- 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.
- Unbelievablely awesome time-killer here....
http://watchthesimpsonsonline.com/
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