What is success in today's game?

Buy up as many impact FA's as you can. Then throw them out there and hope for the best. Everyone says you won!

The Angels were the number one team chosen last off season to win the Series!

And they won again this year, and now they will have 50 million dedicated to two aging stars.

Awesome!

Success, Success is the Cliff Lee signing. And how did that work out?

Success, Success is the AROD signing of Tom Hicks and then the later Yankee sign. Success!

These guys really know how to throw money around. What a bunch of awesome GM's!

What a freaking joke people! What a freaking joke!

If you do what so many big market teams do you may make the playoffs but how often will that propel you to the Series? How many Series have the Yanks won in the past 10 years? How many have the Angels won? And in general when they do win it all its not because they threw a bunch of money around. The way people talk about these "successful" big money signings you would think the Angels and Yanks would have dominated the entire decade with Championships!

Think about this. When you fail in terms of the way success is defined by the baseball elite, by the big market teams, it is that failure that allows you to enter into a creative effort at REAL success. Real success comes from player development and an occasional impact signing at the right level of risk. Real success is the SF Giants, pitching and chemistry, not a bunch of over payed hitters whose biggest glory years are behind them.

So Paradoxically, we succeed when we fail to sign stupid contracts that overburden us to the point where our team is a conglomeration of over payed ego driven talents.

What is success? Success is the Rangers of 2010 and 2011. Success is Josh Hamilton before he sold out. Success is the pursuit of Yu Darvish. Success is Matt Harrison, Colby Lewis, and Neftali Feliz. Success is Nellie Cruz (7 HR's in one playoff series), Elvis, and Adrian Beltre. Success is Michael Young (last season excepted). Success is stealing Mike away form the Angles for The Year of the Napoli.

We can not allow success to be defined in the superficial manner by which it is defined in the press and by the big market teams, not for us anyways, not for the Texas Rangers.

Why, because the Rangers brand of success is far more gratifying than anything the big market spenders are throwing out there.

The stage is set, we have failed according to every press outlet and pundit, we have failed and been beaten according to Art Moreno, but all that means is that the stage is set for us to succeed at our game, at the game we play best, the game of baseball, a game that does not so easily fit within a typical success framework.

The game surprises you, it humbles you, and if you are humbled, if you are surprising, you might be surprised with what happens next. Do what the game asks you to do, compete, not by signing big names who have already succeeded and who are expected to succeed again, but by playing your heart out, scratching, clawing your way to glory.

Be true to the game and it will reward you.

Success: Sustenation of playoff caliber baseball

Success for fans = Wins, Playoff Wins, World Series Wins

Success for owners=return on investment.

In theory the two are correlated, but in reality they are not. See Marlins.

I love the Rangers!!