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So we’ve gotten going with pitchers and catchers. That opened on Saturday.
In a move that surprised me, Ron Washington has effectively named his starting rotation. Now. Before position players are supposed to report. If you had a rotation slated to include Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton, and a fifth of Roger Clemens, it seems odd to name your starting rotation this early. Especially when the names are Millwood, Padilla, Feldman, Harrson, & McCarthy.
Millwood & Padilla probably are both good #3 guys, but I’m not sure if either is #2 material, definitely not #1. Scott Feldman has done well for us lately, but I don’t think that’s truly a confident fan choice. Matt Harrison also has done well, but has little under his belt long term, and McCarthy? Can we have John Danks back?
It just seems odd to me to declare these guys the starting five. Obviously, anything can change between now and the start. It probably will, but I don’t understand the mindset of having things declared this early. I saw some line about having our catchers get in sync with the starters. That seems like a pile of bunk, to be honest.
There’s a boatload of other guys in camp that fall under the category of “rotation competition”. Does anyone really believe these are the five we’re going to battle with at the start of the season? I don’t.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to be hearing a ton of “Elvis has left the building” jokes this season. I’m sure I’ll make some of them, but I’ll try and space them out. So I thought I’d get the first one out of the way on the opening of Spring Training.

If you’re reading this site, you know that Spring Training officially opened today. Pitchers & catchers had their formal reporting day yesterday, and today was the first day of workouts. A good deal of the position players are in camp as well, which is no real surprise. But it’s nice to read reports on actual game play. Not too long before games start, either.

We did however, make it into spring training after an offseason where we signed nobody to a major league contract from the free agent pool. Everyone we signed as a minor league deal, which doesn’t count against the 40. The problem with THAT is if there’s a ton of them who play well enough to get roster spots, we’re going to have to get rid of some people to make that move, but we’ll see how it plays out.

First game is Feb 25th, but the first “real” game is Feb 26th, and it’s on the radio. This is good.

The Rangers announced this afternoon that our Spring Training broadcast schedule will be far greater than at any point in the past. Some highlights:

• Five games on TV! – In the past, we’d get generally two, and all in the last week. This time most of them are at the end of spring training, but there’s one early. The five dates are Mar 7 (White Sox), Mar 22 (Dodgers), Mar 25 (DBacks), Mar 27 (Brewers), & Apr 4 (Royals). The last one is the spring finale, and is in Arlington.
• 18 games on the radio! – This was previously announced when the new radio deal with 105.3 FM was announced, but it’s nice to see a lot more of them. You can check out my schedule page for spring training to see what is what there.
• MLB.com Gameday Audio – It was said that there will be eight (presumably other) games that will be webcast on Gameday Audio. I’m hoping it uses the Rangers guys, and not just the general MLB guys. The latter don’t make for a good broadcast, I think, since they spend most of their time talking about everything else except the teams on the field. The press release refers to it as “Texas Rangers Gameday Audio”. That could just be markting crap, and it’s the MLB guys, but I’m hopeful those will be actually listenable. The press release does NOT, however say which eight games. They only mention the first one, which is March 10th. If anyone knows the dates of the other seven, please pass them along to me. Thanks.

In addition, I went through my schedule for the regular season and updated game times. The schedule published a month or so ago had about 20 games with TBD as the gametime. That’s been rectified for all but one game, so I’ve gone ahead and updated my schedule with the proper times. The official press release talks about three other games that have had their times changed, I picked up those, too.
Saturday, June 20 at San Francisco: TBD to 8:05 p.m. CT
Sunday, August 16 vs. Boston: 7:05 to 1:05 p.m. CT
Friday, August 21 at Tampa Bay: 6:08 to 6:38 p.m. CT

The Rangers continue their march to getting to camp without signing a single player to a major league contract from the free agent pool this offseason. A couple more signings.
Yesterday, the Rangers signed Jason Jennings to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. Last year was clearly a disaster for the Mesquite TX native. He even said so in the remarks about the contract for 2009. This really is not a big deal. He’d have to pitch his way onto the roster. Doesn’t cost us much at all – if he makes the roster, he gets $800,000 plus various incentives totaling $1.4 million based on innings pitched (from 110 through 200). Only $15,000 of the contract is guaranteed, so this is no brainer, really.
Today, the Rangers signed Brendan Donnelly to a minor league contract. Apparently if he makes the club, he’ll get $950,000 and can request his release if he’s not in the majors between March 27 and April 27th. He’s coming off of Tommy John surgery in 2007 for his right elbow. This would be about the time guys bounce back, so we’ll see. Ranger fans should remember him (and his goggles) from his time with the Anaheim Angels.
Finally, while he hasn’t signed, there’s a lot of talk that the Rangers are about to sign Andrew Jones to a minor league deal. He’s getting a gazillion dollars from the Dodgers in money and deferred money to go away, so he’s a zero risk player – we don’t need to pay him anything at all, really. Rudy Jaramillo has a habit of working gold with players, and until he dropped off the face of the Earth two years ago offensively, he was seriously top dog player. I don’t particularly think outfield is a place we need to pick up players – we have an overflow as it is, and a couple really good guys in the system. Unless Rudy fixes him in spring, and he hits 50 HR and 145 RBI again, I’m not particularly sure I see the need. We’ll see.
Oh, and I haven’t said anything about Ben Sheets at all. He’s hurt. Nobody signed him. Now we know why. I would like to see the Rangers sign him to a two year contract now with the first year paying him next to nothing, and the next year be somewhat realistic. Probably won’t happen, though.