Rantings about the Rangers!, Anthing Texas based........

[Tick]

$51.7m for the rights to chat to Darvish.....!!!! Dude what happens when Hamilton becomes a free agent next year????

[whiskywoozy]

I'm super worried that the Rangers will lose Hamilton, but I think in the end we'll keep him.. I don't know about Napoli though. I think the Rangers will retain one or the other.
As for Darvish, I'm not completely sold yet but he looks like he could be insane!

[Kid Cuddy]

Im intrigued to imagine what 2 things, what sort of deal Josh Hamilton will be looking for and where he could go if he leaves the Rangers. Personally, I think he is best off staying with the Rangers even if it means he gives them a hometown discount.
The reason being he has shown there he is capable of controlling his demons whilst at the same time fulfilling the potential we knew he had.
If he leaves I don't think settling into a new city, management, ownership, fans and all other things would help him.
Hope he stays.

[galraen]

People on the A's forum I frequent think if he goes anywhere it may well be to the Dodgers; not a good move for him IMHO, too many temptations in Tintsletown.

[Dirkster]

Go Rangers......nearly......again.

[galraen]

It was a wild series Dirkster, the standard of fielding left a lot to be desired, for both teams.

I mentioned on the game day thread that our announcers where having a discussion about Hamilton's free agent situation. Ray Fosse is of the opinion that if Josh insists on a 5 year deal the Rangers will let him walk. His logic being that his history of only playing c.130 games doesn't justify effectively paying him 5 years worth of money for 4 years worth of output. He cited the situation when Pudge was demanding 5 years and they let him go because of the same logic. Certainly it's a different ownership group these days, but Fosse thinks their approach will be the same.


I'm dieing to read Hamzen's read on the A's season from a Sabr point of view, frankly I think it defies logic no matter what school of thought you adhere to.

[hamzen]

C'mon admit it Galraen, your old bete noire Billy B has constructed a pretty useful and really well balanced roster this year.

[galraen]

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there Hamzen? Well balanced? Well if you mean we are hopelessly inept defensively at both corner infield positions, then yes!

I think there are three key acquisitions which have helped a lot.

Yoenis is without any doubt our MVP, for once we have a guy who was touted as a 5 tool player who really is just that.

Getting Drew was crucial, as was Donaldson and Moss finally figuring out how to cope with major league pitching, it's a shame that both are butchers with the glove.

The big one though was signing Chilli to be the hitting coach; it seems he effectively told the guys to throw caution to the wind and swing for the fences if the pitch is in the zone. The result being we've hit more home runs than any other team since the ASB, and set a new AL record for strike outs.

Our eighth inning against the Rangers last night pretty well sums our offence up. Home run, Strike out, Home run, Strike out, Home run, Strike out. A sort of balance I guess.

Nothing new about our philosophy of course, it's basically a reprise of Earl Weaver's 'a bloop, a walk, and a three run homer' approach.

However my question was, how does Sabr rationalise what's happened? Could the sabrmetricians have predicted this sort of season? I'm not taking a poke, I'd really like to know.

[hamzen]

I forgot to put a smiley in my previous post, sorry, it was meant as a light tease, nothing more.

Re saber stuff from pre-season. From the hatting side mixed I'd say. Cespedes was being touted for a 790-850 ops if I remember rightly and similar expectations re the good platoon batting wise of smith and gomes. Moss and Reddick definitely outperformed, but they were being regressed to the mean heavily because their data sets were quite small, Donaldson I saw nothing on before the season. Crisp underperformed slightly, same with Pennington. Smith and Gomes was a pretty neat move, I certainly utilized it in a couple of leagues, greatly underrated, 31 bombs, and 800+ops, but to do it properly I'd need to spend some time because fielding wise and pitching wise not too up on the stats.

The thing that's struck me toward the end of the seasson was how well managed the roster has been to cover weaknesses batting wise.

Re your comments about the batting coach, stats back it up, but also you are 8th in walks so it isn't completely reckless either.