberg.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/06/day_one_of_the_draft_bold_busi.html
UPDATE: As I was writing this, the news flash came in that the Rangers drafted Ruben Sierra’s son, aptly named “Ruben Sierra” in the sixth round as a center fielder.

Travis Metcalf was claimed today by the Kansas City Royals. It’s a shame he got out, as I really think he deserved a shot to be our starting 3B in 2009. He was squeezed out in a 40 man roster situation, not too dissimilar to the way that Doug Davis was squeezed out a few years back.
Hopefully he gets some real time to play with the Royals. Nice guy, hope he does well.
We also signed Esteban German back in a counter move. German played some backup for us back in 2005.