Results tagged ‘ Jon Daniels ’
My Turn
BASEBALL FACTS:
Pitching wins ballgames.
Pitching wins championships.
Pitching will beat good hitting 9 times out of 10.
and
No Free Agent Pitchers want to pitch in Arlington, TX so we have to raise our own.
These are all pretty well known facts. I know them, you know them and well, I guess Jon Daniels doesn’t know them….
Armando Galarraga, John Danks, Edinson (Edison, Jose Reyes) Volquez, and Chris Young.
Having a pretty good year collectively huh?
All of the above were traded by Jon Daniels since JD got here.
This is not an entry aimed at slamming JD, it’s more of a therapeutic entry. Seeing these guys nightly on Sportscenter grows tiresome.
Now, I’ll make the Volquez for Hamilton deal ten times out of ten. Josh Hamilton is a freak, we had no studs coming up in the minors who were outfielders, our OF depth on the farm is pretty weak from what I understand.
But, we sure did a good job of righting Edinson Volquez after a dismal 2006. Mark Connor sent him all the way to High A ball just as he did Roy Holladay in 2001.
So, props to the coaching staff in righting a 4-pitch maestro whose nickname is Pedrito (Little Pedro).
I’m trying to be a glass half-full guy here.
Armando Galarraga is 2-1 with a 3.07 ERA in 5 starts. In 29.1 innings he has 21 strikeouts and has held opponents to a paltry (favorite baseball adjective) .187 batting average.
I’ll take that.
I don’t even know why we got rid of him. I’m thinking it was some sort of log jam on the 40-man (mismanagement???) that caused us to try and have him clear waivers. I think Detroit scooped him up on the cheap, like Chris Shelton cheap. OINTMENT PLEASE!!!!
Next is John Danks, aka the lefthanded guy we drafted with our number one pick (#9 overall) in 2003….and who we traded to the Chicago White Sox for Brandon McCarthy, who may be made of glass.
Danks is 3-3 with a 2.74 ERA in 8 starts holding hitters to a .236 clip.
McCarthy, well, google him. Actually, just click on his name, but you won’t find any 2008 numbers for him….
I can picture Kenny Williams (White Sox General Manager) running to the phone to accept that call from JD that eve of Christmas Eve 2006. The same way I see George Costanza running over those women and kids as he evacuated that apartment after the fire alarm went off.
And finally, Chris Young.
I think this was JD’s first trade while manning the ship. Not a good way to start out is being kind.
You get my point here.
There are lots of prospects in our system that are supposed to be coming up the next few years, however, I don’t know that they can equate to the above guys we’ve lost.
In order to find out and keep them here, Nolan Ryan may have to cut JD’s trigger finger off to keep this from happening again.
Let me know Big Tex, I’ve got the chloroform-soaked rag ready.
Next up: Brandon Boggs, maybe….
Pitching and defense really does win games….weird
As a lifelong baseball fan I’ve always heard this phrase, as a Ranger-lifer, I’ve rarely if ever seen it executed.
It was so foreign to me and the rest of the Ranger faithful. Even during the runs of the late 90′s our staff was below average, what got them to the postseason were some pitchers that would go into the mid innings backed by a defense that did not kick many balls…oh yeah, and an offense that massacred those standing 60′ 6″ away.
May rolls around and all we can do is forget about April. Which by all accounts was worse than brutal…I actually can’t come up with a descriptive word to describe April…
Staff ERA is 1.84…really? Goodness.
Batting Average Against is .197….uhhhh, what?
We’ve won the last 5 and are 8-2 for the month correcting our overall record to 18-20 putting us 4 games behind Oakland and Los Angeles Anaheim California whatever…..
Any coincidence? Darn tootin’ there is.
People were calling for Wash’s head on a plater. I was about to become one of them. It’s amazing what some wins will do. I think he’s learning on the job, just as JD has. Have they been perfect? By all means, a big hearty “No.”
But given what Wash had to work with at the beginning of the year was unfair, now they’ve called up some kids who have energized both the team and the fans.
This is what it was supposed to be about….rebuild.
It didn’t look like it when we had Frank the Cat, Marlon Byrd and Ben Broussard out there every day.
Now we can call it rebuilding.
It is fun to watch the kids, but most importantly, it’s fun to watch these kids win.
Next Up: Brandon Boggs…promise.
Big Sidney!
Well, whodathunkit? Sidney Ponson is back. And I”m really trying not to overreact…..but, could we have found “lighting in a bottle?”
Certainly I, nor anyone I know expected such a resurgence from this big time perfromer of yesterday gone.
Sir Sidney (he was made a knight by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands) is only 31 and not far removed from a really good year….in 2003 he went 14-6 with a 3.77 E.R.A. This was during the backend of the steroid era, which are impressive numbers given the amount of bull semen the hitters were ingesting back then.
It, of course, was his contract year and he hasn’t done much of anything in baseball worth noting. However, off the field he’s been much more noticable, racking up a couple of DWI’s (both in 2005) and I think he knocked out an Aruban judge as well.
Seems as though Sidney has put down the bottle for a little while after realizing…..”Man, I’m kinda pissing this away here…..time to put down the Jack and Little Debbie variety pack and get my big butt in gear.”
I wonder if he’s approached Josh Hamilton or anything like that, Josh knows a thing or two of tying one on, maybe this is Josh’s first reclaimation project? Or maybe I’m being a little tabloidish…..either way, welcome back Sidney Ponson.
rylonvortex
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