Your Texas Rangers!: Official 2009 Thread - Page 2 - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

u2sarajevo · 04-06-2009, 03:46 PM

First place Texas Rangers!!!

Scoobay · 04-06-2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

8th and 9th (assuming CJ and Frankie are available) are not the ones to worry about.

It's the rest of the bullpen that frightens me.

10 and 11 pitches to retire the side respectively - nice!

Flacolaco · 04-06-2009, 03:50 PM

The Rangers unleashed their new game plan to hit a ball at the opposing pitcher's forearm today. If it works again tomorrow, Ron Washington is a genius.

jthig32 · 04-06-2009, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

The Rangers unleashed their new game plan to hit a ball at the opposing pitcher's forearm today. If it works again tomorrow, Ron Washington is a genius.

If it works tomorrow something very strange will have happened....

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

Now see, Josh and Tom didn't make a big deal out of that at all, but that's a single last year. Talking about the bouncer up the middle that Andrus made the plaon on.

So two months from now when people are complaining about Evis' low batting average and perhaps his high error total, remind them about the balls he gets to that MY never did.

i assume youre talking about the ball choo hit which i was very impressed with. The funny thing is my actually has incredible range for a 3rd basemen.

Very encouraging to see salty hit well right handed(i know the homer was left handed) My fantasy team is rangers heavy so i need them to do well.

The pitching looked great though cj topping out at 92 is a little scary. Hopefully he just needs to get in the flow though if he can control it better id still live with that.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:06 PM

and btw how was millwoods run an earned run??? A WP is the same as an error and he ended up striking the guy out. With no WP that run doesnt score. Should be unearned.

jthig32 · 04-06-2009, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

i assume youre talking about the ball choo hit which i was very impressed with. The funny thing is my actually has incredible range for a 3rd basemen.

Very encouraging to see salty hit well right handed(i know the homer was left handed) My fantasy team is rangers heavy so i need them to do well.

The pitching looked great though cj topping out at 92 is a little scary. Hopefully he just needs to get in the flow though if he can control it better id still live with that.

CJ said in an interview during spring training that he's focusing on locating his fastball rather than maximizing his velocity. I'm not worried about CJ at all, he was ridiculous in spring training.

As to your point above, that's just one of the great things about them moving him to third. He still has a plus arm for the position, and now he goes from having terrible range at short to plus range at third. He made two plays at third that never get made last year, and Andrus made one at short that Young never makes. That's going to make such a huge difference this season.

jthig32 · 04-06-2009, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

and btw how was millwoods run an earned run??? A WP is the same as an error and he ended up striking the guy out. With no WP that run doesnt score. Should be unearned.

Wild Pitches are not errors.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

Wild Pitches are not errors.

i know its not an error but its a free base that the offensive team had nothing to do with gaining. Should be an unearned run. Thats always been a pet peeve of mine.

92bDad · 04-06-2009, 04:10 PM

I only wish I hadn't been stuck on conference calls all afternoon...missed the whole thing, had to catch the "Yahoo Game Channel" for play by play updates while working...nice start to what could be a fun season to be a Rangers fan!!!

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

CJ said in an interview during spring training that he's focusing on locating his fastball rather than maximizing his velocity. I'm not worried about CJ at all, he was ridiculous in spring training.

As to your point above, that's just one of the great things about them moving him to third. He still has a plus arm for the position, and now he goes from having terrible range at short to plus range at third. He made two plays at third that never get made last year, and Andrus made one at short that Young never makes. That's going to make such a huge difference this season.

one other thing, im curious to see if we werent using a different gun than the rangers did last year. FF was sitting at 93 when he normally sits 95. Grieve said millwoods fastball was better than it ever was last year and he was at 92 when he hit 94-95 last year when he was on. Different guns can easily account for a couple of mph on a fastball.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:23 PM

btw one thing of note, they mentioned that washington wont skip any starters due to days off. I find that interesting.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 04:34 PM

i did my yahoo fantasy baseball draft today. My team in a 12 team mixed league

c-soto
1b-fielder
2b-kinsler
ss-jeter
3b-chris davis
of-kemp
of-victorino
of-cruz
util-adam jones
bench-shin soo choo salty blalock

sp-oswalt
sp-greinke
rp-soria
rp-morrow
p-nolasco
p-danks
p-ff
bench-meche, arrendondo.

blalock still has 3b eligibility. its kind weird both of my 3b are rangers and neither of them plays 3b. Cats are real simple runs, hr, rbi, sb and avg for hitters. W, s, k, era, whip for pitchers. I know i have way too many rangers.

Scoobay · 04-06-2009, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

i know its not an error but its a free base that the offensive team had nothing to do with gaining. Should be an unearned run. Thats always been a pet peeve of mine.

is it any different with a passed ball (the catcher's fault)?

I guess i always looked at earned runs as a measure of the pitcher's performance and if the pitcher throws a wild pitch, that's his fault and thus it counts towards earned runs. a passed ball on the other hand is like an error for the catcher so i'd think it would not count as an earned run in that case, because the pitcher wasn't at fault.

jthig32 · 04-06-2009, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scoobay

is it any different with a passed ball (the catcher's fault)?

I guess i always looked at earned runs as a measure of the pitcher's performance and if the pitcher throws a wild pitch, that's his fault and thus it counts towards earned runs. a passed ball on the other hand is like an error for the catcher so i'd think it would not count as an earned run in that case, because the pitcher wasn't at fault.

The counter point to that is if the pitcher throws the ball away throwing to any other base it's an error and can create an unearned run.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

The counter point to that is if the pitcher throws the ball away throwing to any other base it's an error and can create an unearned run.

yep. My point is essentially the name its self. Its called an EARNED run. The runner from third didnt earn his way home by making millwood throw a wp. Ive just never understood why it counted that way.

Murphy3 · 04-06-2009, 05:43 PM

I've always kinda thought that the error on the pitcher that leads to a run should be earned... kinda waffled back and forth on the issue..

A few things..

1. If you missed George W. Bush in the booth with the radio guys... you missed one hell of a half inning. Bush genuinely loves the Rangers, baseball, and all things Texas. Every time a Texas player came up to bat or made a play in the field, he knew where they were born.. where they were from.. or where they played college ball. They also got into stories about how George W. filled in one game back in the 90's with Mark Holtz. He was genuintely excited about the game. He is one hell of a guy. It was an absolute pleasure hearing the guy on the radio. He had a great sense of humor.. great self depricating sense of humor. He was talking about how he had met Elvis Andrus and mentioned that Andrus had a better grasp of the English language than he himself had. Then compared to his weakness with speaking the English language to a pitcher finding a weakness in a batter's swing. The half inning was a thing of beauty. Thannkfully the Rangers scored 4 runs in the inning allowing GW's time in the booth to be longer than it otherwise would have been.

2. I don't think Josh and tom remarked too much on the play that Elvis made up the middle because they don't want to tromp all over Michael Young and what he did at the position. If they start saying "Now that's a play that the Rangers wouldn't have been able to make last year..".. well, it could rub Young the wrong way if it got back to him.

3. Damn, didn't Elvis look good? He made that play up the middle look easy. There's no way MYoung makes that play last year. And yeah, he looked comfortable at the plate.

4. Isn't it nice seeing opposite field hits from Andrus and Salty (especially from the right side)?

5. It's also nice to see Blalock hitting the ball with authority off of the lefty.

6. Millwood was sharp. He had command of all of his pitches. But honestly, the difference between him giving up 1 run and giving up 3 runs as he might have last year or the year before was the defense. The defense made any number of nice plays that they might not have made last year.. I've already mentioned Elvis making a nice play. They turned a difficult DP and MY made a couple of plays at third base that they might not have made last year. Like I said. Millwood was in control. However, that could have easily been 8 hits on the board for the Indians to go along with 3 runs if the defense didn't make some plays that weren't necessarily routine.

7. I heard Bob and dan griping about the platoon situation.. wanting to know why Blalock was starting.. why Salty was starting.. Well, I suppose Washington pushed the right buttons for one game at least. In fairness to Hank, he hit the ball ok against lefties last year when in the lineup.

8. Before the season started, I told a friend that I expected a bit less from Kinsler this year simply because he couldn't possibly be as good as he was at the plate again... Hopefully he'll prove me wrong.

9. But, I also told the same friend to be a bit wary of pitchers that have a phenomenal year after a posting some pretty mediocre seasons. He sarcastically asked me if I liked the Millwood vs Lee matchup. Well, my answer for that one held true at least for one game.

10. I love this game.

jthig32 · 04-06-2009, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

6. Millwood was sharp. He had command of all of his pitches. But honestly, the difference between him giving up 1 run and giving up 3 runs as he might have last year or the year before was the defense. The defense made any number of nice plays that they might not have made last year.. I've already mentioned Elvis making a nice play. They turned a difficult DP and MY made a couple of plays at third base that they might not have made last year. Like I said. Millwood was in control. However, that could have easily been 8 hits on the board for the Indians to go along with 3 runs if the defense didn't make some plays that weren't necessarily routine.

Definitely agree. This will go overlooked all year by the majority of the media, but it's true.

Quote:

7. I heard Bob and dan griping about the platoon situation.. wanting to know why Blalock was starting.. why Salty was starting.. Well, I suppose Washington pushed the right buttons for one game at least. In fairness to Hank, he hit the ball ok against lefties last year when in the lineup.

The only player that should be in an absolute platoon is Murphy. I'm sure a lot of Teagarden's appearances will come against lefties, but Salty is a 23 year old offensive catcher, if you're not going to find out if he can hit lefties this season when will you ever find out? Expecting TT to play against all lefties is dumb and not well thought out by Bob and Dan.

And Jones...whatever. Without looking it up I don't think Blalock has had just horrible splits against lefties throughout his career. If Hank is going well he'll probably do better against lefties than Jones will, because Jones has flat out sucked for two years.

Quote:

8. Before the season started, I told a friend that I expected a bit less from Kinsler this year simply because he couldn't possibly be as good as he was at the plate again... Hopefully he'll prove me wrong.

I still doubt he's going to spend this season putting up numbers that put him in MVP consideration so I agree with your lowered expectations. But dang I love that dude. Love his attitude, love the way he plays, love everything.

Quote:

10. I love this game.

Yes.

Ha...I guess I could have responded to this at Newberg's. Ah well.

TheMaverick · 04-06-2009, 08:23 PM

hell yeah

tcat075 · 04-06-2009, 09:07 PM

Yes!! Baseball is back!! And we just MURDERED freaking CLIFF LEE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

I don't think Josh and tom remarked too much on the play that Elvis made up the middle because they don't want to tromp all over Michael Young and what he did at the position. If they start saying "Now that's a play that the Rangers wouldn't have been able to make last year..".. well, it could rub Young the wrong way if it got back to him."

They could have said that "that's a play where we can see Andrus's exceptional range." I don't consider that a diss on MY, just telling how great of a fielder Andrus is. Doesn't really matter...

I can't wait for Holland and Feliz to come up.

This Rangers batting lineup is sick. Two potential MVP candidates in Josh and Kinsler, several possible home run leaders in Josh, Cruz or Davis (in the predictions I've seen online, I've seen all three predicted to be the home run leader by various people...Josh like 10-12 times, Davis twice and Cruz once). We have a guy who could lead the league in average in Kinsler (and so could Josh, to be honest).

I have high hopes. After all, this may be the only time I get a chance to have hopes this high.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 09:15 PM

one thing that i noticed today when thinking about the lineup is that the rangers have to have the best collection of defensive arms in baseball. All 4 infielders have ss arms and all 4 ofs who will get pt(im still praying jones doesnt) have cannons. Salty has troubles with the transfer but hes got a gun too. I doubt seriously anyone can match that combination of arms.

Murphy3 · 04-06-2009, 10:13 PM

I really like the OF's arms... As for the INF, obviously they have cannons at SS, 2nd, and 3B.. I know Davis has a good arm, I just don't remember how great it is.

Kirobaito · 04-06-2009, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

I really like the OF's arms... As for the INF, obviously they have cannons at SS, 2nd, and 3B.. I know Davis has a good arm, I just don't remember how great it is.

A first baseman's arm isn't all that important, anyway. But his arm wouldn't have been an issue at third base or the outfield, but rather his footspeed that will continue to keep him from playing there.

Five-ofan · 04-06-2009, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

I really like the OF's arms... As for the INF, obviously they have cannons at SS, 2nd, and 3B.. I know Davis has a good arm, I just don't remember how great it is.

he was clocked at 94 off a mound at navarro.

alexamenos · 04-07-2009, 09:34 AM

162-0

wesbrynt · 04-07-2009, 10:16 AM

161-1 we will forfiet one game out of respect to the rest of baseball. We just havent figured out which one it will be yet.

mkat · 04-07-2009, 01:19 PM

Is Murphy injured?

Murphy3 · 04-07-2009, 01:31 PM

Nope.. I'm sure Washington just wanted to get Byrd's right handed bat in the lineup versus the tough lefty.

Five-ofan · 04-07-2009, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkat

Is Murphy injured?

no. Byrds just a better player. Though actually in this case it was most likely just platooning murph.

wesbrynt · 04-07-2009, 08:09 PM

hate to say it but byrd is not a better player than murphy

Kirobaito · 04-07-2009, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesbrynt

hate to say it but byrd is not a better player than murphy

Player A: .298/.380/.462
Player B: .275/.321/.465

I know which player I'd take. One was 30, the other 26, but I don't think there's much question who's the better player right now. Byrd has put up 113 and 123 OPS+ in his two years here.

Five-ofan · 04-07-2009, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesbrynt

hate to say it but byrd is not a better player than murphy

based on???? murphy was a 275/321/465 hitter last year. byrd was a 298/380/462 hitter. throw in that murphy was a MUCH worse defensive player by every defensive metric and its not close.

jthig32 · 04-07-2009, 09:26 PM

Yeah...I know we discussed this during last year's thread, but I really expect Murphy to continue regressing back to his true level, which is a decent fourth outfielder.

Byrd has got to be the most under rated Ranger over the past two seasons.

Five-ofan · 04-08-2009, 07:16 PM

anyone else getting the world poker tour instead of the game tonight???

Murphy3 · 04-08-2009, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

based on???? murphy was a 275/321/465 hitter last year. byrd was a 298/380/462 hitter. throw in that murphy was a MUCH worse defensive player by every defensive metric and its not close.

Yeah, but many believe that most defensive metrics are full of shit. Murphy was the best outfielder for the Rangers last year. He consistently got the best read on the ball. He's got good enough speed and always made almost every play possible. Plus, he's got a good arm. Not a great arm..but a good arm.

Byrd's a good outfielder, but I don't think he had a better season in the field last year than Murphy. He was probably the second best OF on the team behind Murph last year.

chumdawg · 04-08-2009, 09:16 PM

Gimme an update. I know we were up 4-0 after 2.

Flacolaco · 04-08-2009, 09:47 PM

Good lord, Cruz killed that one

Five-ofan · 04-08-2009, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Yeah, but many believe that most defensive metrics are full of shit. Murphy was the best outfielder for the Rangers last year. He consistently got the best read on the ball. He's got good enough speed and always made almost every play possible. Plus, he's got a good arm. Not a great arm..but a good arm.

Byrd's a good outfielder, but I don't think he had a better season in the field last year than Murphy. He was probably the second best OF on the team behind Murph last year.

murph has decent speed... but hes the slowest ofer on the team(note im not counting jones for any of these things) Hes got a decent arm... but hes got the weakest arm of any of the ofers. I understand your point but hes not a better defensive player than byrd.

Murphy3 · 04-08-2009, 11:08 PM

I didn't say that he is a better defensive OF than Byrd. However, he was last year.

jthig32 · 04-08-2009, 11:26 PM

IMO, Brandon Boggs was the best defensive outfielder on the Rangers last year. Boggs was rated as the 7th best left fielder in baseball last year by the fielding bible.

It's a fun arugment to make though. Hamilton is the only Ranger outfielder that isn't above average defensively (and I still think Hamilton will get better as he gets more experience). If Borbon fulfills his promise and takes over center, Hamilton in right and Cruz in left with Murphy or Boggs as the fourth outfielder will be absolutely ridiculous defensively.

I am so, so freaking excited about the next five+ years for the Rangers.