L M A O

@goodasgoldyesmaam

Cruz and Young -2 WAR? Where did you get that from? Cruz is 1.3 fWAR, and Young -1.4 fWAR. You do realize that you're nitpicking, right? Not many teams are going to be able to throw out 4 WAR players at every position..

Who would you suggest to replace Moreland that wouldn't increase the already overbudget budget? Options are very limited, if there even are any.

Yes they could use upgrades, but the starters as a whole minus Young was very good this year.

Two more aces? The Rangers cannot afford that. This isn't MLB The Show where you can just trade for Verlander and Halladay. Darvish is the ace and Harrison is a very good #2. You don't have aces for your 3-5 starters for good reason, they're too expensive. No team has 4 aces. The Phillies came close last year, but they fizzled out in the first round, lot of good it did them. It's only possible if most are homegrown to keep costs down, but Martin hasn't panned out as an ace.

A rotation of Darvish, Harrison, Lewis, Holland, Feliz/Ogando is VERY good.

The belief that the Rangers have a lot of money to work with isn't necessarily true. The owners are already out of pocket and overbudget. Freeing up Hamilton's 13M is great, but if the team was 13M over budget to begin with, then there's no "free money."

I wholeheartedly agree with T here.

I'm betting we could roll out a 2013 rotation of Greinke, Verlander, Darvish, Harrison and Holland, replace Moreland with Prince Fielder, replace Cruz with Jason Heyward, replace Michael Young with Miguel Cabrera, and then maybe look to get Josh Hamilton back?

Yeah, damn reality still hasn't given us a force trade button and thrown budgets out the window. I'm pissed.

The idea is to pump out pitchers from the minor leagues to replace the pitchers who are ready to cash in on the free agent market. The Rangers have enough capital to afford two expensive pitchers (Darvish/Greinke?), one kind-of-but-not-really expensive pitcher (Derek Holland), and then the last two spots ideally go to guys making league minimum.

In our case, Matt Harrison has two years of arbitration left, then I'm assuming he'll be gone because he'll be too expensive to bring back. I figure there was a choice to be made between he and Holland, and Derek's stuff was more projectable, so they went with him. Harry is only a #3 on a good staff, and C.J. Wilson money is too much for him.

Where the Rangers have an advantage on most teams in baseball is a very strong farm system. We have more assets than all but maybe one team (Oakland), so there will be no rebuilding process in Arlington for the next 5-7 years. It's reload, then reload again, then reload again.

As long as we can address the hole Josh Hamilton creates by departing, we will be competitive next year. If we happen to acquire a TORP of the Zach Greinke/David Price/Josh Johnson variety, we will be favorites to win the west. I think the list of priorities goes in order of an OF bat, a catcher, a TORP, dumping Michael Young, then adding on a couple relievers to finish off the roster. I'm comfortable with the Moreland/Olt and Martin/Gentry platoons.

This team is in good hands with JD. He won't leave any stones unturned. The Rangers organization is dedicated to winning, and they aren't going to go into 2013 with any holes on the roster.

Great troll thread. But I love the people still whining about Dempster. We lose Colby and Feliz for the season, so they go out and get a guy who had a 2.25 ERA at the time for a couple of A-ball prospects. Well, he sucked against good teams after that. Would you rather be in the Angels position having blown your top prospects on a guy (Greinke) who couldn't even get you into the playoffs and who was about to be a free agent anyway? Man we need the real JD: Jerry DiPoto.

Stupidest post of the year. Congratulations.

This is the most ridiculous post I have ever read on BBTiA. I'm amazed that so much thought was obviously put into a post and that at the point where Yu Darvish was slammed as a bad decision, the poster didn't immediately hold down the backspace button and decide this post was a bad idea. No GM is perfect, but good gosh man what's your end game here? Get rid of JD because Darvish didn't win the Cy Young? Get rid of JD because he took a low risk, high reward play on Dempster that didn't fully pan out? Get rid of JD because he didn't wreck the clubhouse of a team in first place through 161 games of the season by giving the manager an ultimatum?

Yeah, you know what, you're right. Let's just go get another GM. They're so easy to find and pretty much anybody could do their job...now let's see where's that backspace button again...

Getting onto the GM because they had a terribly lethargic end to a season after back-to-back appearances in the WS is short sighted. I'm not saying hes untouchable. I'm not saying he cant get on my bad side with some terrible moves. But over the last, 6 or w/e years hes been in charge, our farm system has become a juggernaut and our big team has become a perennial contender. Overall, hes done the job about as well as you can to this point and has earned some leeway.

And c'mon not all of those moves were bad or his fault. The jury is still out on Darvish and Martin. Cliff Lee took less money to go elsewhere. Greinke would have taken Olt or Perez and honestly wasnt that much better than dempster down the stretch.

Is this offseason a very important one for JD's job security? 100% yes. Is it a make or break offseason? I think hes done enough in his tenure that if he misses, no one would be calling for his head...yet.

However, personally, I dont see that happening. He is too diligent, is never satisfied, and is always looking to make improvements when they make sense. In JD I trust.

It is very easy to get lost in the moment on this topic. The taste in all Rangers fans mouths is bitter still. The team dropped off a cliff, lost the division on the last day of the season, and got smoked out of the playoffs at home by the Joe Saunders-led Orioles. Sure, the Rangers are going to make some changes, more than likely some big ones. That was already on the slate for this offseason, whether the Rangers won the World Series or didn't make the playoffs. These guys were going to be free agents at the end of this year from the time they stepped in the box on opening day. The young guys (Olt, Profar, Martin) were going to be looked at as possible major leaguers this offseason regardless of what happened during the year. All changes won't be happening in response to losing alone. This offseason dictates it. The agenda is different. There is more opportunity for change than the previous couple of seasons.

And just like we can be captured in the moment of a 4 homer game or an inexplicable drop in the outfield, we can be held captive by looking at individual successes and failures of our GM to determine his effectiveness. The Teixeira move was brilliant. MY's contract? Not so much. But let's look a little bigger picture here.

Back-to-back AL Champions
3 years in a row to the playoffs
One of the most successful organizations in international signings in MLB
Has built and rebuilt and rebuilt and rebuilt the farm system into a strength for the organization every year. I feel this is likely the crowning achievement for JD. No other team in baseball is doing this without selling off their entire squad like the A's do every year and the Marlins do every 3-4 years.
Assembly of one of the most well-respected staffs in baseball (front office, scouting, international scouting, coaching staff, Nolan, etc.)

The fact of the matter is that JD has built this organization into one that is going to be able to compete for years. The most difficult thing to do in team sports is to have success and repeat that success. How many teams in the MLs are in a position to win for years to come like the Rangers are? I can name probably 5. The man should not and will not be judged on individual moves, but rather a larger body of work. And that body of work so far has been nothing short of outstanding.

Just a quick word on Wash as well not related to JD. I would just like to see Wash get back to what he does best: manage small ball. Defense, the running game, situational hitting/bunting. Just a quick thought. More of a personal preference of mine.

Amen Notorious on the last paragraph. The HRs are awesome, esp. when one guy hits 4 in the same game, but I loved the approach the Rangers had in 2010 and 2011. They manufactured runs out of nothing. They stole runs before teams realized that had been robbed.

"Just a quick word on Wash as well not related to JD. I would just like to see Wash get back to what he does best: manage small ball. Defense, the running game, situational hitting/bunting."

@Notorious, I was wondering about what happened to the "small ball" philosophy this year. It seems like (in my view) we got more undisciplined at the plate and especially on the base paths. Do you think that was Wash and the players not producing as well or do you think that the other teams finally figured out our game plan and made adjustments? I did see a lot of teams look for us advancing from 1st to 2nd base with intentional cutoff throws from the outfield.

Jairo Beras....REMEMBER HIM? Yeah, a sit-on-his-hands GM. How many other GM's had him in their back pocket? That was an ab-so-lute coup, an incredible piece of work by our sorry-assed front office, eh?

Less small ball is what's needed not more. Don't give up outs for bases. Its a way to cost yourself runs in the long run. Going from 1st with no outs to 2nd with one out slighlty increases your chances of scoring one run but pretty much shuts off the nonhomer route of scoring more then 1 run, meaning that sac bunting actually lowers your overall chances to score a run. If by small ball you mean agressive and smart baserunning, not just stealing bases, then yes we do need to get back to what we used to be with respect to that. Toward the end of the year not only were we getting picked off or thrown out more we were not going 1st to 3rd as much as we had in the past. Part of me wonders if that was not just one more sign of a worn down ball club.

I say we hire Tony Reagins or Ed Wade. I'll bet they're looking for a job.

ChiTownTexan, you're criticizing the topic for things that aren't being said. I didn't write that signing Darvish was a "bad decision"; I simply pointed out that in trying to label that decision as a winner or a loser, whether or not he's a $21M a year pitcher (ie, an ace) is still a bit up in the air. Nor did I say "get rid of JD." My point is that (a) this off-season will tell us a lot about whether he merits the level of praise he's gotten, (b) for the Rangers to continue to be the caliber of team we've grown to expect, he has to be that good this offseason in doing what a GM does, so we'll find out, and (c) there are enough missteps in his history to think he might NOT get 'er done. The Rangers have to get BETTER, while being faced with the strong possibility that they are going to lose some of their best talent in free agency, if they are to be a contender in the coming years.

Nateaggie, I pretty much agree with what you say in that it's not his fault if players and coaches don't perform - but it is his job to have players and coaches here who do what they're paid to do, and to make sure that there is accountability. The sense of entitlement written about at BBTiA ultimately falls on him, because it means that accountability is lacking. Can he (and will he) fix what's broke? Hope so. We'll see.

T.O and Andy, the Rangers have done splashy things, and Beras is one that got them lots of attention. But is it more style than substance? For all the Martin Perezes and Julio Borbons and Justin Smoaks and Chris Davises and Jairo Berases and Leonys Martins and so on that have been highly hyped additions for the organization, the Angels mediocre farm system outdid ALL of that by simply picking some NJ high school kid late in the first round a couple years ago (Mike Trout).

Nobody knew Trout would be this good. Nobody could have known that. The Angels got lucky. That's all there is to it.

Yea, thats one thing about this game that alot of ppl forget. Theres alot of luck involved. As crash davis once said, "Do you know what the difference is between a 250 batting average and 300? About 25 hits. One dying quail a week. One seeing eye single. etc. etc."

Or look at the 2006 draft. Where supposedly we were hoping to either have clayton kershaw, max scherzer, or tim lincecum fall into our laps at 12. Instead, kershaw went 7th, lincecum 10th, and scherzer 11th and we get stuck with kasey kiker.

@Questioning One, good call on calling out JD for his crap. What happened to Josh for large chunks of this season? Why did JD trade for Josh if he was going to crap out the last two weeks of the season. I don't think JD did a good job of trading for Josh when he was not going to play well when we needed him the most.

We can also question why JD let CJ go, because CJ was great during the first half of this season. Don't you think JD should have signed him so we could have won more games at the beginning of the season? We almost assuredly would have won the division if only JD had signed CJ. I can't believe JD always messes up like he does. If he didn't screw up so much we would have won three World Series by now, right.

The Guess Who haven't played together since the mid 1970's. Who is hyping them?

@ Questioning One

Texas had a worse record in 2012 because 40% of the starting rotation missed more than half the season.

Since JD's early trade gaffes, what GM has made more good moves than JD? I don't think that you can name one.

Since JD's early trade gaffes, what GM has made more good moves than JD? I don't think that you can name one.

It's this. I've never contended that Daniels is unimpeachable, but he's going to have to start showing some suck before he loses clout within the industry. He's really looking more and more like a force who will be a major factor in the baseball universe for the next 20-30 years.

"but he's going to have to start showing some suck before he loses clout within the industry"

"He's really looking more and more like a force who will be a major factor in the baseball universe for the next 20-30 years"

Well, which is it ?

I'm saying the same thing in both cases. He's been so good (ergo, not showing suck) that I don't see him leaving his post for a long time.

Jon Daniels is the single biggest asset in baseball. If you're seriously questioning him then you haven't been paying attention in those awful 2000-2007 years and in the future we will regard you as no better than the people questioning his Mark Texiera trade.

"Oh no he's not making contracts that we will hate in 3 years"
"Oh no he's not coming down from the front office and hitting home runs himself"
"I'm going to write a million words about how he should have been better given all the circumstances this season"

Yeah shut up.

Eric wants JD to SUCK what? Maybe eErica could show him.