Rangerfans.com

Former Rangers Around the League

Posted by on at

Tonight I decided to look around the various camps and see who was in camp that played for the Rangers.
These guys have played at least one game at the major league level with the Rangers. There are others who have been Rangers in the minors only, but I didn’t get into those guys (like Ryan Dempster, Aaron Harang, and John Danks who were all minor leaugers, or Glendon Rusch and Brian Anderson who were NRIs with us a few years back). This also covers guys like Terrmel Sledge or Freddie Bynum who were technically major league Rangers, but were really just ships passing in the night.
Guys who are non roster invites have (NRI) after their name. Everyone else listed is on that club’s respective 40 man roster. I believe I’ve gotten everyone that fits the parameters listed above. If you spot someone I missed, please let me know in the comments below, I’ll get the article updated.
AL West:
Anaheim: Darren Oliver, Gary Matthews
Oakland: Justin Duchscherer
Seattle: R.A Dickey, Brad Wilkerson
AL Central:
Cleveland: Aaron Fultz, Dave Dellucci, Travis Hafner, Rick Bauer (NRI)
Detroit: Armando Galarraga, Kenny Rogers, Pudge Rodriguez, Marcus Thames
Minnesota: Dennys Reyes, Mike Lamb, Craig Monroe
Chicago Sox: Nick Masset
Kansas City: Ron Mahay, Esteban German, Ken Huckaby (NRI)
AL East:
Boston: Bryan Corey, Doug Mirabelli, Dan Kolb (NRI), Michael Tejera (NRI)
NY Yankees: Alex Rodriguez
Toronto: Rod Barajas, Gregg Zaun, Matt Stairs
Baltimore: Jon Leicester, Guillermo Quiroz, Ryan Bukvich (NRI), Esteban Yan (NRI)
Tampa Bay: Carlos Pena
NL East:
Philadelphia: Fabio Castro, Adam Eaton, Jamie Moyer
NY Mets: Fernando Tatis (NRI)
Atlanta: Mark Teixeira, Ryan Drese (NRI)
Washington: Mike Bacsik (NRI), Rob Bell (NRI)
Florida: None
NL Central:
Chicago Cubs: Mark DeRosa, Alfonso Soriano, Andres Torres (NRI)
Milwaukee: Eric Gagne, Brian Shouse, Gabe Kapler, Laynce Nix (NRI)
St. Louis: Randy Flores, Ryan Ludwick, John Wasdin (NRI), D’Angelo Jimenez (NRI), Juan Gonzalez (NRI)
Houston: Doug Brocail, Carlos Lee, Victor Diaz (NRI)
Cincinnati: Francisco Cordero, Mike Stanton, Edinson Volquez
Pittsburgh: None
NL West:
Arizona: Doug Davis
Colorado: Kip Wells, John Koronka (NRI), Matt Kata (NRI)
San Diego: Chris Young (DAMMIT), Adrian Gonzalez, Marshall McDougall (NRI)
Los Angeles: Esteban Loaiza, Rudy Seanez, Chan Ho Park (NRI), Tanyon Sturtze (NRI), Danny Ardoin (NRI)
San Francisco: Victor Santos (NRI)
In looking over the rosters, I had to do a double take when I was looking at Houston’s. They have a 28 year old pitcher named Mark McLemore. I actually stopped, as I was not expecting to see that. :)

Shrek is back

Posted by on at

As has been reported the last couple of days, Kevin Mench has signed a minor league deal with the Rangers that includes an invite to spring training. Let’s hope this repeat appearance of Shrek is better than the most recent repeat appearance of Shrek in the movies. Blech.

Several stories in the last few days said that the Rangers were asking for a guarantee that he would accept an assignment to AAA should he not make the club. The Dallas Morning News is reporting that was part of the deal, but it’s not indefinite. That’s because there is a reported condition that if he’s not added to the major league roster by June 1st, he can request his release from the club. Kevin doesn’t strike me as someone who is beyond his days to be stuck in AAA going downwards. I suspect he could hook on with someone if he’s not here past June, so I expect he’ll be gone if he’s not in the majors. The deal calls for a $600,000 salary if he’s on the opening day roster, although it doesn’t say how much he gets if he gets called up later; probably a prorated number from that salary.

It makes the competition for the OF a bit more crowded. I would see his main competition being David Murphy ( who was wearing Kevin’s old uniform number last season), Jason Botts, & Nelson Cruz. Cruz is probably on his last straw with the Rangers, and Botts probably isn’t serious competition, as he’s not the best outfielder around.

Be nice to have him around again. I wouldn’t mind seeing the commercial with him and Rangers Captain back on the airwaves – that was one of the funnier ones around. Actually the Rangers site says it’s available, but since mlb.com switched to a new media player, a lot of their older clips like this are all broken. Figures.

This is really a no risk move for the Rangers. My gut feeling is that he doesn’t break camp with the club, though.

Mench Signed

Posted by on at

  • OF Kevin Mench signed to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training [ Link ]

Uniform Numbers

Posted by on at

As we get closer to the fun starting again on Thursday with pitchers and catchers, I’ve been working behind the scenes on my site to get some things done. Not terribly obvious to you, but this one might be.
One of the features on my site that I don’t think I’ve seen on any other Rangers site is a history of Rangers uniform numbers. I’ve got all the Texas Rangers years covered, and some Senators years, too. I’ve been keeping up with all the changes for the last 5 years or so as that’s when I started tracking it. Information going backwards is not as complete, but still pretty accurate. What I mean by that is guys who were up for just one game or something in say 1977 aren’t likely to be in here. I do have info for the numbers in the Senators years, but I haven’t found the time to put that stuff in there. Hopefully soon.
Anyway, I’ve gone through and updated it for 2008 based on the published spring training rosters that are out and about. A couple of minor things which I don’t have an answer for:

  • Our new third base coach this year is Matt Walbeck. The official Rangers site doesn’t list a number for him, so if you know what his number is, please tell me.
  • It’s been in several papers that old schoolers like Mark McLemore, Rusty Greer, Steve Buchele and others will be in spring training to coach the current players – possibly even in uniform. If anyone has seen assignments for these guys, let me know.
  • If anyone has numbers for some of the other guys who are in uniform (bullpen catcher, some of the other folks in the dugout who aren’t on the field coaches), let me know that, too.

Thanks, and I hope you get a kick out of my uniform number section of the site.

A thought about Pudge

Posted by on at

Now that Nolan Ryan is our president, I wonder how plausible this might be..
In a couple of years, Pudge Rodriguez will likely be on the back end of his career. He’s still pretty darned good now. Not the Pudge of the mid/late 90’s, but he’s still a great catcher. Of all the former Ranger players from the championship teams that went and played somewhere else, Pudge is probably still the most beloved.
Juan Gonzalez is in the Cardinals system trying to hang on, most have retired, but Pudge is still pretty active. He turns 37 after the 2008 season, so I wonder.. When he’s no longer a frontline catcher, I wonder if the Rangers will bring him back to be the backup catcher/part time DH. Nolan caught Pudge back in the day, and I wonder if that might spark something on either side for a career ending reunion.
Other Ranger players have done that kind of thing at the back ends of their career. Jim Sundberg came back in 88/89 to finish off his career after spending a few years in Kansas City and Chicago. Jeff Russell came back in 95/96 after a couple of seasons in Oakland, Boston, & Cleveland. So it could happen.
I was at Pudge’s final game as a Ranger. It was quite the love fest, and when he’s returned with Florida and Detroit, he’s always warmly welcomed by the fans.
Wouldn’t surprise me.

Digital Ian Kinsler

Posted by on at

It’s February 7th, and it means we’re about four weeks away from the annual release of this year’s crop of baseball videogames. I’m an old school gamer, and I’ve been playing baseball games on just about every platform there has been since my first system in 1977 (the Atari 2600).

Anyway, since we’re in the buildup for the new games, we’re getting the usual bunch of screenshots and all that. Saw this one today, and thought I’d pass it on. It’s from MLB 2k8, and shows Ian Kinsler at bat at the Ballpark.

2K’s “MLB 2k8” is the latest entry in their series (which started back a few years ago when it was World Series Baseball, and going further back than that on the Sega Genesis). One of the things that has plagued the 2K series has been the player models. That’s supposed to be Ian Kinsler, and it sorta looks like him, but not exactly. 2K is the exclusive “third party” baseball game maker. That means that Sony can make one for the Playstation, and Microsoft can make one themselves for the Xbox 360 (likewise Nintendo for the Wii), but nobody outside the console maker can make a MLB baseball game other than 2K. With that in place, you’d think they’d do a better job of getting the players right. The last couple of entries in this series have been a little more “miss” than “hit”, so I’m hoping they rebound in this latest edition.

This year I have a Playstation 3, and will be checking out Sony’s “MLB 08 The Show” game. Everything I’ve read about that makes me think it might dethrone 2K’s game as the best baseball game around.

I wrote about this a bit when MLB 2k7 game out last year, and I’m bringing back a screenshot that I used then from the baseball game from Atari for the 2600 in the 70’s. We’re a long LONG way from that.

Fantasy Baseball

Posted by on at

Yahoo’s fantasy baseball is open again. I’ll be running the usual league I do, but someone posed this question to me..
What about doing a paid league? Where folks had to pay to play? Yahoo has a pay league which has more in the way of stats, and all that. If the league was made up of folks who paid, we’d be likely to keep the league together towards the end.
I’ll still have a free league whatever I do, but is there enough interest in putting together a paid league?
The league costs $125 to buy the whole league, which would be not too bad if we spread it out amongst everyone who joined. Is there enough interest from those of you who regularly play in the leagues I put together?
Please let me know.

Galarraga traded

Posted by on at

  • OF Michael Hernandez acquired via trade from Detroit Tigers for P Armando Galarraga [ Link ]