http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/02/michael-young-ive-been-misled.html Say goodbye

"That would be unproductive for everybody, particularly my teammates and coaches," he said. "I know the truth and Jon Daniels knows the truth and I will sleep well." That really catches my attention, as he is for sure going to be traded.

There is bad blood between the FO and Micheal Young for him to call out J.D like that.... Go to a ATM and check your balance MY and realize how many people in this country are unemployed..

This is getting bad. This really hurts our ability to trade him.

J.D should have dealt him before the media got ahold of this, and before the comments Micheal said

Michael, Elvis is a better SS than you, Adrian Beltre is a better 3d baseman than you, you're getting paid 14 mil a year. Shut up and hit!

Damn crybaby, as a life-long Ranger fan, I don't appreciate the comments he has made... We gave him every option we could to have him on the team...

The ultimate professional right here guys. Personally calling out his GM too. In the end, MY is another entitled, overpaid athlete. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm still a fan with lots of fond memories, but hes not someone that needs a pity party.

"I want to be traded because I've been misled and manipulated and I'm sick of it," Young added.

However, he declined to reveal details of how he was misled or manipulated.

"That would be unproductive for everybody, particularly my teammates and coaches," he said.

So it's unproductive to mention how you've been misled and manipulated but it's ok to say you've been misled and manipulated, thus letting everyone who reads it to let their imagination go wild.
Direct quotes from the horses mouth are supposed to clear things up, Michael has only made things muddier.
Also of note, he's not so "sick of it" that he's willing to expand his list of teams he can be traded to.

You guys are being way too generous to the FO side of things. It is obvious that JD has been misleading MY, he has not been upfront with him. The idea that it is impossible to be mistreated because you are paid a lot of money makes no sense. One can still be mistreated and misled when one is paid big bucks. This shut up and take your money stuff I find quite disrespectful. I think we owe it to MY to try to find out what all of this is about. It seems quite foolhardy to jump on JD's bandwagon. Is it possible he was not as direct as he should have been with Michael? Is it possible JD misled him, tried to manipulate him? I'm not saying I know this for sure but it sure seems like that is the case at least to some degree. There are two sides to every story and it seems like people in this thread are swallowing one of them wholesale while the other is ignored. For a different perspective read the thread I posted at about the same time. I would have posted here if I'd realized Garrett had already posted.

It is possible that he got the run around, sure, but he also needs to realize that he's old and his glove isn't there anymore, becoming a DH is what you do when this happens in the AL. Plus, the FO job is to say, "We can have a better SS, 2B, and 3B and move this guy to DH". It might hurt Michael, but who now regrets having Elvis at SS over MY. When Beltre grabs a bunt with his bare hand and throws a guy out, who will regret MY not being there. I for one still have memories of losing Game 1 of the WS because MY couldn't handle his glove very well. Nevertheless, there are a lot of porous defenders in baseball who still get playing time because of money and the fact that their icons. Fair enough. Also, maybe the FO kept vacillating because they really think trading MY would also allow them to sign Hamilton, Cruz, CJ for long term. These things happen in business deals and usually someone gets hurt, unfortunately.

Joe, I completely agree with your post... There is more to this than we think and not only has the front office done manipulated michael but also us fans for not coming out and clearing everything up. I understand now to why MY is upset,since I have thought about it

How was JD being misleading?? Everyone knows MY sucks on D and is a great HITTER thats why they tried to put him at Designated HITTER. I thought he wanted to win? He gets a taste of winning and now he wants to leave? FTW

Skeletor,

Fine, someone gets hurt, but when that happens you ought to be upfront with the person instead of trying to have your cake and eat it too. Personally, I wish they would have just assured MY of his at least 140 games unless he went into a horrible slump and that may have avoided all of this nastiness. Instead, JD basically made it clear to him that he would have to compete with Napoli, Moreland, and Murphy for at bats. If JD had been upfront about that MY would have asked for a trade, but here's the thing, JD would have also had to take a PR hit for that, and that is what he didn't want to do. So he treated Michael badly by weaving and spinning around the problem instead of attacking it head on.

Joe

jdb,

If that was Garrett and not you pretending to be him that changed his mind I commend him for being humble and admitting that he had not thought something through completely. In a similar situation you would probably just stick your head in the sand and continue polluting the air we breathe with your methaneous shit cloud of toxins.

Joe

PS Vent fan please Joey.

Martin,

Read my longer post in the other forum post on this and tell me what you think. I think its clear JD was not upfront with MY. I'm not saying JD should not have gone out and gotten Beltre, only that he should have been upfront with MY that he could possibly lose lots of at bats.

Joe

Nolan could be the big loser here. If you care to check it, Nolan has been the true straight arrow through everything since he took his present position. If all that he has said was filled with superfuge and acrimony then 'shame on Nolan.' The Rangers have brought in a new cast and never paid any respect to the person who has provided credibility throughout the last ten seasons. If this is the true Nolan then may your cattle die in the field and all that you have amassed be squandered for naught. Anybodty who could not see this coming has brown stuff all around their neck from sticking it where brown stuff is found.
You keep leading your star on and then dump him into a pile of resevoir dogs. It is not about the money for MY. It is about the legacy and the memories he has cherished. When the roster was bare he won Batting Titles and All Star MVP awards. He showed up everyday and did everything to make the Rangers a winner. If he goes or stays; I don't care but have a little class FO. It is a disgrace to humanity and Baseball.

Tom B,

I think your words are too strong. I don't think anyone is a Darth Vader type antagonist here. I also think that the fact JD was not upfront with MY could very possibly have been because there was disagreement between Nolan and Wash and JD. So you have JD doing things that are putting pressure on Young to realize he is going to have to accept a reduced role or ask for a trade and you have the official line of the organization which was that MY will be the full time DH. Basically, the mixed signals were based on the disagreement within the FO. I think there has been some very bad lack of communication as well as a failure of any one person being completely in charge. Ultimately, this may have been Greenberg's fault for not stepping in and laying down the law concerning how MY would be treated and what he would be told. So MY received mixed messages reflecting the disagreement in the FO. And that is pretty shitty, but I do not think that anyone here is the nemesis. JD may well be responsible for some manipulation and misleading but I do not think that it rises to the level which you describe. If anything maybe JD is too used to dealing with GM's and forgot that he needed to be upfront with MY, who is the most respected player in DFW sports right now.

Joe

PS Is a JD apology forthcoming in which he describes the fact that the FO was not as clear as they should have been with MY? I suppose it could also be the case that they were completely clear with him but I think it is more likely that each side of the story has some legitimacy.

Gimme a break, Joe.

JD was not unfairly misleading Young or being less upfront than he should have been. He was doing his job. I don't know if you've ever had to fire someone before, but if you're firing them on Friday, and you know it on Tuesday, you DON'T TELL THEM ON TUESDAY. You tell them Friday just before closing time, so that they're not malcontents in the office between now and then. Sorry, that's how it has to be done.

This is doubly true of a GM trying to make a trade, because the LAST thing you want is to have a player find out you're shopping him, and then have the trade fall through and have a malcontent on the team.

I'm quite certain no one ever said "we gaurantee that you will be a full-time starter". I'm sure JD said something like "the plan is for you to be the full-time DH", which is JD speak for "I'm always looking to upgrade anywhere I can, but as the roster stands now, you would probably be the full-time DH". That's how the guy talks. It's how any good GM talks. It's how you HAVE to talk to a guy when you want to find a better replacement but have not yet secured that player.

JD won this one. He's had bad blood for Young ever since the trade-me-don't-trade-me spat of 2008 over Elvis taking over at SS. Now he's got a better team with Beltre and Napoli, he'll be rid of Young, rid of nearly $30m of his salary, get some pieces in return, and have the cash and roster space to pursue other players. And with JD's track record, who wants to bet against him finding another outstanding piece somewhere? And he did it all with Michael Young making himself look like the Bad Guy to most of the public.

Jedi JD is going to build us a lot of winners in the next decade. Get excited.

MY. Thanks for the memories. You're always welcome as part of the Rangers family. Enjoy Coors Field (or wherever).

The big winner in this, besides JD obviously, is David Murphy, who's going to get the ABs he so richly deserves.

Twisted Webs~

If JD is manipulative and Plan 'A'= a short input for Mike.
JD couldn't have picked a worse scenario. With Young
pulling in 3y/$48mm and a 5y/10y power hold on trades,
how bad could it get, if JD ever wanted to trade him?
Are you going to pay a huge contract to have Mike sit?
Oh, have Mike force JD to trade him as Plan 'B'? Right, JD
wanted 1/2 of DFW jumping him in the press as disloyal
to the FACE and trust turmoil in the Ranger locker room.
JD knows & Mikey knows...suggested background music?

Scooby: "The big winner in this, besides JD obviously, is David Murphy, who's going to get the ABs he so richly deserves."

Yep!

Scooby,

So you are saying that JD told MY that he would have a full time role (or said that was the plan) at DH all along shopping for a player the acquisition of which would cut into his full time role at DH?

I think one needs to be more honest and upfront than that. Your players are not opposing GM's and deserve to be treated with respect, especially those who have sacrificed a lot for the franchise multiple times.

Maybe you just don't care about respect and treating people well because you seem to perceive
others as enemies (opposing Jedis or something) rather than friends.

JD should have just told him what he was thinking and he would have asked for a trade fair and square.

Joe

A boss is not an employees's friend and cannot act like one. What if the Napoli trade had not come together? Then Michael Young's bat would be needed. This is how it is done pretty much at every major sports franchise in America, because it has to be done this way. Maybe JD could have been a bit more diplomatic. Maybe. But it's a business, and Young's vitriolic response strikes me as a temper tantrum.

Mike is frustrated, which is understandable, if you look at things from his perspective. JD is probably frustrated, too, if you look at things from his perspective. The media loves drama and soap opera, and all this just feeds into that unnecessarily. This whole thing is a case study on how not to conduct business. But the bottom line is still the bottom line: Texas gave Mike this crazy contract, and so they fitted the albatross around their own necks. And Mike should probably think about how he looks complaining about being "manipulated and misled" when he's making 80 mil dollars in 5 years at the same time that many people in our country have no jobs, no health care, and have lost their homes. I would give anything to be misled and manipulated like that! At the end of the day, Mike has actually only made it harder for him to be traded, and now JD is the one in the corner. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the next week.

Joe - what do you mean by respect? Because it seems like you are missing the point here. The real issue is that TX has just gotten a lot better - and defensively there are better players than Mike, regardless of his contract or service. Are they supposed to just ignore that, and plug him into 3B for 3 more years, watching him blow play after play, getting slower every game? Did TX show "disrespect" for Vlad by not resigning him - you know he wanted to come back... No - they thanked him for his service with his salary, and he'll get a WS ring, but they made the right business decision to pass on him, because of his declining skills.

So this isn't an issue of respect, at least in the sense that you are saying it.