I too would rather they extend Murphy than Cruz if for no other reason because Murphy will likely come cheaper.

Mostly I'm hoping that Martin comes into his own and we have the option of letting both guys go. Has there been any talk about possibly moving Olt to LF? With Beltre standing in his way its either 1B or the OF if we keep him.

Olt has more value as a 3B than as a LF because he provides premium defense at a premium position.

If we can't make room for him, I'd be looking for an equitable trade partner who has an OF blocked in their system before I move Olt off the hot corner.

As for Murphy, I'm not trashing the guy & I was one of his biggest proponents over the past few year. But nobody saw him hitting lefties the way he did last year and I think it's a bit foolish to assume he'll repeat that in 2013. Murph is a guy you love to have around as one of your 3-4 outfielders, but he'll never be "The Guy". With Gentry, Martin & Borbon still under cheap team control, I think the org views him as expendable. I've been wrong once before though.

Ya know... I'd thought I was wrong once...

Had to have been mistaken...

I agree with you Hench 100%. I just caution judging a guy on a 600 plate appearance sample that also took place over 6 years. I wonder if we subtracted 5 singles from last years numbers and Murphy was a .280 avg and .330 wOBA guy, would we be cautioning major regression or thinking, "Hey, that's some good solid improvement". Either way, the dude has a really good sample of work against RHP and that's where he does 70-75% of his business anyway.

I too, am glad to have him on the Roster, but it is probably not a good thing when he comes up in "best outfielder on the team" discussion. Although, if he repeats last year...

Totally agree Olt's greatest value is at 3B, it's just that he's blocked and I wonder at times if teams know this and aren't trying to play that up.

Personally would love to have his bat stay in Texas.

Of course his .400 BABIP was lucky. But how can you discount his previous struggles as not being unlucky? You really can't have it both ways.

Actually, that's not having it both ways. It's the difference between reality and fantasy.

I'm not saying luck is the driving force behind last year's success against lefties; I'm saying his true talent level reflects that he's a 4th outfielder. Dinking and dunking little bloopers into left field is not a sustainable strategy in the longterm.

@Pitch...I agree. Olt's best value is at 3rd. Beltre is a year older and a hammie away from the DL. Last year, MY took over at 3rd. Our only option this year is Olt or move Kins to 3rd and put Profar at 2nd. In either case, it would appear, keeping Profar and Olt is the best decision. Cruz has a similar situation as he is a hammie away from stretching a double into a triple from the DL. Olt can play RF and get his bat in the line up.

To me Murphy is a lot like Cody Ross. Someone who is a good solid player, a useful player who is likely to get expensive. An older 2 win player who is getting payed like a 2 win player but is likely to be worse going forward then he is now. Maybe we have to extend Murphy or Cruz because of the lack of backups in our high minors, but I suspect we can trade MI for COF.

I probably worry about keeping our teams payroll cleaner then I should. I do this because I'm also a football fan and have seen the mess that Jerry is making across the street. In baseball if you sign someone to a three year deal and it goes bad then you're stuck for three years with that money on your roster.

As far as Olt I still suspect that we end up trading him because he is worth much more to someone else then he is to us currently. If Beltre gets injured then we will have to make a move to shore that up, moving Kinsler or Profar or setting up a platoon involving someone else, but you don't hold onto a piece like Olt in case something goes wrong. You hold onto him if you aren't offered what you think he is worth.

I say offer him the $13M+ next year to guarantee we get some draft picks out of him. No way he'd accept that after the monster year he is about to put up, so we parlay him into some new blue chippers.

TX, I suspect David Murphy would accept the 1 year for 13 after seeing what has happened to better players then him this year. Bourn is still on the FA lists because teams don't want to give up the slot money that goes with their 1st round draft pick to sign him. Same goes with Loshe. Both of those are better players then Murphy is. Now that having been said if we can keep him for one year at 13 million I have to actually thinking about it based on what we currently have on our roster for OF and what we have in the high minors.

That being said I doubt we offer him a QO.

I say offer him the $13M+ next year to guarantee we get some draft picks out of him. No way he'd accept that after the monster year he is about to put up, so we parlay him into some new blue chippers.

I'm assuming this is the most subtly amazing sarcasm I've ever seen from you.

Hola Pickles! Hate to quibble too much, but the REALITY is what he did last year. Those were real actual tangible results. REALITY is what he did in 500 plate appearances over his previous 5 years where he was a designated platoon guy. Those poor years were also real tangible results. The "fantasy" part comes where we try to predict what he will do next year. I'm just saying that I believe there is more predictive value out of his most recent 75 plate appearances (the ones last year post adjustment) than 100 plate appearances in 2009, 10, or 11. That's all. And it's kinda fun!

And further, we should be careful about regressing a guy's ability against LHP back to his norm based on 2012 when (broken record) he only had 75 plate appearances and prior he only had 500 over 5 years. I think you might want to evaluate the situation a bit differently as opposed to a guy that got 200 PAs a year for three straight years. I mean, I'm not sure 2008 has as much of a bearing on what Murphy did last year or will do next. And, as I mentioned earlier, 10-15 hits either way over his entire small sample can greatly skew the numbers. It's just not a big sample.

Off hand I think only 5 or 6 left fielders in the American League hit more Home runs than Murphy last year and Murphy wasn't full time. I'll take a guy that dinks and dunks the 25 pct of the time he is against LHP,but leads the team in OBP, and in a full season could hit 20 HRs. Especially for 6 mill per year.

I also think that it's January and I'm jonesing for baseball and you're saying Murphy is a 4th outfielder and I'm saying he's a 3rd outfielder on a good team and a 2nd outfielder on a bad team and that we probably view Murphy quite similarly except I'm more optimistic about this year. Good discussion. Interesting that Fangraphs had a couple of tidbits on Murphy in the midst of this thread that are good reads as well.

Murphy you keep, a top #4 outfielder, and in those 100 to 120 games starting in left or right field, you bat him in the bottom third of the order. "Dinking and dunking little blooper into left field' is a sustainable strategy if you are Ichiro. Murphy is not Ichiro. With Murphy reaching out an flipping the ball the other way beats his old performance of rolling the ball left of the third base line. Goes back to his last year adjustment. Cruz could easily have a stepped up power surge, and last year's numbers were not bad, and do a 40hr/100rbi in his free agent year, like Hamilton in 2012- but expect an increase in Ks. This would at least earn the Rangers a draft choice for 2014, and where Cruz's salary is currently it would not be an overwhelming increase. That is not the case with Murphy, no matter what is numbers are. A team just does not increase a player over 32 [10.18.1981] by >2x their current salary, and be successful. Olt has already played in the outfield last year, and is viewed as a 1b/3b/lf/rf. Everything depends on Surprise with players like Solarte, Snyder, Borbon, Garcia even E.Beltre successes, whether or even where Olt plays in April. Olt will be solid enough in the outfield, though with limited speed. He had come to U. CONN as a shortstop, so even third base was not that long ago conversion.

Murphy you keep, a top #4 outfielder, and in those 100 to 120 games starting in left or right field, you bat him in the bottom third of the order.

But why would Murphy settle on being a 4th outfielder when he could start somewhere else, and make more money somewhere else? Look at this from everyone's shoes.

Not sure the Rangers are viewing Murphy as a 4th outfielder--given the situation, I think they view him as their mostly everyday left fielder next year. Beyond that, who knows? Does Murphy take a 3 year 20 million deal now from the Rangers or does he bank on repeating his performance of last year and then get 3 and 40? (Mike Napoli lesson here?) Good drama, but I hope he kicks a bunch of butt next year.

Eric, because the Rangers are likely to extend his contract another 2 years before anyone of the 40 even show up in Surprise. He will still be the primary LF, as he has been the last the last three years with 400-450 at bats rate. Murphy will not yield a draft choice, and he is instrumental to the Rangers to keep, and more importantly, there is really no one in the current Rangers organization to supplant him until at least 2016. Plus it would get Gentry more at bats. For the Rangers to even have a chance of making the playoffs so many, probably too many things, need to come through in 2013. In the outfield alone, Martin needs to have a break out season and Cruz must produce a 40hr/100rbi walk year. I do not see Murphy sliding down from last year's success, but he has tended toward starting out slowly.

Eric, because the Rangers are likely to extend his contract another 2 years before anyone of the 40 even show up in Surprise.

According to whom? I won't believe that until it actually happens.

I do not see Murphy sliding down from last year's success, but he has tended toward starting out slowly.

What about his success last year do you believe is sustainable? His BABIP vs. LHP was .433. League average BABIP was .297. That's a huge disparity, and the odds of duplication are finite. His career triple slash vs. southpaws is .261/.313/.361 -- basically Michael Young's 2012.

Murphy is (a) an average to below average defenseman, has a weak arm, can't hit lefties, can't run exceptionally well, and isn't special enough at any one thing that warrants keeping him past this year. $5.775 million for one year is a good come up in his final arbitration year. We're basically asking him to produce 1.0 win for us in 2013.

Usually when organizations extend guys, they do it during their arbitration years. For a recent example, they locked up Matt Harrison's final two arb years + the first three of his FA seasons. That's how it works. If the Rangers were going to extend him, he would have gotten something like a two-year, $14 million deal: his last arb year + one FA season.

Eric, you keep using career numbers as if he had 5 or 6 years of full-time service-WHICH HE HASN'T!!! That is what you can't see because you refuse to consider the human facttor and instead look at numbers only. Ok, here's some questions for your numbers.....where did Murphy rank for put-outs against other left fielders in the AL last year? What was his fielding percentage against the THREE who had a higher total of put-outs for the year? Whatabout his error rate?
One error all year?

Arm and range factor can be either worthless or of negligible value. In left field arm strength is not as important as the other two spots...and arm strength comes into play rarely on average. With exceptional arm strength you will see more attempts at plays but the norm is an off-line throw that does nothing. Range Factor is pure speculation and has no scientific foundation. It is a guess and nothing more. An educated guess-depending on who of several hundred people make the guess, and not consistently guessed at by the same person for all people-or even for the same player by the same guesser all season.

If you really want to grow up and be a real writer, Eric, you have to allow yourself to actually watch the game objectively and accept the fact that we cannot-nor will we ever-field a team of all-stars at every position. Many teams try it but are rarely successful at all, and never for very long. They wind up with depleted farm systems and old overpaid players on bad contracts. Teams with stars on them succeed because of the everyday player. While the stars go through their fits and slumps, the everyday player carries the baton and hands it back when it needs to be.

Maybe the next time you read any of 32 managers who talk about other players on the team "stepping up", you might actually consider what the manager just said instead of making a snap judgement and ignoring the rest of the conversation....I have a 16 year-old and he behaves just like you. Stop being a kid and grow up a bit. No one says that Murphy should be signed for $20 million per year, not even implied it. He is just grossly under appreciated and maligned by people like you who want to see superstars in every position. Yes, I read your post on "kiddiewritin'" where you spent multiple paragraphs trashing Murphy. A tip.....don't talk bad about people or players all the time and people might actually read your stuff; find some good things to say about players. Acknowledging that they have abilities and have some value to the team isn't against the law, it just seems to be against your laws.

Procurion,

First of all, thank you for reading my makeshift blog. I hope you're learning some stuff.

As for David Murphy, I don't understand your presupposition that I want (or expect) to field a team full of All Stars. That's baseless, and highly inaccurate. You can attempt to paint a rose-colored, "G" rated portrait of Murph, but where I come from is reality. If using objective statistics like BABIP, or posting his historically putrid triple slash line against LHP means I'm "trashing" him, then, uhm, okay? I guess.

If you'd like to get into the nitty gritty, then no, David Murphy is not a good defender. He surprisingly had a nice 2012 in the UZR department, but those things fluctuate on a year-to-year basis, a lot like error totals and assists -- which are your justification for why I'm blind and you are somehow illuminated in baseball knowledge. If you can give me a rational argument as to (a) how he's actually fast and not average, (b) has a good arm, or (c) why I should reject his historical batting statistics, then by all means. I'm listening.

Rather than subjecting myself to the same name calling or typical "grow up" speeches, I'll instead tell you that the math often times checks out. I watch baseball games just like you, which is how I determine whether or not David Murphy can run and throw and hit lefties. I also look at the data, because I like to know how right or wrong I am. That's just the nature of the beast. Unless I'm mistaken, that's the definition of objectivity, not exclusively relying on my perception, but seeing things at all angles. Based on your posting history, you don't agree with that. That's fine.