To be honest, I think Edwin Jackson would be a great #5 starter here on a 1-2 yr deal.

Maybe Maddux can help him figure out how to put it all together, but he has the raw stuff to be absolutely sick sometimes.

@Dan: could be interesting, maybe, if the Dodgers don't want much for them. The problem is, they're all flyball pitchers, and we know how those do in a hitter's park when they're not right on their game. They'd probably be #5, so I wouldn't give up an A level prospect for them, and I'm not sure if I'd give up more than 1 B level.

We could do worse, though. We could have signed Gas Can Blanton.

Edwin Jackson could be alright too, but I expect we'd have to overpay a bit for him. Might be worth it, though.

Anybody wanting Sanchez for how much it's going to cost to sign him is an idiot. He will be our highest paid pitcher, but our fifth best, and sixth when Colby gets back. Yeah, a guy with a losing record is who I want to sign for 15-17 million. Get real. The Rangers probably haven't even snifffed in his direction.

Before i went Sanchez, who will cost an arm and a leg plus a draft pick. I'd take a flyer on Liriano who has had two seasons with a 4+war and is still only 29. Joe Saunders is a inning eater who pitched in bad luck at Arizona last year where thebullpen blew several wins. We could then let Ogando setup and Perez be the long man. That would leave us money to sign Pierzinski, I KNOW HE IS A DUCHE! I don't care he is the best catcher available and he hits from the left side. I see AJ wearing out the home run porch. i

Honestly I have no problem with using Perez at #5 and Grimm as the long guy or Perez as the long man and signing soemone like Saunders to be our #5. Saunders held his own against Yu in the Wild Card las tseason and pitched pretty welll against the East. So seriously the rotation needs depth shor tof TORP. I see no clear upgrades on the FA or trade market. I might roll teh dice on Masterson but Cleveland probably wants Profar for him, LOL!! SO I say roll with what we have in the rotation. But we do need a catcher to at least back up Soto who is due for a good year.

@ric - I'm right there with you. I think Liriano is the best shot to be a bargain in this market. I wonder if he's available on a McCarthy like contract? It would certainly give the rangers more options.

The problem with keeping the rotation as is that there is no depth. Having Perez as the #6 starter is the best option.

@colt1317: What do you think of this?

Felix is 98-76 lifetime. That's a winning percentage of .563 so far. Compare him with Phil Hughes, who is 52-36, which makes his winning percentage .591. I guess Phil Hughes is a better pitcher, right?

Or maybe, wins just aren't a good way to judge a pitcher. Sanchez has a lifetime ERA of 3.75, and his xFIP, FIP, and SIERA don't suggest that's unsustainable, less wear and tear. Compare him to Greinke, whose lifetime ERA is 3.77, but his peripherals suggest it should be a tad lower, probably around 3.4-3.5. By those numbers (and those alone, not counting other factors), Sanchez is probably worth about 3/4 of Greinke.

Read this article about Sanchez from the excellent Jeff Sullivan. It makes a good case for why Sanchez will likely give better bang for the buck than Greinke will.

I guarantee you, the Rangers have given significant thought to Sanchez, if only because of his results, and not as to whether or not he'd be a good fit here. Not giving him that consideration wouldn't be doing their due diligence. And I seriously doubt that, if the Rangers were to get Sanchez, that you'd be upset after the fact.

@andy, I am intrigued by Sanchez as well, but the problem that I have with Sullivan's argument is that he discounts the premium for upgrading from a top 50 pitcher to a top 10-20 pitcher, even if the difference in 'stats' seems small. The likelihood of any number of reclamation projects or young pitchers in the minors matching Sanchez is far better than them matching a Greinke. For instance, I think it's relatively likely that Liriano, McCarthy, Dempster (much less Ogando, Perez) could match Sanchez- the odds of any of outperforming Greinke is very low.

I'm comfortable paying a much bigger premium for great and I'll go cheap with the hope that I can find good among the bargain bin.

I get what you're saying, but Greinke still would have likely been a massive overpay and a very team-unfriendly deal, and he could be gone in 3 years anyway. If the Rangers had overpaid for him, that would demonstrate their being all-in (see Angels, Tigers last year) but I can't blame them for not. To get the best you may have to overpay, but you get better bang for your buck if you don't. The question you have to ask is, would that better bang deal suffice?

I'm not sure who the best option is now, but yes, I think we're probably better taking a flyer on a moderate risk, moderate floor, moderate price guy. But who would that be?

@Ric - Sanchez will cost an arm and a leg, yes, but one thing he won't cost is a draft pick. Only players who 1) were with their team for the entire season and 2) receive a qualifying offer from that team cost draft picks. Sanchez was traded to Detroit in July, so was not with them the entire season.

@Andy, I don't think anyone doubts that Sanchez has grea stuff, but he's very inconsistent and frustrating, kind of like Holland. The Marlins were on him at the beginning, and then he threw his no-hitter, and expectations went through the roof only to see him moving between the minors and majors for a couple seasons. The Marlins wanted him to be Josh Johnson, but he couldn't break through. Your comparison of Felix and Phil is ridiculous because while Felix has .563 winning percentage, his team's winning percentage during his careet has been .422, while the Yankees is probably around .600 (not going to look it up I think we can probably agree on that). Also, you want to use ERA to sell Sanchez, but if you are comparing him to Felix, Felix has a 3.06 ERA. Sanchez's best WAR of any full season was 3.4, and he had an absoultely amazing WAR of 1.4 last season and a career WAR of 2.6. Let's not forget he's played his entire career in some amazing pitchers parks as well from Pro Player, to the new Marlins stadium to Comerica. Those fields seem cartoonishly big compared to Arlington. He also has an ever desirable career WHIP of 1.35. The only decent stat he has is the 3.75 ERA, but that would be well over if adjusted for playing for the Rangers. Also, even if Sanchez were truly worth 3/4 of Greinke, which he isn't, it doesn't matter because Greinke isn't even worth Greinke. I think the Rangers due diligence told them from the start he's overpriced beause everyone loves to buy into ESPN's flavor of the month. Stop drinking the ESPN koolaid, and watch players play, and think for yourself.

Shawn Marcum?

Marcum at RBIA would be a disaster with all the fly balls he allows. He ought to stay in the NL and I think he will. Rather take a gamble on Edwin Jackson.

"Stop drinking the ESPN koolaid, and watch players play, and think for yourself."

Excuse me? The guy who pooh-poohs Sanchez because he doesn't have a winning record is accusing me of drinking Kool-Aid and not thinking for myself?

Also, I did not compare Sanchez to Felix. I compared Felix to Phil Hughes to point out how ludicrous it is to use wins to evaluate a pitcher. It is not ridiculous at all. How many gems do you think Felix throws a year but loses because his offense can't put up diddly-poo? How many stinkers do you think Phil Hughes gets bailed out of because the Yankees' offense went nuts?

Yes, Sanchez is part Holland, showing flashes of brilliance and occasionally having infuriatingly bad outings. But I stand by my comparison for the sake of value. If you expect about 5 fWAR a year from Greinke (a reasonable assumption), I think Sanchez is likely to put up about 3/4 of that (3.5-4 fWAR). That's a value of $15-20m a year. That doesn't mean I'd give him that much, but that's how much he might be worth. What I'd give him is a different matter altogether. I do agree with you, though, that Greinke is quite likely to not be worth his contract.

Also, I used fWAR, which in some cases (like Sanchez recently) is quite different from bWAR. YMMV. Anyway, it sounds like you at least have a decent grasp of knowing what WAR is supposed to measure, so I would hope you would not resort to using something like wins to judge a pitcher. But apparently I was wrong.

Andy, you're being silly. Everyone knows wins and losses are the only way to evaluate good pitching. Kyle Lohse went, what, 14-3 last season? He should have won the Cy Young. Felix Hernandez is basically a middle of the rotation pitcher. xFIP, SIERA? What do those even mean? Anibal Sanchez clearly sucks. 9-13 LAST YEAR ARE YOU KIDDING ME

Sorry eric, I was tired when I wrote that. I don't know what I was thinking.

Go and take a look at Dickeys best games last year and who they were against (pirates, baltimore (in may), tampa, san diego) Im not sold that he can hang in the AL. He got beat up by the yankees in a year their offense was down and also by the decent offensive teams such as Cin and Wash. There is no doubt he can shutdown a team peiodically, but im not paying an Ace's ransom for a maybe.

Best RE-think the notion of having R.A. Dickey, as a Ranger. Like it or not,
Daniels is pursueing heavily that very idea. Of course, it will be genius, if...