And The Beat Goes On: Feb. 8th

No time for a more extensive post this morning, unfortunately, so let's rattle off the bullet points:

● The Rangers have hired an accountability partner for Josh Hamilton, and while the interesting thing about this is that Hamilton and his new partner have no prior affiliation, it seems that they've already begun working together, with Shayne Kelley accompanying Hamilton to New York for his visit with league doctors and the MLBPA.

● ESPN.com's Keith Law has ranked the Rangers' farm system the seventh-best system in the game, behind (in order) the Padres, Rays, Jays, Cardinals, Royals, and Diamondbacks:

The Rangers have ranked highly the past few years -- including No. 1 once -- because of depth and ceiling, but they're now more about the latter than the former. (Note that I don't consider Yu Darvish or any player with Nippon Professional Baseball experience a "prospect" for the purpose of this ranking or the top 100.)

● Dan Szymborski's new 2012 ZiPS projections are out for the Rangers, and they feature pretty stout projections for the likes of Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando, and Mike Napoli, with guys like Michael Young and Josh Hamilton being forecasted for relatively sharp declines from their 2011 numbers.

● FanGraphs' Dave Cameron ranks the Rangers' signing of Joe Nathan at two years, $14 million as the eighth-worst transaction of the winter. 

● Mitch Moreland says he's in the best shape of his life ... sort of.