From a Jerry Crasnick Article on ESPN
August 16, 2008 Posted by Robert"While the background music changes in Arlington, the story is forever the same. The 2008 Rangers lead the majors in runs and slugging percentage, but they’re loitering around .500 because of a pitching staff that ranks last in the big leagues with a 5.45 ERA. Sound familiar?"
See, Jon Daniels, Jerry Crasnick gets it! Why can’t you get it?
Link to the article.
It’s very fashionable to bash Jon Daniels and label him as a guy who doesn’t get it. He’s made two horrendous trades that resulted in the loss of two quality arms and an allstar first baseman. But I think Jon Daniels gets it. The Teixieira trade was highway robbery. Then you consider recent big drafts. And as a result, the Rangers are loaded in the minors with tons potential starting pitchers. We need five. We have between 5 and 15 potential all star caliber players. Will all of them pan out? Maybe not, but when you quality quantity it works out. JD gets it. It’s just been too long of a road.
Comment by Brian — August 17, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
I know that JD cognitively “gets it.” You’d have to be stupid not to understand the situation. What JD lacks is the ability to stick to the plan. Every June or July, the Rangers look at the standings, see that they are 6 or 7 games out of the wild card, and decide to go for it. (There was a much publicized debate between JD and Nolan Ryan about this in June.) Last year was an exception, and the Teixeira deal was a steal, but what did we net for it? A shortstop and a catcher. I would submit to you that we are set at only 4 positions – catcher, second base, shortstop, and now center field. I thought we did great grabbing Kason Gabbard for Eric Gagne, but the problem is that we decide that we want to win now (when we clearly can’t) and we call up all of our prospects when they’re not ready for the bigs yet and possibly ruin them psychologically or otherwise. Kason Gabbard has helped the big league club, but honestly he should still be in the minors honing his craft, getting ready to make a splash on the scene next year. It’s the same song, 108th verse with all of the other prospects.
Comment by Robert — August 18, 2008 @ 6:42 pm