tOfficially Official 2016 Spring training thread

[BULLPEN FAILURE]

Isn't Spring Training, ya know, over?

 

[Nightcrawler]

Glad ST is over. I always find preseason to be unwatchable no matter what the sport is. The worst Daniels trade was probably the one with the Padres, honorable mention goes to the McCarthy deal. McCarthy totally sucked while he was here and he was hurt half of the time.

 

[saddles]

If we do not get another from here to join, Im sure I can find another to play. Just let me know

Thanks

Sure, that would be great.

Join my Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball league, DMN Bloggerheads

 

[saddles]

Could Rangers be considering Rougned Odor as leadoff hitter? | SportsDay

Has Rougned Odor's torrid spring made the Rangers think twice about batting him low in the lineup?

It sure looked that way Wednesday in the final exhibition of spring.

Odor hit leadoff, which he has done on several occasions. The difference: Delino DeShields was also in the lineup. DeShields hit second in the Rangers' 5-1 win.

"I just wanted to get them in and out of there quickly," manager Jeff Banister said when asked about the lineup.

When the question was repeated citing that both were in the top two spots in the order, Banister repeated his answer.

Though Odor went 0 for 3 Wednesday as the Rangers raced through a game trying to get home for the first time in seven weeks, he finished the Arizona portion of the exhibition schedule with a .385 batting average, four homers and 11 RBIs. He did hit leadoff often in the minors, but has only 11 games of experience there since reaching the majors.

DeShields finished the 2016 season with a .340 OBP, but he hit only .245 with a .318 OBP over the final two months of the season.

 

[saddles]

Ken Rosenthal is optimistic about the Rangers

He has the Rangers going to the WS and names Odor as the AL MVP.

 

[BULLPEN FAILURE]

Ken Rosenthal is optimistic about the Rangers

He has the Rangers going to the WS and names Odor as the AL MVP.

Considering what kind of season Roogie would have to have in order to be AL MVP, then the Rangers damn well better be AL Champs.

 

[saddles]

 

[saddles]

Available at the Ballpark this year.

 

[saddles]

The Surprise Five: Thoughts as Rangers camp comes to an end

 

[BULLPEN FAILURE]

I'm not going to lie, I would really like to try that chicken & donuts thing they will have this year.

 

[BULLPEN FAILURE]

Reid Ryan says MLB is going to “figure out” meaningful local streaming in the next 12-24 months

Cord-cutters like myself are becoming more and more of a demographic. I like seeing MLB recognizing that, if nothing else. Also, it's somewhat bizarre to be reminded that Nolan Ryan's kid is now a baseball executive.

 

[Xx srs bsns xX]

ESPN's Joe Peta: 78-86, fifth in AL West. The Rangers' summary is pretty simple: I see a 2015 team that dressed in 88-win clothing but actually displayed 77-win talent. The rotation might be marginally better this year, but overall, there should be little reason to expect meaningfully different year-over-year results from any of the four units. All four -- rotation, bullpen, defense and offense -- profile to be close to league-average this year. I have the Rangers winning 78 games, and combined with the view that a couple other teams in the AL West are better than oddsmakers expect, that makes Texas a pretty easy "under" call.



LOL.

 

[Xx srs bsns xX]

Peta: Predicting Rangers' 2016 season record

Reason for optimism: They might get up to four times as many starts from Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish in 2016 as they did last year, when they won the division.

Reason for pessimism: They could be a lot better than they were last year but win significantly fewer games.

One year ago, the Texas Rangers were fresh off a 67-win campaign and lost Darvish before the 2015 season began. Needless to say, their odds of capturing the AL West were quite long. Those odds got even longer one month into the season, when the Rangers were 8-16 and 9.5 games out of first place. After 100 games, they stood at a respectable (given their start) 49-51, and that's when they acquired Hamels. Fast-forward to October, and if they had managed to win just one of the three elimination games they forced, that ALDS would be remembered for a stunning upset, rather than Jose Bautista's epic bat flip.

That deadline trade clearly made all the difference, right? Hardly.

The real reason the Rangers played October baseball was because Shin-Soo Choo turned into Bryce Harper for two months. Over the last 62 games, Choo hit .344, got on base at a .464 clip and slugged .554, with the Rangers going 39-23 to take the AL West crown. Choo has always been a good player, but in his 210 games prior to that epic streak, he hit a pedestrian .237/.330/.385. For last year's stretch run, Choo's OPS jumped from .715 to 1.018. That's the 2015 equivalent of A's shortstop Marcus Semien morphing into Paul Goldschmidt. I'm a bit amazed at how many people are talking about the Rangers as contenders this year, when they needed that type of performance aberration from a 33-year-old to make the playoffs last year.

As discussed in a bit of detail in the Oakland A's preview, the Rangers were nowhere close to as good as their 88 wins indicate. If they got the same production in 2016 that they did last year, the Rangers could expect to win 77 games; that's the baseline in evaluating the marginal changes that apply to the 2016 squad. Choo's contribution aside, the addition of Hamels did strengthen the rotation, and the 3.66 ERA he provided over 12 starts can reasonably be expected to occur over 30 starts this year. Darvish will hopefully return for a dozen or so starts, and combined, those extra starts from Hamels and Darvish can replace around 150 innings given to a pretty motley crew of No. 5 starters last year.

The problem is Texas also has to replace 32 starts from Yovani Gallardo, who posted a very respectable 3.42 ERA in 2015. The pitchers the Rangers are counting on to fill the rotation -- Colby Lewis, Derek Holland and Nick Martinez -- are all low-strikeout starters at this point of their careers. Last year, Rangers starters fanned only 15.7 percent of the batters they faced, which made them the worst in the American League in that category, and in the process, they quietly wrested that distinction away from the four-time consecutive winners, the Minnesota Twins. Hamels and some Darvish starts will help on the margin, but the Rangers still figure to have one of the league's weakest rotations in 2016.

On offense, the Rangers were the third-highest scoring team in the majors, which helped enormously down the stretch, but by just about any other measure, they weren't that good. Runs are the ultimate currency, of course, but it is the underlying production that points to repeatability. Overall, they had above-league average component production, but it was all in the eighth- to 10th-best range, and it was aided by the hitter-friendly characteristics of their home stadium. Texas amassed more than 30 runs worth of cluster luck, and that's likely to regress this year because, with one exception, the same players are back for 2016.

The one change to the starting nine is one that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Signed to a one-year deal to play left field is former Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond. Desmond had a rough start to 2015, which weighed heavily on his total production, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and use his career batting line of .264/.312/.424 as a proxy for 2016.

For a shortstop, that is slightly better production than average, especially in the slugging department, where Desmond has averaged 22 home runs per year the past four seasons. The problem with his move to left field is his value largely disappears, as that power goes from being a competitive advantage to being roughly league-average. (The sabermetric rule of thumb is that an average corner outfielder creates close to 20 runs a year more than the average shortstop.) By individual defensive ratings, Desmond had a pretty slick glove at shortstop, but it's unknown if that prowess will translate to the outfield.

The Rangers' summary is pretty simple: I see a 2015 team that dressed in 88-win clothing but actually displayed 77-win talent. The rotation might be marginally better this year, but overall, there should be little reason to expect meaningfully different year-over-year results from any of the four units. All four -- rotation, bullpen, defense and offense -- profile to be close to league-average this year.

I have the Rangers winning 78 games, and combined with the view that a couple other teams in the AL West are better than oddsmakers expect, that makes Texas a pretty easy "under" call.

 

[DT LUNA]

ESPN's Joe Peta: 78-86, fifth in AL West. The Rangers' summary is pretty simple: I see a 2015 team that dressed in 88-win clothing but actually displayed 77-win talent. The rotation might be marginally better this year, but overall, there should be little reason to expect meaningfully different year-over-year results from any of the four units. All four -- rotation, bullpen, defense and offense -- profile to be close to league-average this year. I have the Rangers winning 78 games, and combined with the view that a couple other teams in the AL West are better than oddsmakers expect, that makes Texas a pretty easy "under" call.



LOL.

Poor Joe

 

[DT LUNA]

Peta: Predicting Rangers' 2016 season record

And if frogs had wings

 

[saddles]

Rangers, Indians Discussing Reliever-For-Starter Scenarios

I certainly wouldn't trade one of our current relievers for a guy who will pitch only until mid-May.

 

[saddles]

ESPN's Joe Peta: 78-86, fifth in AL West. The Rangers' summary is pretty simple: I see a 2015 team that dressed in 88-win clothing but actually displayed 77-win talent. The rotation might be marginally better this year, but overall, there should be little reason to expect meaningfully different year-over-year results from any of the four units. All four -- rotation, bullpen, defense and offense -- profile to be close to league-average this year. I have the Rangers winning 78 games, and combined with the view that a couple other teams in the AL West are better than oddsmakers expect, that makes Texas a pretty easy "under" call.



LOL.

He needs to go back to his animal rights gig.

 

[romeo212000]

ESPN's Joe Peta: 78-86, fifth in AL West. The Rangers' summary is pretty simple: I see a 2015 team that dressed in 88-win clothing but actually displayed 77-win talent. The rotation might be marginally better this year, but overall, there should be little reason to expect meaningfully different year-over-year results from any of the four units. All four -- rotation, bullpen, defense and offense -- profile to be close to league-average this year. I have the Rangers winning 78 games, and combined with the view that a couple other teams in the AL West are better than oddsmakers expect, that makes Texas a pretty easy "under" call.



LOL.

Wow. This has to be the laziest prediction I've ever seen.

 

[romeo212000]

Rangers, Indians Discussing Reliever-For-Starter Scenarios

I certainly wouldn't trade one of our current relievers for a guy who will pitch only until mid-May.

We've got a chance to have a dominant bullpen with dominant depth to spare. I think Griffin and Martinez can get us through May.

 

[saddles]

Who is the greatest Texas Ranger? Cast your vote in Ballpark Madness bracket