Thursday Morning Rangers Notes: The Slide, Part II

A few things out there this morning:

- Josh Hamilton apologized to third-base coach Dave Anderson during a pre-game meeting on Wednesday for his remarks the day before (and accepted responsibility on his part for the decision to make an ill-fated dash for home on Tuesday), which he seemingly exacerbated on Wednesday morning when he snapped, "I threw [Anderson] under the bus by telling the truth about what happened. What do you want me to do, lie about it?" In defense of Anderson, Ron Washington said, "You think Dave is the first one it ever happened to? Hell, no. You send guys to the plate, they don't make it, and they get hurt. Hey, that's a part of the game. I don't know how we're going to change it. Do we make them little wimps? That's the way we play. We play aggressive. It happened. There's nothing we can do about it." (Jeff Wilson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

- One morning column holds that Anderson made exactly the right call in sending Hamilton, and further suggests that Hamilton's remarks about Anderson's judgment did not play well in the clubhouse and with his teammates, with a vague reference to Hamilton's apology possibly "returning him to his previous status of respect in the clubhouse" (Randy Galloway, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

- ESPN.com's Keith Law on impending Rangers signee Leonys Martin: "Have not seen him myself, but I talked to multiple scouts/execs from teams that did scout him. Consistent response was that he can run and shows raw power in BP, but has major swing flaws with every single source questioning his ability to hit. Have also heard that he wasn't running balls out in late workouts because of some undisclosed leg injury. Several sources said they liked him, just not close to the ultimate price." (Keith Law, ESPN.com -- enjoy the redundancy)

[It seems the figure that the insiders have settled upon is something in the vicinity of $15 million for Martin, though it's unclear whether this is the size of the signing bonus itself -- which seems disproportionately high at first glance, given that wunderkind Cuban right-hander Aroldis Chapman snagged a $16.25 million bonus from the Reds last January, and given that Chapman immediately became one of the best pitching prospects in baseball upon signing -- or the size of the entire deal, which could span anywhere from 4-6 years. In any event, a perfect-world scenario probably looks something like Martin holding his own in his first swim through pro (read: minor league) waters through this summer, getting a taste of the majors once the roster expands in September, and going into camp next spring as a viable center field candidate ... but if this assessment from Law has some truth to it, we probably shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves.]