A couple of days ago we got the word that Kevin Millwood “tweaked” (Good Lord, what exactly does that mean) his hamstring, which will cause him to miss his first scheduled start on Friday.
Then this morning, Evan Grant posted the news that Brandon McCarthy is being held back from the exhibition opener tomorrow.
Neither are (officially anyway) being classified as a real problem. They’re saying that Millwood should only miss one start, and that McCarthy could pitch if he had to. I’ve been following this sport enough to know that we rarely get the TRUE meaning of these things. Aside from that hyper technical term of “tweaked”, do we really know – HONESTLY – what the problems are? They very well could be not a big deal.
I’m sure we’ll hear the usual platitudes about how it’s not a big deal, they’re really fine, and the word most often heard with news like this… “precautionary”.
But when I heard the McCarthy news, my first thought was “OK, that’s two. It always comes in threes, so who gets it next”?
Never good to hear this news at ANY time in camp.
Signings
- The following players were signed to 1 year contracts: Omar Beltre, RHP, Wes Littleton, RHP, Brandon McCarthy, RHP, Travis Metcalf, INF, David Murphy, OF, AJ Murray, LHP, Alexi Ogando, RHP [ Link ]
Dollar values:
Beltre, Omar $390,000
Littleton, Wes $397,510
McCarthy, Brandon $404,810
Metcalf, Travis $392,000
Murphy, David $393,000
Murray, AJ $392,000
Ogando, Alexi $390,000
2008 TV Schedule
The 2008 Rangers TV schedule has been released. No huge surprises about it, although I have a few things to say.
It appears that more of the games are being shown on Fox Sports Southwest than before. The schedule shows 110 of them there. 48 are on “free TV” on KDFI-27, and two are on Fox 4 (home opener & July 13th). That totals 160 games. Up until a couple of years ago it was pretty much guaranteed there’d be 162 games televised. The last few years it seems it’s 160. Does anyone know (for real) why there are two that aren’t? Is this a tradeoff for the two we get televised during spring training? It seems with all the money (there’s that word again) going around baseball and TV, they’d do all of them. You would THINK they’d jump at the chance to sell more commercial time. I don’t understand that.
Anyway, the other two could be broadcast, as this schedule doesn’t list any national games. There’s always a few games that get rescheduled for ESPN Game of the Week, or Fox Saturday afternoon baseball or something like that. So this probably isn’t set in stone. Also, there’s no HD schedule yet. It doesn’t affect me personally, as I haven’t been able to afford to buy one of those yet – hopefully soon.
Another interesting thing is this new “FSN Plus” channel, which will be showing the 50 “free TV” games on an alternate cable channel. Read this from the press release about the schedule:
FSN Southwest will distribute the 50 over-the-air games broadcast in Dallas Fort Worth in the team’s outer markets on FSN Plus, a second channel available to participating cable systems. Games on FSN Southwest will be shown in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of New Mexico and on FSN Plus affiliates in markets where there are programming conflicts.
I have DirecTV here, and see them all anyway, but I’m a little unclear as to the purpose of this. If I subscribe to a system that has access to “FSN Plus”, I’d be able to get the free TV broadcasts anyway. While I don’t think this is bad, it just is a bit of an eyebrow raiser – I don’t get it. Can someone who does please explain it to me?
The Rangers site has a press release about the schedule, as well as a downloadable PDF TV schedule of each game and which channel it is scheduled to be on.
I’ve started updating my 2008 schedule with this. I haven’t posted it yet, because I’m doing something new in 2008, and it’s incredibly tedious to set up – it takes me about an hour or so to do one month. But it will pay off as the season gets started. I hope to be finished some time early this coming week with that.
G1: Rangers beat Mariners, 27-2
This is obviously a fake entry.
I needed a placeholder for the 2008 season to test some template work I’m doing for the new season.
Juando in the Cards
ESPN writer Tim Kurkjian yesterday wrote an article about Juan Gonzalez’s comeback attempt with the Cardinals. It’s an interesting read. As a Rangers fan who remembers all the “stuff” he did (pointing at the official scorer, the HOF game/baggy pants thing/general moodiness), I wonder how well this will play in St. Louis.
The article says his swing was still there, being described as “long, smooth, georgeous”. I wonder if said swing is still susceptible to the low and away slider like it always was. When asked why he was attempting a comeback, he said this:
“I have goals in mind, I came back to finish those goals — 500 home runs is a goal [he has 434]. But the No. 1 reason I’m [in camp] is to make this team.”
It would be interesting to see him come back, because at his prime, he was someone I did like. It just seemed like there were too many “issues”, though. Be interesting to see if he’s back in the majors.
Kinsler signed through 2012 [UPDATED]
Ian Kinsler was signed to a five year contract extension, with a team option for 2013.
This effectively voids the $400k contact he signed the other day as it goes into effect now. The total dollar value is $22 million for the five years. The sixth year is a $10 million option with a $500k option.
More details as they come in.
UPDATE: I’ve got a breakdown of the 5 year guaranteed stuff. It does replace the $400k contract for 2008.
Signing Bonus: $1 Million
2008: $500,000
2009: $3 Million
2010: $4 Million
2011: $6 Million
2012: $7 Million
2013: $10 Million club option w/ $500k buyout
Strange Rules
In reading things leading up to Spring Training I ran across a couple of articles about some bizarre rules in baseball. Things you never would think of much, if at all. One is a “ground rule triple”, and one other one I thought was interesting was the 23 ways you can get a man on first base. Most are obvious, but some are fairly obscure. Here’s the list:
- walk
- intentional walk
- hit by pitch
- dropped 3rd strike
- failure to deliver pitch in 20 seconds
- catcher interference
- fielder interference
- spectator interference
- fan obstruction
- fair ball hits ump
- fair ball hits runner
- fielder obstructs runner
- pinch-runner
- fielder’s choice
- force out at another base
- preceding runner put-out allows batter to reach first
- sac bunt fails to advance runner
- sacrifice fly dropped
- runner called out on appeal
- error
- four illegal pitches
- single
- game suspended with runner on first, that player is traded prior to the makeup; new player is allowed to take his place
It does technically say Twenty-three ways to get a man (any man) on first base, which would cover things like pinch runner. Some of the others are the 16 ways a balk can be made, how to get six strikeouts in an inning, and how a pitcher can get a win without ever throwing a pitch.
These were a couple of good entries. I suggest you go read them. You can reach them here and here over at the “Hardball Times” website. Good stuff.
My Roster Pages Updated
Something I try to do every year to bring the site up to speed is update my roster pages. I started this site in December of 1998, and unless a player is a “cup of coffee” guy, I create a roster page for them. As they move to other teams (and even other countries), I try and keep them up to date. The problem is that as the years have gone on, and I’ve amassed more and more former player pages, it becomes harder to make a pass through them. I have a total of 226 pages at the moment. I try and keep all the links the same, so two years ago when I decided to add a Wikipedia link to the roster pages, I had to go through and edit all the pages for that. A few years I never made it through the “pass”, but this year I did.
I’ve gone through all my roster pages, and updated everyone. There were bunch of players from last season I never created pages for, and they’re all up to date now, too. As is the case during spring training, I don’t add pages for everyone, since most of the guys in camp aren’t breaking camp with the big club, and they’ll likely not be seen again, or won’t be seen for awhile anyway.
So at this point unless we trade for a major player who has a guaranteed major league contract, or sign a guy who will be on the big club, I’m not adding any more pages until the 25 man roster is set in late March.
One thing though – all the current player pages I’ve added a new widget thing from ESPN – it has individual stats and news on players. Here’s an example of two: They’re free, so I figured why not. :)
2008 Contract Signings [UPDATED]
The Rangers site has a press release stating that 14 players have been signed to 2008 contracts. These are all guys we control, so the numbers aren’t going to be bigtime here.
In fact, as I write this, only one number is out, that’s Ian Kinsler’s figure of $407,570.
Evan Grant thinks that this isn’t a big deal, and it probably isn’t. He even classifies it as a “good faith” move from Kinsler’s people about a 2008 contract. The list of folks who signed for 2008 today are:
Joaquin Arias – $391,000
Brandon Boggs – $390,000
Nelson Cruz – $398,150
Scott Feldman – $397,430
Kason Gabbard – $396,380
Josh Hamilton – $396,830
Matt Harrison – $390,000
Ian Kinsler – $407,570
Kameron Loe – $410,690
Luis Mendoza – $391,000
Max Ramirez – $390,000
John Rheinecker – $395,320
Josh Rupe – $392,000
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – $396,710
That leaves 11 other unsigned players.
UPDATE: The Ft Worth Star Telegram blog posted dollar values for all of them. I’ve updated my list.
Mass signing
- 14 players were signed to 2008 contracts. Dollar values and names are listed below. [ Link ]
Joaquin Arias – $391,000
Brandon Boggs – $390,000
Nelson Cruz – $398,150
Scott Feldman – $397,430
Kason Gabbard – $396,380
Josh Hamilton – $396,830
Matt Harrison – $390,000
Ian Kinsler – $407,570
Kameron Loe – $410,690
Luis Mendoza – $391,000
Max Ramirez – $390,000
John Rheinecker – $395,320
Josh Rupe – $392,000
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – $396,710
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