Geoff Baker has a very in-depth and informative story on the latest imbroglio to rock the Mariners' front office, that being new information that directly contradicts the Mariners' claims that they (a) did not know of Josh Lueke's rape and sodomy charge when they acquired him in the Cliff Lee trade, and (b) could not send him back to the Rangers because Jon Daniels refused to take him back:

The Mariners knew all about Josh Lueke's 96-mph fastball when they acquired him from the Texas Rangers in the Cliff Lee deal.

But Mariners executives insisted they knew nothing before the July 9 trade about the 25-year-old minor-leaguer facing felony charges in a rape and sodomy case in which he later pleaded no contest to a lesser charge.

However, new information appears to contradict the Mariners' original version of events. Former Mariners pitching coach Rick Adair said he told general manager Jack Zduriencik about Lueke's troubles well before the deal.

And contrary to Mariners claims that there was nothing they could do after the trade, Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said he made a standing offer that night to take Lueke back.

According to the timeline of events supplied by Baker, (recently fired) Mariners pitching coach Rick Adair -- who was the Rangers' minor league pitching coordinator during the Lueke fiasco -- personally informed general manager Jack Zduriencik of the Lueke situation before the trade was consummated, and Zdurienick apparently didn't delve any further into the matter -- as evidenced by his failure to perform a five-second Google search on Lueke's name, which is sort of mindblowing in this day and age -- after Jon Daniels told Zdurienick that Lueke had been involved in an incident and had been "acquitted."

Hours after the trade was completed, Mariners president Chuck Armstrong -- a strong advocate of groups who oppose violence against women -- learned of the Lueke situation and immediately ordered Zdurienick to substitute Lueke for another player in the Rangers organization. Zdurienick says that the Rangers rebuffed that request, but Jon Daniels says that the Rangers "offered several times to reacquire Lueke in a separate transaction," including once on the same night of the deal, and also says that his offer to reacquire Lueke is a standing offer.

What I think happened -- and what seems to make the most sense given the facts presented here by Baker -- is that Zdurienick had a pretty firm understanding of the Lueke situation, but went ahead and acquired him anyway, perhaps not figuring that his inclusion would create such an uproar at the top level of the Mariners organization and that he could quell any opposition. When Armstrong blew his top, Zdurienick hastily shunted the blame onto the Rangers as a means of covering his own ass. As far as why the Mariners appear to have lied outright to the press about all of this, and why they're painting the Rangers as bad guys who knowingly pulled a fast one on the Mariners and refuse to take back their bad egg, I'm not sure, but it certainly does not reflect well on the reputation and/or honesty of the Seattle front office. 

I'm also pretty sure that the Rangers resent the Mariners' implication that they are liars, and it would not surprise me if relations between the two teams cool to the point that they don't hook up again for another trade for a pretty long time.

Jeff Wilson:

Left-hander Cliff Lee was shipped back to Arlington today with soreness in his back, a day after a fifth straight start in which he allowed at least four runs. The Rangers, though, do not consider the injury to be serious and currently have not altered their rotation plans.

Lee was examined by Dr. Keith Meister, who determined that the injury is muscular in nature. Lee was given a trigger-point injection, will work out Thursday in Arlington and will rejoin the team Friday at Minnesota. He is scheduled to start Tuesday. That could change based on how he feels this weekend, but the Rangers haven't made any changes yet.

A trigger-point injection is basically used to address pain in a concentrated region. From NeurologyChannel.com: "A trigger point is a knot or tight, ropy band of muscle that forms when muscle fails to relax. The knot often can be felt under the skin and may twitch involuntarily when touched (called a jump sign). The trigger point can trap or irritate surrounding nerves and cause referred pain — pain felt in another part of the body. Scar tissue, loss of range of motion, and weakness may develop over time."

My extensive research into the subject -- which amounts to a whopping five minutes -- suggests that the success rate for this sort of injection is pretty high, as the local anesthetic does a good job of alleviating the pain. What I'm less clear on is whether this is merely an issue of pain tolerance for Lee, or if this is something that has been actively inhibiting his effectiveness on the bump. The best we can possibly hope for is the former, and that it's something he's able to cope with and/or the treatment resolves, because back injuries can be very persistent and serious issues for pitchers.

No song to lead this, but rather a word of thankfulness: I'm thankful that I have a platform at my disposal where I can write about things that personally interest/intrigue me without having to resort to inflammatory headlines and other such chicanery to generate page views. Because if that were to ever stop being the case, I don't think I could keep doing this:

● Richard Durrett writes that Ian Kinsler and Cristian Guzman have been activated, Pedro Strop has been recalled and Jeff Francoeur has arrived with the team. T.R. Sullivan writes that the Rangers are not concerned about Cliff Lee. Josh Hamilton's short-term status is a bit up in the air, and while the Rangers are taking some preventive measures by keeping him off the field for a few days and planning to work in a heavier DH/rest component into his rest-of-season schedule, it seems apparent that there is some cause for alarm here.

● Evan Grant wrote this morning about five reasons why the Rangers' playoff spot isn't a lock. My problem is that the article seems to suffer from a fair amount of specious logic ... yeah, Hamilton's knee is acting up and Lee's having some command problem, but the division race is virtually still as over -- if not more so -- as it was when they were having those problems in Tampa Bay/Baltimore. I get the skittishness of most Rangers fans when it comes to post-season discussion, because they got rolled with regularity in the late-90s by the Yankees, but the argument being sold here is that the division race isn't over, and I don't agree with that at all, nor do I think that the Athletics are even going to make a decent charge in the standings before October arrives. It just all comes off as really alarmist without good cause.

Glove slap to Evan (am I doing this right?):

"As long as I'm pitching, I feel like I can help the team," Harden said after the Rangers' 3-0 over Kansas City on Monday. "I've been a little inconsistent as far as getting guys out out there. But I wish they'd have some more confidence in me to work through some things. That's how you figure things out. I think that not being out there has contributed to my inconsistency."

There are two ways of reading this quote, the first being that he's ascribing some portion of the blame for his problems this season to the Rangers because they haven't given him enough opportunities to work out the kinks. And, well, that's just patently false. He received 13 starts at the outset of the season before landing on the disabled list and demonstrably sucked, and since coming back has posted two good efforts -- both of which had their respective flaws --and two more crappy efforts, and the Rangers have now pulled the trigger on moving him to the bullpen in what I would think would be his final role change of the season.

The thing is that the Rangers can't simply roll over and give Harden unlimited leash just because he (a) has a good track record and (b) is getting paid a good sum of money this year, particularly if (c) they have potentially better options standing by. If a player is not only performing badly, but also giving you zero reason to believe that he'll begin performing otherwise, you have be amenable to pulling the trigger. To sit idly by and hemorrhage runs would simply be irresponsible.

The other way of reading this, however, is that he's miffed at the duration of one/both of his DL assignments, or perhaps doesn't believe that he merited a DL assignment this last time around. I severely doubt that Harden being pissed about that would in any way impede the Rangers' pursuit of other free-agent pitching this winter, but the tone of Harden's message (and the abomination that is his 2010 performance) is such that I doubt he would ever return to the Rangers in a playing capacity.

Per ESPN New York's Adam Rubin (h/t AJM), the Rangers are interested in acquiring outfielder Jeff Francoeur from the Mets, and have a very narrow window in which they would have to complete a transaction, as he would not be eligible to make the post-season roster if not acquired by 11:00 p.m. CDT.

Francoeur, who is astonishingly only 26 (it seems we've been hearing his name forever), has become something of a punching bag for the statistical community as a product of his oft-crappy walk rates and results that haven't matched the hype, and at .236/.293/.369 (.287 wOBA) this year in 443 plate appearances, he has epitomized the replacement-level player. That said, he's a decent defensive outfielder (although this is more a function of his plus-plus arm than his range, which seems to be nothing special in right field), and has historically performed okayish against lefties (.296/.342/.478 in 957 career plate appearances), and would represent a sub-$1 million cost the rest of the way, so this likely isn't a cost-prohibitive move in any way.

Except ... Francoeur (and his agent) seem borderline delusional about the amount of playing time he deserves. Three weeks ago, the Star-Ledger's Andy McCullough wrote the following:

NEW YORK — Benched to make room for a 21-year-old rookie, marginalized as a platoon player, Mets outfielder Jeff Francoeur has told the club through his representatives that he is interested in being traded to a team that would play him more, both sides confirmed yesterday. 

“We want to play every day,” Francoeur’s agent Molly Fletcher said yesterday. “We prefer to play in New York. But if we’re not going to play every day in New York, we absolutely welcome the opportunity to play every day somewhere else.”

[...] In a telephone interview, Fletcher indicated she would monitor Francoeur’s playing time over the next week, interested in whether or not manager Jerry Manuel follows through on his amended plan to let Francoeur face right-handed pitchers, a group he historically struggles against and is hitting just .217 against this season. 

“Talk to me is just that: It’s talk,” Fletcher said. “What matters is what happens and is he in right field every day. And that’s what we’re watching.”

That, of course, prompted this Clubhouse post on the arrogance of Francoeur's agent, and how his camp's position seemed to be at odds with the reputation he has acquired of being a "clubhouse guy." The good news is that the Rangers, should they acquire Francoeur, are under no obligation whatsoever to oblige his playing-time wishes, and used strictly as a platoon bat he's got some utility.

Where the problems would arise would be if Francoeur performed well against lefties and the coaching staff started giving him plate appearances against right-handers (an absolutely terrible idea), or if he continues to raise a stink about wanting more playing time and rubs somebody the wrong way. Otherwise, there's some reason to believe that you could pair him with David Murphy and give yourself a respectable COF platoon setup.

Despite some indications to the contrary in the game chats (which are mostly platforms for executing bits and such), I'm not big on beating my chest at every available opportunity. I do still get a certain sense out of satisfaction whenever I hear that the site was mentioned on the Ben & Skin show over on ESPN 103.3 FM, or whenever I get linked by Rob Neyer, or David gets linked by Tom Tango, and so on ... but with all due respect to those great people, getting mentioned on The Hardline, my favorite radio show for years now, sort of trumps everything else for me personally:

[Direct link available here. I included Entertainment News after the break for those who really wanted to hear Corby talk about Paris Hilton.]

Richard Durrett:

The Rangers announced Monday that they have extended the player develop contracts with three of their minor league affiliates: Double-A Frisco, Class A Hickory and Short-season Class A Spokane.

The Frisco deal is a four-year extension through the 2014 season. Hickory and Spokane are two-year deals. 

What's interesting is that Triple-A Oklahoma City and Class A Bakersfield are not on the list. Now that club president Nolan Ryan is an owner, there's been plenty of speculation that Round Rock would act as the new Triple-A affiliate for the Rangers. Also, Greenberg owns the Myrtle Beach Pelicans and they could become the club's High Class A affiliate. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, T.R. Sullivan confirms that the Rangers are planning to move their Triple-A affiliate to Round Rock next season. A couple of things worth noting here: first, I'm a little confused on the cited extension to the Rangers' deal with Frisco, because according to this list of player development contracts published by Baseball America in late July, there is no PDC expiration date with Frisco because they're owned by the Rangers (although it appears Frisco is actually owned by Mandalay Entertainment, but the deal was negotiated in connection with Hicks Sports Group or some such). I'm probably missing something obvious here, but the discrepancy is a little confusing.

And second, with regard to Myrtle Beach's BB&T Coastal Field, it's a pretty neutral-playing ballpark, as opposed to the bandbox that is Sam Lynn Ballpark, and was ranked the No. 2 Class A-level ballpark by Baseball America in 2004, as well as the best ballpark in the Carolina League last year. Nice to see the minor league affiliates upgrading their facilities ... I'm certain AT&T Bricktown Ballpark is very nice in its own right, but the Dell Diamond in Round rock is, in my opinion, one of the true gems of the Southwest.

In Jeff Wilson's latest FWST mailbag, some guy from Fort Worth writes in about how Roger Clemens was a superior pitcher to Nolan Ryan, and during the course of making his argument cites the fact that Ryan's career ERA (3.19) was equivalent to that of Clemens (this is actually incorrect, as Clemens posted a career 3.12 ERA). Wilson glosses over this, calling it a push.

Using ERA+, however (which you can use to compare pitchers across different eras/run environments/ballparks), it's not even all that close, as Ryan's career ERA+ is 112, and Clemens' was 143. The latter is tied with Johan Santana' for the 10th-best all time. The former is tied for 275th-best all time, which is a little deceptive due to the massive quantity of guys in that range, but still drives home the point that they were not all that close in terms of career results. And they're separated by nearly 45 career wins above replacement.

Actually, the whole thing is sort of silly because I don't know why you can't just appreciate both guys for what they are, but if you're really dug in as far as wanting to know who had the better career between Ryan and Clemens, well, there you go.

Been a bit tardy in linking this, but, hey, here you go. Listen to it, enjoy it, love it, marry it. And just to address this one final time, the extended delay in the "Highest Ceilings" series stems from the Professor taking some time away from writing to attend to personal issues. 

Shoutout to Kevin for stopping by the game chats lately. 

Sorry for being somewhat absent the last few days (real-life priorities supersede this fun little baseball venture, I'm sorry to say), but the good news is that not much has happened beyond the Rangers maintaining their winning ways ... but that could soon change, as Jeff Wilson writes:

The Rangers haven't ruled out adding to their roster in the next week, and Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez has been considered as a possbility.

The Rangers would have to make a waiver claim on Ramirez, which they haven't yet done, and Ramirez would have to slide past all the teams with a worse record than the Rangers. The White Sox, one of those teams, reportedly have made a claim and are interested in Ramirez. If he did get to the Rangers, they would have to work out a trade with Los Angeles.

Like Cliff Lee, Manny would be a playoff-focused acquisition, because in both cases the Rangers were/are very heavy favorites to win the division, and in fact have retaken an 8.5 game lead in the AL West. If you acquire Manny, you do so because you want to beef up your post-season offense more so than because you want to put the division away.

I haven't intently studied all of the numbers yet, but I believe Manny is a marginal October roster upgrade ... he would constitute a bigger upgrade if the Rangers had a huge hole at COF/DH, but they don't, as Vladimir Guerrero (as I recently predicted) seems to be getting his act back together, and David Murphy is a vastly superior defensive outfielder. The big issue with acquiring Manny -- beyond the cost, although there's been some discussion of most of the money he's still owed being deferred -- is that you're then forced to play one of Guerrero or Manny in the outfield, unless you want to hold one of them out of the ALDS/ALCS (in which case there would be virtually no point in acquiring Manny).

That would entail putting Nelson Cruz in left field (to accommodate Guerrero in right field) or Josh Hamilton in right field (to accommodate Manny Ramirez in left field), so aside from the defensive downgrade from Murphy to Guerrero/Manny, you're also talking about playing one of your mainstay corner outfielders out of their normal position. Again, I haven't studied this very intently yet and I've always liked Manny's bat a lot, but there are some things that need to be taken into consideration here that might get overlooked in any Manny-related hubbub. 

This is admittedly not the most soul-rocking version of "And The Beat Goes On" ever, and there's no 6:00 a.m. article going up, so hopefully Talib Kweli rapping over a Beatles sample helps save this post:

● Jeff Wilson has his game story up, and takes note of the fact that Neftali Feliz got rocked for two long fly-ball outs while nailing down the save (in his third consecutive appearance, no less). So does Richard Durrett. So does T.R. Sullivan. Ian Kinsler could begin a minor league rehab assignment this week. Nelson Cruz could be back on Monday. Kevin Sherrington files the obligatory "the Rangers are resilient" story, or some such.

● The Colin Cowherd vs. Cliff Lee story is already old news, and frankly, I haven't been motivated to comment on it because virtually everyone well-versed in baseball matters knows that what Cowherd was peddling was a bunch of rubbish, and Lee said basically the same thing himself. I have a big problem with manufactured controversy, and that's what this was in its purest form. At the same time, however, I have to admit Jeff Sullivan's got something here:

What's sad is that I can't even really blame Cowherd. The man was just doing his job. The great misfortune is that, these days, there's value in just being provocative. Across all media platforms, the focus is increasingly on generating attention and traffic, and Cowherd certainly succeeded in that regard. By making some off-the-cuff remarks about an American League starting pitcher, Cowherd lit up the internet and got a response from the pitcher himself. For Cowherd and his bosses, that's a job well done.

And to me, that's a damn pity. I get it. I really do. You need to generate attention and traffic in order to generate revenue, and you need to generate revenue in order to survive. But Cowherd's just another guy whose job is to give people something to talk about, and that plays right in to our society's maddening prioritization of chatter over being informed.

Frankly, Cowherd's brutal character assassination against Rafael Palmeiro five years ago was enough for me to tune him out permanently, but the Lee story got a reaction from everyone -- media people and fans alike -- and put Cowherd's name on the tips of everyone's tongues for a little while. In that sense, it was -- as Jeff posits -- a success.

● Gil LeBreton writes a nice feel-good story about Andres Blanco, who notched his first career multi-extra-base hit game on Tuesday night with his family in attendance. There are certain guys in baseball who have a sort of magnetically charming quality about them -- the "good face," if you will. Blanco is one of those guys, a guy who seems to genuinely appreciate every moment he's in the majors to the fullest. He may never even end up being a league-average player, but I'll be damned if he's not one of those guys that you root for every time he plays because you desperately want to like him. 

● Joaquin Arias has been launched into the proverbial sun -- or, to put it more mildly, designated for assignment -- to clear room on the 40- and 25-man rosters for Alex Cora. Looking at Cora's career numbers, he's actually a rather remarkable modern-day specimen in that he's played 1,178 career games, and yet has a whopping 4.5 career wins above replacement to his credit. He's somehow managed to parlay that into more than $14 million in career earnings. Ah, the scent of veteran experience. In actuality, Cora likely doesn't give the Rangers anything that Arias didn't already give them, but it's pretty clear that Arias had lost the trust of Ron Washington, and once the player-manager bond is severed it's pretty difficult for a marginal player like Arias to find a way to stick around.