Official Rangers off season thread

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by Male29Dan

If he could play 1B adequately, sure, I would be for that and instead of keeping Vlad get an outfielder that could have close to Vlad's production while around his same compensation. Then you could move Young to DH and bring in Beltre like I am praying for. Won't happen, but I do know Hamilton likely won't be cool with a permanent DH spot and just like Washington already decided in the playoffs you go with the guy that gives your team the best chance to win. Playing Josh in the outfield gives us the best chance to win because he is terrific defensively. With that said, he is just about as prone to get hurt in LF as he is in CF because of his Rusty Greer-mentality. He dives for anything and everything and will always do that so while CF might be slightly more risky for the guy, either way you have to live with the chance that he will get injured.

I strongly disagree that CF is "slightly more risky". It's significantly more risky. Every time he's hurt himself it's been from hitting a wall, not the ground. And people hit the wall a LOT more in CF at our park. Part of it is the angles, and part of it is because the left field is tall so most of the time the fielder turns around to play the carom.

CF also involves a lot more running in general, which is harder on his knees. Josh Hamilton needs to be in LF next year. There's a reason they had him in LF for over half the season despite Borbon being awful offensively.

Originally Posted by Male29Dan

Truth be told, as much as I want Lee back, I am not thrilled with the odds of that happening. It sucks, but he may have been a rental. My only hope is that IF he leaves the team that gets him doesn't sign any bigger-name stars. We definitely need to get a 1st round pick for him considering what we gave up for him (even with the WS appearance). Here is hoping that won't happen and we keep him, but just saying. I am more nervous about him leaving than I was Texas losing game 5.

I'm pretty sure Lee is the highest rated free agent. At least he was the last time I heard someone discuss it. So there's no concern there. The only other thing to worry about would be a bad team signing him. If a team with a top 15 pick signs him we get their second round pick instead of their first. But him signing with one of those teams seems unlikely.