Series Thread: Going to the first place Astros? Or the world is coming to an end series

[scotsman1948]

Rosales had a hit tonight and played very good defense and thats why he is our UIF'der Scotty

i'm good just had to have my little rant

 

[scotsman1948]

What is going on? Scotty take notice of our UIF"s play

1 game but i'm good with it for now.

 

[WastinSomeTime]

The million dollar question.... Who's just on a streak and who's going to stay solid with the bat? They've got some decisions to make with Mitch and Hamilton coming back.

I can see Pegs being up and down with the holes he has in his swing but that power potential is nice and he has speed. So Hamilton I could see spelling him some in LF and playing in all 3 OF spots and giving guys a break and letting Choo DH once in a while. Because of that the one right now I see being in trouble is Moreland. That is if Blanks keeps this up. He is right handed which we are in short supply of and looking great for the time being. With Moreland we have Fielder, Choo, and Hamilton who could all DH at times and are all LH. And with Moreland many times it been 2nd verse same as the 1st. His glove is above average but his speed is not nor is his health. It will be tough but we may need to send him on an extended rehab assignment.

 

[jta4437]

I can see Pegs being up and down with the holes he has in his swing but that power potential is nice and he has speed. So Hamilton I could see spelling him some in LF and playing in all 3 OF spots and giving guys a break and letting Choo DH once in a while. Because of that the one right now I see being in trouble is Moreland. That is if Blanks keeps this up. He is right handed which we are in short supply of and looking great for the time being. With Moreland we have Fielder, Choo, and Hamilton who could all DH at times and are all LH. And with Moreland many times it been 2nd verse same as the 1st. His glove is above average but his speed is not nor is his health. It will be tough but we may need to send him on an extended rehab assignment.

Blanks is probably even more injury prone than Mitch though, but ride the hot hand and extend Mitch's stay as long as possible, no need to rush back at this moment

 

[romeo212000]

Blanks is probably even more injury prone than Mitch though, but ride the hot hand and extend Mitch's stay as long as possible, no need to rush back at this moment

I'm game for that. Give him extra long get his timing back.

 

[Xx srs bsns xX]

Long ball is pitching a shut out and Choo has a HR. Crazy...... Never would've guessed.

In all fairness, "longball" has dominated the Astros in that park. Think he's 5-0 w/ 1.21 ERA in 5 starts?

 

[Xx srs bsns xX]

Surprised by this. LuJac in BP and Klein as a starter.

Texas Rangers move Luke Jackson into relief role at Triple-A Round Rock | | Dallas Morning News

K.Law & others have always suggested LuJax would end up in the BP. So I'm not really surprised by it...

 

[saddles]

I'm starting to wonder if Blanks is this year's Kouzmanoff. Both were at one time top prospects in the Padres organization and both had brief stretches of success with SD before getting derailed by injuries or just awful slumps. I specifically remember when Blanks first came up how many scouts and even fantasy analysts were excited about his potential and preached patience with him.

Kouzmanoff was able to sustain his success last year until the injury. Maybe Blanks can keep it going too. He wouldn't be the first Ranger to bloom really late after faltering with his original club (Nelly).

Nelson only had 5 ABs with his former club so he never really faltered until he came here. I don't even think it is fair to say he faltered here since his two down years here came with him still having less than 500 total big league at bats. It was mainly the impatience on the part of fans that made them think of him as a failure.

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Nelson only had 5 ABs with his former club so he never really faltered until he came here. I don't even think it is fair to say he faltered here since his two down years here came with him still having less than 500 total big league at bats. It was mainly the impatience on the part of fans that made them think of him as a failure.

That was why he had less than 500 ABs. He would go crazy in the minors and then come up and struggle so they would send him down to get his swing straightened out. I remember it very well because when we first got him in the trade along with Carlos Lee the emphasis was of course on Lee but I kept thinking to myself that this Cruz guy could be something else as powerful as he was. But it took him some time to get it figured out.

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Blanks is probably even more injury prone than Mitch though, but ride the hot hand and extend Mitch's stay as long as possible, no need to rush back at this moment

My thoughts exactly.

 

[saddles]

That was why he had less than 500 ABs. He would go crazy in the minors and then come up and struggle so they would send him down to get his swing straightened out. I remember it very well because when we first got him in the trade along with Carlos Lee the emphasis was of course on Lee but I kept thinking to myself that this Cruz guy could be something else as powerful as he was. But it took him some time to get it figured out.

Sending a guy down to get straightened out was par for the course with a guy with such a small amount of big league experience. The impatience with him on the part of fans was very premature though. A lot of fans were ready to give up on him after two partial seasons in the big leagues here. The DMN board was full of Cruz haters when they brought him back up in 2008. He very quickly shut them up.

A couple of years ago we saw the same kind of impatience with Profar. Like Cruz, I expect him to shut some folks up at some point also.

 

[jta4437]

Sending a guy down to get straightened out was par for the course with a guy with such a small amount of big league experience. The impatience with him on the part of fans was very premature though. A lot of fans were ready to give up on him after two partial seasons in the big leagues here. The DMN board was full of Cruz haters when they brought him back up in 2008. He very quickly shut them up.

A couple of years ago we saw the same kind of impatience with Profar. Like Cruz, I expect him to shut some folks up at some point also.

Impatience? He was 27 before he showed anything resembling ML success in that 31 game run, I'd say everyone was being pretty damn patient with him... for him it was shit or get off the pot time

 

[jta4437]

Nelson Cruz Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

in 3 years ages 24-26, this is what he had given over essentially a full season, for a lot of guys their careers would've been done with this lack of success, I'm glad we stuck with him b/c I liked his potential when we acquired him, but people were right to be skeptical of whether he would ever put it together at the ML level or he would just be another AAAA player

 

[saddles]

Impatience? He was 27 before he showed anything resembling ML success in that 31 game run, I'd say everyone was being pretty damn patient with him... for him it was shit or get off the pot time

That attitude is exactly was I was referring to and what was prevalent on the DMN boards in 2008. You don't give up on a guy in less than 500 ABs over the course of a couple of seasons. That is impatience.

 

[donaldson79]

A couple of DMN articles:

Rougned Odor back to Texas Rangers bench; could a demotion soon follow? | | Dallas Morning News

Texas Rangers move Luke Jackson into relief role at Triple-A Round Rock | | Dallas Morning News

 

[saddles]

Looking closer at Nelson's numbers he hit .276 with an OPS of .778 in his last 163 ABs in 2007. So he was already showing a significant amount of improvement then. Yet, folks still wanted to give up on him even after that. So his big league struggles amounted to really less than 300 ABs.

He even had a decent September in 2006. The rest of 2006 his playing time was very intermittent and sparse. The only time he really struggled early in his career here while getting fairly regular playing time was April and May of 2007.

 

[jta4437]

That attitude is exactly was I was referring to and what was prevalent on the DMN boards in 2008. You don't give up on a guy in less than 500 ABs over the course of a couple of seasons. That is impatience.

He was 24-27 years old, you don't keep those guys in the minors for long usually, they've had a chance to show who they are, if you're 24 and still can't make the transition to a ML job by then, then you should be expecting to be collateral damage, they're clogs in the system at that point, by this age you should be on a ML roster and challenging for a job, it worked out for Cruz but this is far from impatience, but only b/c we had the luxury at the time of doing that

I'm only saying its not unreasonable to have had these thoughts and it certainly wasn't impatience

Looking at his AAA numbers its kind of startling he didn't get more opportunities before he did, but when he did, he didn't produce and that was the problem

 

[romeo212000]

He was 24-27 years old, you don't keep those guys in the minors for long usually, they've had a chance to show who they are, if you're 24 and still can't make the transition to a ML job by then, then you should be expecting to be collateral damage, they're clogs in the system at that point, by this age you should be on a ML roster and challenging for a job, it worked out for Cruz but this is far from impatience, but only b/c we had the luxury at the time of doing that

I'm only saying its not unreasonable to have had these thoughts and it certainly wasn't impatience

Looking at his AAA numbers its kind of startling he didn't get more opportunities before he did, but when he did, he didn't produce and that was the problem

Big reason why I don't really expect much from Smolinski.

 

[donaldson79]

I'm normally a pretty big Hitzges fan. But today, he had Mike Rhyner on for a segment, and instead of talking about anything pertinent (Rhyner is extremely knowledgeable on baseball especially) they talked for 15 minutes about themselves, their health, sleeping patterns, their successes, etc.

Totally squandered opportunity, considering the Rangers have show some real life over the past three days.

Oh well.

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Looking closer at Nelson's numbers he hit .276 with an OPS of .778 in his last 163 ABs in 2007. So he was already showing a significant amount of improvement then. Yet, folks still wanted to give up on him even after that. So his big league struggles amounted to really less than 300 ABs.

He even had a decent September in 2006. The rest of 2006 his playing time was very intermittent and sparse. The only time he really struggled early in his career here while getting fairly regular playing time was April and May of 2007.

I just know I saw a guy that if he ever got it together was going to be the key ingredient to the trade and not Lee. He had years left on his contract along with strength and a strong arm. It was frustrating when he would be called up and would start off great then revert back to his bad habits. But I know I never gave up on the guy I was just frustrated because I knew it was there in him somewhere. But when they sent him down it was not that they were giving up on him (maybe some fans were) but they were trying to right him and each time they would. It just took a while to take at the MLB level.