Deadline Day

- Deadline day is here. After robbing the bank last year, Jon Daniels seems to be (and should be) content on just standing pat, unless someone blows him away with offers of young pitching.

- After stealing David Murphy (for Gagne) and Max Ramirez (for Lofton), along with the Teixeira steal, JD has earned the right to be selective and not have the pressure to make a deal.

- ESPN looks at the most interesting 9 deals of the past 10 years, and the Rangers have 3 of the top 4.


The Boston Red Sox acquire reliever Eric Gagne from Texas for outfielders David Murphy and Engel Beltre and pitcher Kason Gabbard -- July 31, 2007

The quote: "We actually love our bullpen," says Boston manager Terry Francona. "We think it just got a lot better."

Red Sox fans rejoice over the addition of Gagne, who has 16 saves and a 2.16 ERA for the Rangers, to complement Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima at the back end of the bullpen.

Boston's glee is magnified because the Yankees were also pursuing Gagne but failed to land him because GM Brian Cashman refused to part with Ian Kennedy or Melky Cabrera to clinch the deal.

The postscript: The Red Sox went on to win their second World Series in four years, so it's tough to knock GM Theo Epstein for the trade. But Gagne was so bad in Boston, the Red Sox were scared to use him in big spots down the stretch. He now serves as a cautionary tale for executives who are wary of paying extortion prices for high-profile bullpen arms.

Texas, meanwhile, loves its end of the deal. Murphy has 14 homers and 66 RBIs this season, and he has played better than expected from a guy who was considered a fourth outfielder. Beltre, a mere 18, is hitting .282 with 20 stolen bases for Clinton in the Class A Midwest League.


Atlanta acquires first baseman Mark Teixeira and reliever Ron Mahay from Texas for catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, shortstop Elvis Andrus and minor league pitchers Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison and Beau Jones -- July 31, 2007

The headline: "Brave Heart -- By Nabbing Teixeira, Schuerholz Proves He's the Alpha GM" (New York Post)

Braves GM John Schuerholz, the proverbial lion in winter, earns widespread praise for landing the big stick on the market. The consensus is that Teixeira will combine with Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones -- who's driven by a potentially huge free-agent payday -- to make Atlanta the front-runner in the division.

It's a heck of a coup for the Braves, considering that: (a) Julio Franco had been playing first base before Teixeira's arrival; and (b) Schuerholz also acquired Octavio Dotel for the underachieving Kyle Davies to upgrade Atlanta's bullpen for the stretch run.

The postscript: Teixeira drove in 56 runs in 54 games with Atlanta. But the Braves, 4½ games out at the time of the trade, finished five behind Philadelphia in the division. And now Schuerholz's successor, Frank Wren, has responded to a lost season by trading Teixeira to the Angels before this year's deadline.

Texas' haul from Atlanta looks good even though Saltalamacchia has yet to hit as advertised. Andrus, only 19 years old, is hitting .291 for Frisco in the Double-A Texas League. And Feliz, who recently turned 20, throws a fastball that has been clocked at triple digits. He has 127 strikeouts in 102 minor league innings this season.

Along with the Gagne deal, the Teixeira trade helped GM Jon Daniels rebuild the Texas farm system and regain some of the goodwill he lost with that Adrian Gonzalez-Chris Young San Diego fiasco.


- Texas acquires outfielders Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz from Milwaukee for reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix, and minor league pitcher Julian Cordero -- July 29, 2006

The quote: "I was so excited I couldn't sleep," said Texas owner Tom Hicks after receiving a 1:30 a.m. call telling him the team had acquired Lee.

Two days after the Rangers are swept by the Yankees, Daniels makes it clear he hasn't quit on the season. He adds a premier middle-of-the-order bat in Lee, who became available after spurning a four-year, $48 million contract offer from Milwaukee.

Daniels' bold move sends the desired jolt of energy through the Texas clubhouse. "I'm real excited this club is really going for it right now," says shortstop Michael Young.

The postscript: In hindsight, Hicks should have rolled over and gone back to sleep. Lee hit .322 with a .525 slugging percentage as a Ranger. But the pitching staff ranked 29th in the majors in ERA, Texas finished 80-82, and manager Buck Showalter paid for it by getting fired. In November 2006, Lee signed a six-year, $100 million contract with Houston.

The Brewers regarded Mench as a linchpin to the deal. But after hitting 51 homers during the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Mench arrived in Milwaukee wielding a Nerf bat. He hit nine homers in 414 at-bats to play his way out of town, and he's been little more than an afterthought in Toronto.

Cordero might have been the biggest beneficiary of the trade. He parlayed a strong finish with Milwaukee into a four-year, $46 million free-agent contract with Cincinnati.





- Rangers only looking for pitching if they're going to deal one of their veterans or young catchers.



Texas Rangers only want to get their mitts on pitching

02:32 AM CDT on Thursday, July 31, 2008
By EVAN GRANT / The Dallas Morning News
egrant@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – A year ago, the Texas Rangers baseball operations staff spent the final hours of the non-waiver trading period formulating, constructing and tweaking complicated multiplayer deals designed to restock the farm system.

General manager Jon Daniels' plan for this year's deadline is much simpler.

Either the Rangers will get quality young pitching or they'll keep their wealth of catchers at least until the off-season. Though Daniels continues to hold conversations, particularly with Cincinnati, Boston and Kansas City, the chances of completing a deal are slim.

The trading period expires today at 3 p.m. Central time. To make a deal after the deadline, players must clear waivers.

"It's not a well-kept secret that we've placed a priority on quality young pitching," Daniels said Wednesday. "If we do something, we want it to be somebody that can help us now and in the future.

"[Catching] is probably the area about which we've had the most conversation. I haven't initiated any of them. And I don't plan to. We have depth there and good players. We are not motivated to make a deal unless it is something that makes us a better club going forward."

The Rangers have catchers to satisfy the needs of just about any team, and that's why they've been such a popular destination. For clubs seeking a veteran, Gerald Laird has four years of experience and an inexpensive contract. Cincinnati has expressed the most interest in him but probably would have to give up top pitching prospect Homer Bailey of LaGrange, Texas, to get a deal done.

For building clubs, there is 23-year-old Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who could mature into an everyday player. Kansas City is looking to improve its stock of position players and might be willing to consider trading its top starter, Zack Greinke, if it received a package of players.

And for teams seeking a catcher of the future, there is Taylor Teagarden, on loan to Team USA for the Olympics.

Boston is looking for a potential replacement for Jason Varitek, a free agent at the end of the year. The Red Sox, who have a deep minor league system, and Rangers cut a deadline deal last year that sent Eric Gagne to Boston. Minor league right-hander Michael Bowden, who reportedly was among the names discussed in last year's deal, could be of interest again.

But in return for any of their catchers, the Rangers want – and need – more starting pitching. Though Daniels said there have been proposals with clubs that revolved around position players, most deals have centered on getting pitching in return. Prying away young pitching has been hard to do in this trading season.

"It's a limited market," said Daniels, who declined to comment on specifics of any deals.

Although the Rangers would like to upgrade a pitching staff that began the day with a 5.26 ERA, he said the club isn't likely to add a free agent-to-be "rental" player. The Rangers will, however, watch free agent Freddy Garcia, who is coming back from shoulder surgery, work out next week, Daniels said.

If the trade market does not produce the kind of pitching the Rangers want, the club could wait until the winter when more teams may be in the market for catching.

"We do put a high value on our guys," Daniels said. "The interest we've received only serves as affirmation of that."






- Rangers win again, close to within 4.5 games of the wild card.....



Young comes through in a pinch in Texas Rangers' 4-3 win

01:47 AM CDT on Thursday, July 31, 2008
By RICHARD DURRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rdurrett@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – Even a stiff, fractured right ring finger wasn't enough to keep Michael Young from making an impact in Wednesday's 4-3 win over Seattle.


He couldn't start because of the finger and didn't even put on his uniform until the seventh inning. He'd been watching the game on TV with his finger in an ice bucket. But when manager Ron Washington needed his leader to step in and deliver in his first pinch-hit appearance in nearly six years, Young was ready.

He needed just one swing, sending a fly ball to center off reliever Arthur Rhodes that scored David Murphy from third in the eighth to break a tie score. It was Young's first pinch-hit RBI in seven career appearances.

"I was pretty jacked up," said Young, who helped his team move 4 ½ games behind in the wild-card race. "I hadn't ever pinch hit in that kind of situation. I had to take some deep breaths."

Young's heroics, which reminded him of his winning hit in the All-Star Game in 2006, wouldn't have happened without starter Vicente Padilla and a patient Rangers offense.

The deliberate Padilla managed to get through the seventh inning despite loading the bases with no outs (two infield singles and a hit batsman). Murphy caught Raul Ibanez's fly ball and threw out Willie Bloomquist trying to score. Padilla then struck out Adrian Beltre.

It was just the 20th time a Rangers starter went at least seven innings this season. Padilla has done it eight times.

That helped set the stage for the eighth. The Rangers, who were tied for second in the AL in pitches per plate appearance (3.86) coming into the game, were patient against Rhodes, a left-hander. Murphy, Josh Hamilton and Marlon Byrd each walked on 3-2 pitches before Young drove in the winning run. Rhodes was yelling at plate umpire Paul Nauert and was ejected.

The Nomadic Punk moves on

- Mark Teixeira moves on to his 3rd team in 1 year, and will be expected to suit up for his 4th team by Spring Training 2009.

- As has been written here many times, this guy is a poison pill to the highest degree.

- He cares nothing about his team, his city, his teammates, fans, and anyone else outside of himself. He plays not for team championships, not for passion, not for pride, etc. He plays for the highest bidder and develops absolutely no connection with his surroundings.

- He's basically a younger A-Rod.

- What's sad is, the guy is a legit hitting/fielding superstar. Gold Glove ability, and a 40 HR/150 RBI machine. But no one seems to want him, and are happy to ship him away.

- What will be fun to watch will be his side-stepping of contract questions by the LA media. The spin control stays the same, even when the cities change.

- Bash Jon Daniels all you want, but last year's trade could have been his best move of his entire career. If the 5 minor leaguers keep progressing like they are, he will never make another move this in his career. We're talking a potential baseball version of the Herschel Walker trade, the trade that laid the groundwork for the Cowboy's Championship run of the 90's.

- Buster Olney's analysis. Notice the final statement in the write-up.

Braves' '07 deal for Teixeira now a bust

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 | Feedback | Print Entry

It was a year ago that the Atlanta Braves traded five pieces of their farm system to the Texas Rangers for Mark Teixeira and Ron Mahay. The hope then was that Teixeira would return to the city where he went to college and thrive and hoist Atlanta to October glory.
And Teixeira did hammer the ball in August and September, driving in 56 runs after he joined the Braves. But Atlanta's starting pitching crumbled and didn't make it to October. The Braves slogged through more injuries at the beginning of this season, when Teixeira didn't hit. And he balked at signing a multi-year deal to stay in Atlanta.

With the trade deadline looming and Teixeira only a couple of months away from achieving free agency, first-year Braves GM Frank Wren, who took over for John Schuerholz last fall, was left to make the best of a bad situation. Yes, the Braves checked in with a number of teams on Teixeira, but that's a long way from serious and aggressive interest, and in the end Wren had to choose between a couple of flawed offers. He wanted Conor Jackson from the Diamondbacks, but Arizona offered Chad Tracy instead.

So Wren took the Casey Kotchman proposal from the Angels, which was made possible only because Kotchman has generally failed to reach expectations.
If Kotchman -- the younger, cheaper player -- had been generating more than his .327 on-base percentage and his .448 slugging percentage, the Angels would not have considered making this deal. But the Angels' first basemen are 22nd in OPS and 22nd in RBIs this season, so they were willing to ship three years of Kotchman, who won't be eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season, for two months of Teixeira.

Maybe Kotchman will take a major step forward in Atlanta, or maybe not. Either way, we are one step closer to tabulating the Braves' final bill on Teixeira. In his one year with the team, the Braves went 77-83, and ranked 13th in runs per game in the big leagues. Meanwhile, the five players they shipped to Texas are making their own journeys:

• Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the switch-hitting catcher, is hitting .232, and increasingly, there are questions about how much he's going to hit in the big leagues.
• Left-hander Matt Harrison is 2-1 with a 7.32 ERA with the Rangers.
• Elvis Andrus, a slick-fielding shortstop, is hitting .291 with 43 stolen bases in Double-A.
• Lefty Beau Jones has a 2.93 ERA in Class A.
• Right-handed pitcher Neftali Feliz is 8-3 with a 2.46 ERA this season and has reached Double-A, and has racked up 127 strikeouts in 102 1/3 innings.

Feliz may turn out to have the biggest impact in the majors, and Andrus and Saltalamacchia are poised to have long careers in the big leagues. Time will tell on Harrison and Jones, but as a group, there is the great potential for low-price quality service in the majors, for years to come.

So there is no way that the Teixeira deal could be looked at as anything but an enormous bust for the Braves, and an enormous success for the Rangers and general manager Jon Daniels. The Braves made an aggressive, bold move in an effort to win, and the effort backfired. You can bet that other general managers will remember this when they are similarly tempted in the months and years to come, as they consider similar deals for stars marching toward free agency, like a Matt Holliday or a Prince Fielder.

The trade of Teixeira had to be done, writes Mark Bradley. Kotchman considers the trade a blessing, because it probably means he'll get to play more regularly.
Meanwhile, a couple of the Atlanta pitchers are going to get checked out by Dr. James Andrews. Atlanta got wrecked on Tuesday, fielding a depleted lineup. Within this Carroll Rogers piece, there is word of an odd scene in the Atlanta clubhouse:

(Inside the clubhouse, it was awkward. An hour before the game, with teammates in earshot, Teixeira gushed to reporters that the Angels were "the best team in baseball." While also being complimentary of his former teammates, it had a strange ring. Braves coaches recognized the situation and ushered Braves players into other areas of the clubhouse.)




- What started out as a promising career in 2004, will more than likely end in disappoint this Winter when the Rangers decline Hank Blalock's option.



Hank Blalock's time with the Texas Rangers may be done

By GIL LeBRETONglebreton@star-telegram.com

ARLINGTON — They ran out of time, ran out of hope and ran out of imaginary excuses to protect Hank Blalock’s Texas Rangers career Tuesday night.

When Blalock revealed before the game that his throwing shoulder has been bothering him since Friday, when the third baseman expressed surprise that it had been announced that he missed Monday’s game because of a stomach ache, and when Blalock had to be placed — again — on the disabled list Tuesday, the implications became ominous.

No, the veteran won’t be getting traded this week in exchange for somebody’s hot young pitching prospect.

No, carpal tunnel syndrome apparently wasn’t the last of Blalock’s boundless physical issues.

And, yes, most ominously, his career with the Rangers, a seven-year run that included two All-Star games, could well be over.

He was trade bait. And what team is going to be in the market now for a third baseman who can’t throw?

By the time Blalock will be eligible to return from the disabled list, Thursday’s major league non-waivers trading deadline will have passed.

An announcement was made during Tuesday’s win over the Seattle Mariners that Blalock has been given an injection and will be re-evaluated in 10 to 14 days. With little to show for his work at third base over the past two seasons, except for X-rays and rehab assignments, Blalock’s career at that position appears to be done.

"I think it’s too early to say that," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels countered Tuesday. "It’s concerning. We’ll just see how it plays out."

If Blalock does return to capable health — a long shot, based on his recent medical history — his prospects of rejoining the starting lineup would seem to be in jeopardy.

Rookie Chris Davis already has a two-fisted grip on the Rangers’ first base job. Davis could be moved temporarily to third base, but why would the Rangers do that, unless they plan to exercise a club option that would pay Blalock $6.2 million in 2009?

And on what wishful grounds would they base that decision? Blalock has played only 89 games in two seasons.

The Rangers are trying to turn the page to a brighter tomorrow. Hank hasn’t shown yet that he can be a dependable part of that.

His best bet was to get a fresh new start — somewhere over the rainbow, in, like, Minnesota.

That apparently was the motivation behind Monday night’s ham-handed decision to announce that Blalock’s last-minute scratch from the starting lineup was because of an "upset stomach."

"I erred in judgment in trying to protect one of my players," manager Ron Washington said before Tuesday’s game, "and I take the blame for that. I was just trying to protect one of my guys."

In a pregame meeting Tuesday with Washington, however, Blalock reportedly vividly expressed his displeasure that the club had concocted the stomach excuse.

"I can take responsibility for that," Washington said. "I didn’t want to put it out there that he had shoulder trouble, because I thought maybe that it would be well today. I didn’t want to put that out there, with him coming off the DL and everything.

"Sometimes, it’s not good to protect [someone]. I had to learn that the hard way."

Daniels, however, wouldn’t let Washington take the full blame for the deception.

"We had a call to make whether to protect a player or not," Daniels said. "No, he was not solely to blame."

Whatever. The Rangers aren’t the first local sports team to disguise the full details of a player’s injury. Daniels asserted that the club had no intentions of trading an injured player "without full disclosure."

Instead, the whole Stomach-Gate incident illustrates how earnestly the Rangers wanted to deal Blalock. It also sheds a brighter light on Blalock’s own sudden decision last month to shift to first base.

Too late now, of course. The clock is ticking on the trading deadline. And Hank Blalock is hurt — once again.

When he returns — if he returns — there is no place for him on these new Rangers, especially at $6.2 million next season and with nowhere to play him.

The finality of that, a popular player seeing his Rangers career at a likely final crossroads, cast an awkward and somber pall on Tuesday’s proceedings.

The fact that it was handled awkwardly didn’t help things.




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