I'll never quite understand what to make of articles on MLB.com. They all come with that "This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs" disclaimer at the bottom of the page, even when the article is little more than a press release for something that benefits the league or one of the teams. They do have the occasional decent story though and some good notes columns that catch you up on what's going on with teams out of your market.
More often than not, though, the articles are of dubious merit. Take today's look into the crystal ball of the Texas Rangers. It featured this nugget of wisdom.
Just to state the obvious: if the Rangers are going to contend in 2008, they'll need a huge comeback and a career year from Hank Blalock.
I'll tell ya what, Blalock could have Babe Ruth's 1920 season and the Rangers would still have a helluva time contending for anything more than third place in the AL West. Brandon McCarthy is their best starting pitcher at the moment and neither his 4.79 ERA nor a 44/54 BB/K ratio is going to make anyone forget about Felix Hernandez, John Lackey and Dan Haren. The two big-ticket veteran starters, Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla, are both having disastrous seasons with ERAs in the neighborhood of 6. Another truth is that when Blalock was healthy (he's been out since May)he wasn't having all that bad a season. Much better than the two that preceded it anyway. The rest of the offense is garbage, the rotation, as mentioned, is garbage and for the Rangers to contend in 2008 they are going to need some combination of the following.
- An accident involving the team planes of the Angels and Mariners.
- An off-year by Haren, another injury to Huston Street and Billy Beane trying to salvage the careers of Richard Hidalgo, Fernando Tatis and Wade Miller.
- Theo Epstein trades Manny Ramirez for Frank Catalanotto.
- A career year for Michael Young, who has a 774 OPS and just one more home run than Blalock despite playing the last three months.
- The return of the spitball.
- A helluva a lot of luck.
Comments