As we sat at the table and took questions—first from the crowd, and then from Ben Rogers, who was moderating the Newberg Report Book Release night—Delino DeShields leaned into the microphone and spoke in his usual soft tone: “Center field, left field, second base, first base, I don’t care (…) I just want to play.” […]
Rangers Mailbag? Rangers Mailbag (Including Cole Hamels Beard Talk?)
I haven’t ever done a mailbag before, mostly because of my own sense of inadequacy. Imposter syndrome is real, and every day that I cover the Rangers, I’m acutely aware that I’m the guy in the (clubhouse, manager’s office, Winter Meetings) who knows the least about baseball. Spending a decade as a musician before you […]
It’s still the pitching, stupid.
A quick addendum to the earlier article about potential starting pitching targets: I asked Jon Daniels if—after the acquisitions of Doug Fister and Mike Minor—any position players were starting to creep up the priority list. Despite recent rumors that the Rangers might be interested in Carlos Santana, Daniels said that pitching was still the first, […]
The Rule 5 Draft: How Does That Work?
MLB’s Rule 5 Draft is, in essence, a way to keep teams from stashing minor leaguers in their system forever without any hope of them advancing to the big leagues. It’s an interesting wrinkle in the player development system, and it makes for some interesting intrigue in the long winter of the baseball offseason. The […]