It's not Josh's job to play well? His job is just to play while we can only hope he does it well? Hmm...

Your job doesn't require you to do it well? You just show up, collect a check, and your employer can only pray you don't suck at it? Sounds pretty sweet.

Honestly, the lengths some people go to to try to defend Josh Hamilton kills me. He's really got the sweet little grandma fanbase locked up.

That's exactly right, it's not his job to play well. I get paid to do my job, everyday processes and things that need to be done, whatever is in my job description. It's not my job to exceed expectations and go above and beyond. But when I do, I'm commended for it. If I suck at it, then I get fired. That goes for every job out there, it's not that difficult to comprehend.

Every employment offer and contract athletes sign is based on hope, because results are not guaranteed. If you know for sure how good or bad someone will play in the next seasons before signing players to contracts, then congrats, you have the ability to be the greatest GM in the history of sports.

The Rangers signed Brandon Webb because they HOPED he could recover back to his previous form. They signed Kinsler to an extension because they HOPE he could keep performing at a high level. They gave Joey Gallo over $2M because they're HOPE he could become a future power hitter.

The Rangers paid Hamilton a lot of money because he has a much higher probability to producing better results than the next guy and they HOPE he will outproduce him, not because he will for sure will. Just because Josh or any other player has the ability to hit .300 and bash a ton of home runs, that doesn't mean their abilities will manifest in their stats year after year.

When my company hired me, did they know how for sure good or bad of an employee I would be? Absolutely not, they could only deduce a probability from the interviews, and when they make the offer, they're hoping the probability of me sucking doesn't happen.

Hamilton's job is to play baseball, we just hope his production can justify his contract.

All that being said, the Rangers are paying him $13.7 million. He's produced 4.9 WAR on Fangraphs, you can do the math, he's done a much better job than how he's being paid. It's ridiculous to think that he should play very well every single day of his career and never have one bad day. Is every single one of your days good? Doubtful. It's also ridiculous to think he should be criticized for every bad game yet not commended when he has a great one.

I really don't have any preference for Hamilton at all, I'm just letting the stats do all of the talking. I for one do not want to see him back after this season. I'm only defending him because your criticism of him really has no substance.

Wow, I feel like I'm on the halo's heaven website. A bunch of petty, venom filled bitching when one of the most talented players in baseball has a bad game. They are called MISTAKES. Everyone makes them.

@ Spanks: you're a tool. Oh and you're late for your shift at Wal-Mart. Those carts aren't going to gather themselves. Please find another team to root for because you suck as a person.

Wow, I feel like I'm on the halo's heaven website. A bunch of petty, venom filled bitching when one of the most talented players in baseball has a bad game. They are called MISTAKES. Everyone makes them.

@ Spanks: you're a tool. Oh and you're late for your shift at Wal-Mart. Those carts aren't going to gather themselves. Please find another team to root for because you suck as a person.

lolololol Scumbag Reagan. Bitches about petty venomous bitching, then proceeds to ad hominem the shit out of me. Priceless. This is such an entertaining character trait of Hamilton fans.
There are quite a few girls who abandoned the Rangers for the Angels when CJ left. I'm hoping Josh takes his creepier fanbase with him when he leaves too.

T, you're far too long winded. Doing your job WELL is not the same thing as exceeding expectations.

And doing your job and doing it well are also two different things. Even then, the Rangers paid Hamilton $13.7 million. At $4.5 million per WAR, that's an expectation of 3.04 WAR. Hamilton is at 4.9 WAR. He's exceeded expectations by $8.35 million. I really can't see any justification in bashing him when he has outplayed his salary by miles.

Man, Spanks has come out of the woodwork the last few days just lambasting this team. Sucks to be so angry all the time man.

Btw, don't know what Ranger fans you hang out with or talk to. Never heard of anyone abandoning the Rangers to become an Angel fan bc of CJ Wilson.

Sounds like Spanks left us for the Angels bandwagon... and now that they're out of it, it's time to focus our crosshairs on the biggest target we can find. A guy who isn't playing particularly well, right now.

You know who always reacts properly and does "what he should"? Michael Young. I guess we're all glad MY shows the proper level of frustration after grounding into another double play. Personally, I could care less what his reaction is... the only things that matters is the play on the field.

Also... if Josh's only Job Description bullet is "play well", then I'd say he's done a pretty good job these last few years. Complaining about future performance and a future contract and not being a Ranger any longer is one thing, but complaining about how this guy has performed as a Ranger is kind of absurd.

Anybody is allowed have any opinion they want, just as anyone is allowed to think your opinion is worthless.

I don't know what you're talking about, Crow. I'm subjected to attacks and abuse for expressing my opinion, yet I'm the angry one? I don't criticize the team. I criticize Wash when he makes stupid decisions. I criticize Josh from time to time when he plays like shit and doesn't seem to care, and I'm not the only one doing so. I'm not even the only one doing so in THIS thread, and I'm not even the one who STARTED this thread criticizing his efforts. Plenty of people agree that he looked like he checked out yesterday.

I even supported one of your theories the other day, defending the use of Lowe, when everyone else told you you were full of shit. But if you feel the need to continue to pile on me as the face of the critics, then by all means carry on.

Off the top of my head I can point you to at least three women on Twitter who transferred alegences to the Angels after CJ left. If I wanted to study his adoring Twitter mentions I could find more. But because you don't know any, I guess they don't exist.

The population of people who like CJ Wilson here is very miniscule... If even existent at all.

The bottom line is, he had ONE bad day. His overall body of work is still MVP caliber is he's exceeding the expectations of his salary. Why would you want to gripe about that?

Who cares if it LOOKS like he's not trying? Do you know for a fact that he's not? You don't, so why would you let that bother you? The only person that can answer that is Hamilton himself. He said he's trying to stay upbeat, smile, and have fun because that gives him the best chance to get the best results, that's his mannerism.

Because it's his mannerism, he looks like he's not trying when he has an 0-fer and misplays fly balls. He looks like he's not trying when he's hitting multi-HR games. Should we complain in those games too? He drove in 3 runs! But it didn't look like he's trying.... So let's criticize him.

The only difference in those scenarios are the results. Well, the season's results state that he's putting up a 5 WAR season and he is a top 5 MVP candidate. That is why I don't believe criticizing him is warranted, not because I'm a CJ Wilson or Josh Hamilton fanboy who believes his every word is gospel.

I don't understand why you're fixated on this CJ Wilson business. I simply said some of his fans switched allegiance to his new team when he left, and that I hoped some of Josh's more rabid apologists--like the ones who attack anyone who dares criticize him--will do the same when he leaves.

Spanks

My apologies for singling you out. You were the most recent one I saw on the most recent thread I was reading. I've just been annoyed w/ the overall fickle, reactionary, hyperbolic statements being made the last couple of days about the Rangers on these message boards.

I, for one am a Josh Hamilton fan, but my allegiance to him is only around his on-field performance, which I believe to be of premier quality. My allegiance to the Rangers is far superior to that of Josh Hamilton, though, and I think all of the people who frequent this site would take the Rangers over any particular player.

Again, my apologies for singling you out. I let my frustration get the better out of me. As of now, let's just hope Koji/Nathan can stop the bleeding that Mike Adams has enabled here in the 8th....

Except I'm not a rabid apologist, I'm only attacking your criticism because it really isn't warranted. It would be fair to criticize the way he handled his impending free agency, some of the things he says to the media, the timing of him trying to quit tobacco among other things, but not so much his on the field play because he's a top 5 MVP candidate.

So I take it you're not going to respond to any of my points in my previous post with an argument to back your own opinion?

I have seen psychotropic meds such as Cymbalta sometimes cause this California-style demeanor. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on here, as it is quite odd to be smiling at such circumstances.

Regardless, the bat launching is something that can be worked on.

I don't want to weigh in on this, but I did have to say something to reagan. Maybe I'm wrong, but I inferred that you're saying cart-pushers are losers. As a former cart-pusher, I find it very offensive. Not all cart-pushers do that because they lack the skills to do something more "meaningful" (though without cart-pushers, there wouldn't be any parking spots because people are too damned lazy to return their carts to the designated areas, so yeah, cart-pushers are important), some of them just really enjoy a job at which you can show up stoned out of your mind and walk around all day with little to worry about. I like to think I was one of the latter.

Honestly, T, I'm tired of talking about it. I don't really feel the need to back up my opinions or justify them to you or anyone, because I'm entitled to them. I'm not interested in changing your mind, nor am I interested in you changing my mind. Everything Josh has said and done this season has led me to where I am with him now, including his on-field demeanor and performance. You still appear to have patience with him because he's productive enough, and that's fine. My patience with his whole schtick, however, has just about run out.

Thanks, Crow. I appreciate it.

He's one of the 3 best players on the team, leading the AL in HRs, near the top in RBI, still gets walked A LOT and plays above average defense.

So...we're going to rip him for a misplay on a ball most guys can't get to, blow up if he strikes out on a bad pitch (shocker, a power hitter striking out), and tell him to stop...smiling?

Sometime I miss when the Rangers were bad...seems like the fans were better then.

Josh is most likely going to be playing somewhere else in 2013, and the Rangers will not be better off without him. He carried the team early in the year when so many guys were sucking wind. Without him, we're in 3rd place right now.

@CJ

Though I agree with much of what you're saying (minus mentioning RBI as a valuable statistic) in your first three stanzas, particularly this: Sometime I miss when the Rangers were bad...seems like the fans were better then, I do think the Rangers would still be in first place without Josh.

Not to be overly technical, because I try to blend some kind of intuitive perception along with the metrics, but Josh Hamilton has been worth 4.9 fWAR this season. If you rounded that up to five, theoretically the Rangers would be a game behind Oakland. But if you factor in the added runs saved defensively by some variation of a 70% Gentry/30% Martin platoon, along with other players knowing they'd have to step up through their offensive roles changing (Kins, Cruz), then I'd still see Texas owning a 2.0 game lead. Also, without Josh, I believe this team would attempt to steal bases on a much, much higher frequency. We won't see the real Rangers running game until the playoffs start.

If we're talking Adrian Beltre being absent, then that's where I'd say the Rangers would not be in the same position, because a backup like Michael Young would cost the Rangers a ton of extra runs, but that's for a different discussion, I suppose.

I think everyone just wants to see their players throwing helmets and yelling and getting pissed off every time they make an out. They can't handle something crazy like smiling.

How about we just cut everyone from the current team, and just start new...that will fix everything right?

I am totally baffled by the unreasonable hate for Josh Hamilton on this website.It's similar to Tony Romo hate. But Josh has been an mvp and helped this team to two world series.Considering the numbers he has put up and everything he has done for this team,it must either be his faith or his drug history. The bad swings certainly don't outweigh the glorious home runs.You constantly make assumptions about what is going on in his mind and his heart.It's amazing that you want this gifted player gone.

@Spanks

Ha! At least I don't hate the players on my team. I'm not a Josh homer, but neither do I expect him to be perfect. This is the real world, son. People screw up and have bad games. There is no way Michael Young should be on the field but I don't hate him for it. There are more important things in life than hating someone for how he has played baseball for the last four months.

"Josh is most likely going to be playing somewhere else in 2013, and the Rangers will not be better off without him. He carried the team early in the year when so many guys were sucking wind. Without him, we're in 3rd place right now."

Absolutely. There may be one player who can replace him in the lineup and that's Mike Trout (unfortunately).

johnnyranger you're my hero. ( I don't want to weigh in on this, but I did have to say something to reagan. Maybe I'm wrong, but I inferred that you're saying cart-pushers are losers. As a former cart-pusher, I find it very offensive. Not all cart-pushers do that because they lack the skills to do something more "meaningful" (though without cart-pushers, there wouldn't be any parking spots because people are too damned lazy to return their carts to the designated areas, so yeah, cart-pushers are important), some of them just really enjoy a job at which you can show up stoned out of your mind and walk around all day with little to worry about. I like to think I was one of the latter.)

Some of you guys are not seeing the difference in definition between "frustration" and "hate." Just because someone is frustrated with Josh Hamilton for some things he has done does NOT mean he hates him. Get real. Hauling off and calling someone a "hater" is a convenient way to quell someone's argument about Josh's attitude.

No one here is going to argue with the fact that Josh is a 5-tool player; a real fucking special player; who happens to be leading the homerun race despite a couple of months of suspect play. My god man, can you imagine where he would be if he would have played an average June/July/August? Fuck, Miguel who? Mike Trout who?

Good riddance. Get the hell off this team. Would not even care if you don't bother to show up on Friday.