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Series Thread: The Rangers Stumble Into Arizona To Face The Diamondbacks April 9-10

TheRangerDude

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didn't both chose to move on. I know most were happy to see Cruz leave

Cruz wanted to come back. I surely wasn't happy to see Cruz go. Dude was always an RBI machine and was showing hints of what he ended up doing in Baltimore and Seattle. I beleived him on the PED thing too, and evidently, since there hasn't been any more trouble with that and he raked.

That might have been JDs biggest mistake - letting Cruz sign a little one year cheap contract with the O's and signing Choo a huge one.

Granted, a lot of people here hated my opinion on this. Probably still do.
 

Nightcrawler

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Lol. You know good and well the QO was a procedural thing. The real negotiating should have started later and it didn't. Bringing up the QO is purposely ignoring the real discussion. That has come up a dozen times or more since that offseason.

I can’t believe there are people out there who think we made the right decision by not bringing back Cruz.

In 2014, he hit 40 home runs with 108 rbi.

In 2015, 44 Home runs and 93 RBI

In 2016, 43 home runs and 104 rbi’s.


Look at what our outfielders have done the last few years. Look at what they’re doing now. We don’t have anyone who compares or did compare to him.

Maybe JD was butt hurt when he got the 50 game suspension and chose to serve out his punishment. We should’ve brought him back the following season, no doubt about it.

I was very upset when we didn’t try to sign him and let him go. We had already lost Hamilton at that point. Very dumb decision.
 

TheRangerDude

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They blew it with Cruz twice.

I love the hindsight card being played. Hindsight is 20/20, but foresight in some instances has been pretty good too.

When foresight is ignored the hindsight card is a really easy claim years later.

Indeed, it wasn't difficult to see Cruz was hitting his stride his last season here. They made an emotional decison to not sign him since he took the suspension at the end of the season instead of appealing. He owned up, that takes some character too. Like most of us, they wanted him for the playoffs but they shouldn't have made a decision for the coming season based on bitterness from the last.

Sorry, seeing Cruz go was almost as hard for me as seeing Pudge go.
 

Nightcrawler

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To me the biggest beef with contracts has to be the length of contract with Choo and Fielder. Both had good intent though thinking our window was open. Injury bug hit though and they doomed us

I’m willing to admit that I was stoked when we traded for fielder. I thought he was a perfect fit for our ballpark. He could take advantage of the short right field.

Dombrowski pulled a fast one and our front office didn’t do it’s due diligence.

In hindsight, the trade ended up hurting us in more ways then one. We lost Kinsler who I would’ve rather seen out there at second base the last few years instead of the circus and unfulfilled expectations we’ve been subjected too.

The reality is that the last few “Big moves” from JD have fallen flat and that’s why this franchise is hurting.

1) Choo - major disappointment. Injury riddled tenure. The guy has played decent, but hasn’t come close to earning his contract.

2) Fielder trade- see above. We lost a good second baseman. Brought in damaged goods. We’re still seeing the ramifications today. Look at second base now. The position is a joke.

3) Darvish signing- I could be wrong, but I don’t think darvish gave us one post season win. The darvish trade is also shaping up to be a massive disappointment. Willie Calhoun brought an LA diva like attitude with him to Texas and it’s not going well here for him and for us.

AJ Alexy better pan out or we got screwed.

4) lucroy - trade stunk. Player stunk. He didn’t contribute shit and Jeffress was underwhelming to say the least.

Combine all of that with letting Cruz, Hamilton, and Napoli go?

Yeah we’re a shit show right now.
 

TheRangerDude

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I’m willing to admit that I was stoked when we traded for fielder. I thought he was a perfect fit for our ballpark. He could take advantage of the short right field.

Dombrowski pulled a fast one and our front office didn’t do it’s due diligence.

In hindsight, the trade ended up hurting us in more ways then one. We lost Kinsler who I would’ve rather seen out there at second base the last few years instead of the circus and unfulfilled expectations we’ve been subjected too.

The reality is that the last few “Big moves” from JD have fallen flat and that’s why this franchise is hurting.

1) Choo - major disappointment. Injury riddled tenure. The guy has played decent, but hasn’t come close to earning his contract.

2) Fielder trade- see above. We lost a good second baseman. Brought in damaged goods. We’re still seeing the ramifications today. Look at second base now. The position is a joke.

3) Darvish signing- I could be wrong, but I don’t think darvish gave us one post season win. The darvish trade is also shaping up to be a massive disappointment. Willie Calhoun brought an LA diva like attitude with him to Texas and it’s not going well here for him and for us.

AJ Alexy better pan out or we got screwed.

4) lucroy - trade stunk. Player stunk. He didn’t contribute shit and Jeffress was underwhelming to say the least.

Combine all of that with letting Cruz, Hamilton, and Napoli go?

Yeah we’re a shit show right now.

None of that would help now though... might have helped then but who knows really. Obviously I'm still pretty bitter about it. Looking back at some of the threads I made on it, seems like a lot more people wanted to keep him after the suspension than I recall.
 

Kelleyman

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It would have been nice to extend a lot of guys from the past but to me the added payroll it would have took was not something ownership was willing to take on. You only have so much grocery money right or wrong. And we used our prospects as currency.

IMO opinion the thought of having Cole and Yu in a playoff rotation sounded like an open window. We added LuCroy and relief pitching and it seemed like a viable plan even without ponying up the cash for guys we lost by not extending them. I never wanted to lose Brinson, CJ Edwards or even the pitcher from Rockwall who has not panned out. If there WS no real window then Yu should have been traded if allowed. Injuries killed us... Harrison, Colby and even Perez. ... big Dempster fire
 

Kelleyman

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Lol. You know good and well the QO was a procedural thing. The real negotiating should have started later and it didn't. Bringing up the QO is purposely ignoring the real discussion. That has come up a dozen times or more since that offseason.

We made the offer and Cruz refused and he signed for less. What you are me don't know is what negotiations happened or didn't happen prior to QO. Hard to say if sour grapes were an issue but what about him moving to RF to permanent DH?
 

Duane1952

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Didn't they want to use Cruz as the DH and he didn't want too.
 

Nightcrawler

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It would have been nice to extend a lot of guys from the past but to me the added payroll it would have took was not something ownership was willing to take on. You only have so much grocery money right or wrong. And we used our prospects as currency.

IMO opinion the thought of having Cole and Yu in a playoff rotation sounded like an open window. We added LuCroy and relief pitching and it seemed like a viable plan even without ponying up the cash for guys we lost by not extending them. I never wanted to lose Brinson, CJ Edwards or even the pitcher from Rockwall who has not panned out. If there WS no real window then Yu should have been traded if allowed. Injuries killed us... Harrison, Colby and even Perez. ... big Dempster fire

Injuries decimated the pitching staff, but front office errors killed our once great lineup.
 

saddles

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We made the offer and Cruz refused and he signed for less. What you are me don't know is what negotiations happened or didn't happen prior to QO. Hard to say if sour grapes were an issue but what about him moving to RF to permanent DH?
It is the lack of negotiations after the QO and not before that was the killer.

The bottom line is they failed with Cruz. This organization has failures every once in awhile and that was one of them. No blinders please.
 

PhantomWarrior

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Cruz wanted to come back. I surely wasn't happy to see Cruz go. Dude was always an RBI machine and was showing hints of what he ended up doing in Baltimore and Seattle. I beleived him on the PED thing too, and evidently, since there hasn't been any more trouble with that and he raked.

That might have been JDs biggest mistake - letting Cruz sign a little one year cheap contract with the O's and signing Choo a huge one.

Granted, a lot of people here hated my opinion on this. Probably still do.
Dunno. Cruz was a constant reminder we were one fly ball catch from winning it all.
 

Nightcrawler

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Dunno. Cruz was a constant reminder we were one fly ball catch from winning it all.

Most of the blame falls with Wash in my opinion.

Up by 2 and only a half inning to go. Most managers would put there best defenders out there. Endy Chavez would’ve caught that ball.
 

TheRangerDude

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Dunno. Cruz was a constant reminder we were one fly ball catch from winning it all.

Guess you could say the same about Feliz too. Either way though, without either of them, we never make there to lose in the first place. Cruz had a monster ALCS. He damn near won us that series with his bat by himself - 6 hrs and 13 rbi. Man I miss that team. Best team lost that year.
 

jta4437

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Cruz had a number of question marks coming off the suspension, he wanted to get paid and there was no assurances that he would hit like he did before not on PEDs, its a absolutely hindsight 20/20, it's a mistake but it wasn't a cut and dry re-sign. Not to mention his pretty consistent injury background

No one could've known he'd hit better and stay healthier than he ever did for us

And to bring up hamilton as a mistake is asinine, he didn't do shit after he left he left here the first time
 

saddles

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Cruz had a number of question marks coming off the suspension, he wanted to get paid and there was no assurances that he would hit like he did before not on PEDs, its a absolutely hindsight 20/20, it's a mistake but it wasn't a cut and dry re-sign. Not to mention his pretty consistent injury background

No one could've known he'd hit better and stay healthier than he ever did for us

And to bring up hamilton as a mistake is asinine, he didn't do shit after he left he left here the first time
Your Hamilton remark is hindsight as no one thought he would be that bad.

There were several of us wanting to keep Cruz before he left so those of us who thought that way were not using hindsight in the least. With those of you who didn't want to keep him, If any of you changed your mind, then that would be hindsight.

To say someone can't think not pursuing Hamilton was a mistake because of how he turned out, and then turn around and say those who wanted to keep Cruz to begin with are guilty of using hindsight is silly and disingenuous. You can't have it both ways. It seems you are saying, JD and management are proven right by how things turned out, and no criticism can be leveled based on a decision not working out. So management has a free pass either way.
 

saddles

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Most of the blame falls with Wash in my opinion.

Up by 2 and only a half inning to go. Most managers would put there best defenders out there. Endy Chavez would’ve caught that ball.
That is exactly right.
 

romeo212000

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Easy for some of you guys to say the front office didn’t do it’s due diligence on Fielder but I doubt y’all have much insight about advanced imaging or how abnormal findings correlate poorly with dysfunction. Fact is, Fielder and Dombrowski both pulled a fast one and if nobody every disclosed any symptoms there was no reason to do advanced imaging. Keep armchair GMing though. You’re doing great!
 

jta4437

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Your Hamilton remark is hindsight as no one thought he would be that bad.

There were several of us wanting to keep Cruz before he left so those of us who thought that way were not using hindsight in the least. With those of you who didn't want to keep him, If any of you changed your mind, then that would be hindsight.

To say someone can't think not pursuing Hamilton was a mistake because of how he turned out, and then turn around and say those who wanted to keep Cruz to begin with are guilty of using hindsight is silly and disingenuous. You can't have it both ways. It seems you are saying, JD and management are proven right by how things turned out, and no criticism can be leveled based on a decision not working out. So management has a free pass either way.

Hamilton was falling apart long before he left for the angels
 
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