We couldn't sign Cliff Lee, but we could Arther Rhodes, whose age in the Texas heat reveals he pitches like Methuselah. So the wonderlich savant two-some of Daniels and Ryan sign a, supposedly, great gold Glover to kick Michael Young off of 3rd base. Well that man cost $96 million and he's hitting .259 with 10 errors. Michael is hitting .315 with with decent abilities of playing the field.

What was the better deal; another year for Cliff or paying $96 million for a stud to be a dud. Now the tRangers are looking at Scott Kazmir and touting that Eric Hurley is looking good....huh?

I've lost faith in the decisions of Nolan and Boy Wonder. Didn't they let Rudy Jaramillo go over money and how many hitting coaches have we had since. They pushed Bourbon as an everyday center fielder and where his he now. Daniels sold Matt Treanor and we wind up with Yorvit; great arm but questionable defense and not great at handling pitchers.

It's time to hold Ryan and Daniels accountable. You guys and I could find an Arthur Rhodes, a Scott Kazmir, MasonTobin or a Brandon Webb hiding on someone's disabled list or past the age of sanity.

WHERE are all those young arms that we keep hearing about on the MLB's #1 greatest minor league system?

I just wanted to let this out and know what ya'll think

I know the padmy is going to come up, but come on now

I'm going on a hunger strike if C.J. leaves. We have too much money to spend , and if he walks we are fu****

Tap the brakes a bit there pal - throughout its history this franchise has oft been considered one of the lauighingstocks of MLB. The first taste of any semblance of ACTUAL success in this fledgling franchise's history was brought about almost exclusively by the process implemented and carried out by "Boy Wonder", and to a lesser extent, Nolan.

Considering the fruits of their leadership had us leaping for joy all of 8 months ago, I think they have more than earned our trust and patience at this point.

Agree with you Caleb. JD still isn't perfect--see Treanor, Saltalamachia, Harden, Feldman's contract, prospects for Guzman and Cantu, plus top tier prospects to a division rival for rent-a-Lee (jury's still out on that one). Still, he's gotten about 1000% better since his first two years of disastrous on-the-job training. Hard to argue much with the product that has been fielded the last two years nor the farm system that had been built up by last year.

Jaramillo definitely turned out to be overrated in light of what Hurdle was able to do. Hurdle's departure has definitely hurt. (Vlad's as well--in spite of his drop in production he brought a lot to the team in many different ways).

There are no Cliff Lee's out there this year, so Wash and the players we have need to really turn it up a notch.

I have been a major critic of not resigning Lee.
The Treanor deal is pretty questionable to say the least.
However not every trade is perfect and not every move will work out.
The only thing that counts is production and they got us to the WS last year. So OSB, Nolan, and JD get a lot of latitude with me and they should with every fan.
The Tom Landry Tex Schram days of the Texas Rangers might be upon us. We probably won't know what we have right now until we don't have it anymore. Keep that in mind.

I will get absolutely reamed for this. but mark my words. Nolan Ryan will interfere with at least one major trade/acquisition in the future. Nolan is a stubborn old codger and sometimes has forgotten how much the game has evolved. its not his fault its just Nolan being Nolan. but the best way to think of Nolan is Bill Parcells. Old, stubborn, set in their ways. there are certain ppl Nolan likes and certain ppl he doesnt llike. again, nothing wrong with that. but there will be a point in the future that Nolan will interfere with JDs business based on his outdated opinion, how they handle that relationship will define this team for years to come

Dcaggie, you completely stated how I feel about this situation. He's the boss and he gets the final say. But I agree with all of your points

He has no problems spending party money on 35,000 hot dogs, why would he on one pitcher?

So you don't think an Owner/President should get involved with a trade?

oh i've never said that. however when you have a clash of opinion thats when you see relationships fall apart. this is a semi/good/bad example but you should see my point. When parcells signed his contract with jerry this was the closest anybody has ever come to being GM over jerry. in Parcells contract it was explicitly stated that Parcells would have final decision on all personnell moves.

Well TO gets released and Jerry just salivates and jumps at the opportunity. Parcells said no. he didnt like his character and didnt want to be undermined by a player as TO often does. Jerry brings him in anyways hence your ownership interference. Now Parcells tried to make it work. He coached TO an entire year, however the relationship was never the same and he resigned.

So you can look at it two ways, and it basically break it to two types of management. you can have the involved owner. or you can have the owner, that trust in himself, that he hired the right group of guys to make personell decisions on his behalf. What happens more often than not, and i fear will happen with nolan and JD is that; lets face it, hicks said this is our budget (no matter how asinine) do with it what you want. so JD did what he could with what he had. I dont see Nolan just sitting back and writing checks. he was the president before but the relationship dynamic has changed now that he's president. At some point JD is going to approach Nolan with a deal that JD thinks will really help the team, and Nolan is going to say no. he has every right to. my point is more how that involvement will effect their relationship going forward, eventually causing JD to leave.

But if you want an honest answer, if an owner hires the right people, and trusts them then no, there should be little to no involvement inpersonell decisions. that technically is the GMs job. Look at Boston, St. Louis, Philly, The Patriots, Greenbay and so forth. All very strong teams with strong ownership and strong GMs. you dont hear the owner of boston telling Theo epstein who can and cant be on his team. you hear the owner saying you get me the best you can and i'll sign the check. but thats just my opinion. i'm not a fan of owners getting involved. Nolan's a little different cuz most owners dont know the game, but like i stated previously, Nolan doesnt know how much the game has evolved since he played.

DCaggie, I don't disagree with anything you wrote in the post immediately above this one about the relationship between GMs and owners, but I strongly disagree with your comments on Nolan working on outdated opinions.

I'm confused by your Parcells analogy. You say earlier that Parcells was old, stubborn, stuck in his ways and operating on outdated opinions, but then you use his opposition to the TO signing as the example? By the standards of any rational person, Parcells was dead on with his assessment. I don't care how talented TO is, you don't want him on your team. You don't want to have to play against him, but you also don't want him on your team.

Look, I know most people disagree with my own disagreement with the way many people now treat stats with near obsessive adherence, almost to the exclusion of many of the mindsets that ran baseball for decades. Some of that may have been wrong thinking, but much of it was right, and having TO on your team is the perfect example (albeit in another sport) of the role played by intangibles in sports.

Nolan played the game at the highest level for almost 30 years. I think Jon Daniels is pretty impressive, but his playing career probably peaked somewhere around little league ball (maybe high school? I dunno). I'm sure he knows the business, and the Rangers are lucky to have him. But I'm also fairly confident trusting most of Nolan's opinions and thoughts on baseball and how it is played. It certainly takes some big ones to call his opinions on baseball outdated.

There's not anybody in here, that hasn't questioned the choices, thoughts
and theory of Wash, Daniels & Ryan. It's a natural involved fan metamorphosis.
I, personally, have locomotive 'brain train' on every aspect, in which Garret speaks...
almost verbatim. Eventually, with better patience in breakdown, I see the whole
& broader picture. I can't expect myself to be 100% in congruence with the Ranger
Org. Their decisions are the ACT, mine mere thoughts. I'm the one that needs changing
and to morph into the reality... whether I like it or not. My opinion is what it is, but in the
long run, it means diddly. I want results. I want 2win... win BIG, as in the World Series!

My trust & patience have morphed into a level I can live with and enjoy. I'm not running the
Club, so the crux, is the ENJOYMENT. With all the Saber stats hitting me in the face, I see
more reality than I actually want to absorb. My mind can turn it off. I don't have to be
smarter than the average Bear. I can live with the loss of Lee. Enjoy Mikey as a unique
player, besides some frailties/imperfections. Not think whether Beltre was 'best choice' as
our winter fare. Basically, I'm not wound so tight that I lose focus on the fact our Texas
Rangers are Champions and pretty much in good hands for years. PLAY BALL ... I'll watch
gleefully every game, from the beginning, but as a fan~ I won't be Bo-Peep.
I love Winning.

@Dan

I apologize i was attempting to answer multiple questions at one time. i'll try to make this more concise.

1. my allussion to Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells was just a mere allegory and reflection upon owner interference in personell decision when there shouldnt be, and the effects on the relationships involved. It was my semi answer to mhilg, on whether owners should get involved.

2. Maybe i used the wrong words wen i said outdated, the best phrase might just be "old school" and Ryan is very old school. The entire proceedings while trying to resign Lee he kept referreing to how in his day pitchers never got contracts over 3 years. i'm sorry man, but that kind of thinking is not going to fly. This is just my opinion. I have no opposition to signing Cliff Lee to a 7th year if you get him signed. Cuz lets get real who ever truly finishes their contracts w the same team. Around year 4 or 5 you could easily have traded Lee then who gives a crap that he was signed for 7 years. I'm not necessarily saying that his old school mentality is wrong, if fact its brought a lot to the rangers. Our pitchers are going deeper into games, we're picking better more nolan type pitchers its a good thing. However when it comes to contract situations, thats where i have to question his old school mentality. you have to bring something new to the table, and JD does that. The Beltre contract is a perfect example. some though it was excessive but when the final year is heavily inning laden, then thats a very innovative approach to a player when you have injury concearns. dont be surprised when you see something similar done with Hamilton, but that was JDs approach. not Nolan's. Nolan's a straight shooter and a lot is black and white with him, and unfortunately you stand to lose alot with that mentality.

3. this is actually probably one of the hardest forums to answer to come around. because Nolan holds sooo many roles with this club. he's the Owner, CEO, President of Operations, and he has one other role i cant remember.... thats a power trip almost too much for one person, and that scares me. it should scare any rangers fan. as a cowboys fan we all know they cowboys are not going to succeed or make another superbowl until Jerry relinquishes his role as GM. An Owner cannot have that much power. it only leads to an implosion. so yeah... thanks garrett this is up there with math homework. very difficult to answer....

Being an awesome GM is easy...sign Lee for 7/160...hell why not just go 200 on him? Give Pujols 400 this offseason, too!!!

dont be a smart ass. you and r100 one in the same. you just pop up to say something negative. add something contributive to the conversation or save the bandwidth

You really think they could have signed Lee for seven years, then traded him easily in four? Without paying most of his remaining contract?

depending on performance yeah. but its a risk you have to be willing to take if you want the best.

if we can trade millwood at his worst, then some team would take lee at 75% if he even got that "bad". i dont see the arguement of why eveyone is so pro lee for 6 years and anti lee for 7. i understand the conservative nature of the majority of the posters on this site. but quit living in the hicks era. its a new day and its been a new day. we can afford to take a few gambles. i see no difference in the contract we offered lee for one of the top 5 pitchers in this league then the contract we offered beltre a position player, granted a good one, but one with injury risks. they took that gamble but not the other? you cant tell me with a clear mind that this team is better without lee and with beltre than vise versa. if you can.... man can i buy some pot from you?

regardless it doesnt matter thats not what this forum is about anyways. its about the evaluation of JD and Nolan thus far. I think their fine but i'm sticking with my opinion that i do belive at some point Ryan will over stip his bounds with JD. but again its complicated to draw the line with Ryan holding so much power on that team. its hard to say where the line is, and what he can, or cannot do. I dont necessarily agree with it, but it is what it is.

I can't believe some of doubting JD and Nolan seriously? Come on, Lee took less money to go to the Phillies nothing u can do, Beltre has been far better than any average 3B he saves runs almost every night, its easy to have more errors when u get to more balls and he leads the team in RBI, bad signing, NO. If u watch the damn games u would know that. Arthur Rhodes had been one of the best relievers the past 2 years. Sometimes free agents have bad years. Trading some of our prospects at the upper levels got us to the freakin World Series I don't care whose division they are in stop being an idiot think about what u say and check facts.

DC and all the peeps that don't like "owner interference".
I used to work for a company and if I ever questioned how they did something I was told well when your name's on the sign you can make those changes meaning the signage outside. So I kind of feel that way about people who bitch about Jerry and Cuban being active owners, If they owned the team they would want to have input and final decision making authority on major and procedural decisions and policy. Yeah I lumped Cuban in with Jerry even though Cuban only has one ring.
The other thing is Ryan is not an owner more like a minority investor and very minority investor that is the President or Baseball Opps. maybe the general opps as well. The actual owners of the Rangers have put Ryan in place and you better believe he has to answer to them if the shit hits the fan. So far they have let him have anything he wants, I know these kinds of owners I like to think I am the way these guys are let your managers manage and hold them accountable. But the punishment for failure will be swift and final if 5 years from now this team hasn't been what they could have been with Cliff Lee. That's my prediction, if in 5 years this thing isn't a perennial contender and Lee is still rolling there will be hell to pay.
There better be at least.

Now on the Baseball part of it, DC and HUBz you guys are all exactly right its not the Hicks era. Money is much different now.

dc makes me miss Joe...

come on man, that over the line. whats with the aggie on aggie hate crime?!

Surely he jest's DC.