Die Hard Rangers Fan

February 17,2004.

It’s the day the worst trade in the history of professional sports happened. I challenge anyone out there to find a more ignorant, gut-wrenching deal than the one Tom Hicks, John Hart and the Texas Rangers made on this day.

The Rangers sent Alex Rodriguez and his whopping contract to the New York Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and prospect Joaquin Arias. Soriano is since long gone, and Arias has yet to pan out. Rodriguez, of course, is one of the best hitters of our generation.

You know the rest of the story. This deal wasn’t simply a matter of the three players involved. Far from it. In addition to trading one of the best hitters of our generation, Tom Hicks, somehow, agreed to give the Yankees $67 million in future years, just for the privilege of doing business with them.

I had no problem shipping A-Rod out of town. After three last-place finishes since he arrived, I was all for it. But $67 million on top of it? Extending in some form or fashion all the way out to 2025? I wasn’t that desperate to see him go. And it felt like a punch in the gut when I saw the details of the trade.

(Technically the money went to A-Rod, not the Yankees. But the Rangers were paying a significant part of his contract, and he played for the Yankees. So…)

You know the saying “a fool and his money are easily parted?”

Well, guess what? The fool got a reprieve. Sort of. With A-Rod opting out of his deal with the Yankees, the Rangers are off the hook for the final $21 million, which will go back in Tom Hicks’ pockets.

And some of that $21 million is going to go back into his baseball team.

Oh, outside of a centerfielder, I don’t expect the Rangers to make much of a splash in free agency this offseason. If they do much, it will be via trades, I suspect. But it does impact what they can do in future years, when the current group of young players develop and they are ready to make a push.

And G.M. Jon Daniels did bring in some young talent this year. The Rangers, in one season, transformed their farm system from being ranked by Baseball America 28th in baseball, to what I expect to be a top 10 ranking as we enter spring training.

To be fair, it wasn’t just the trades Daniels made. It was the bevy of first round draft choices in 2007, five of them in all. It was the re-focusing in Latin America two years ago, which is starting to pay dividends. And it was some young players already in the system, like RHP Eric Hurley, C Taylor Teagarden and 2B German Duran, and plenty of others, making positive strides in their development. But the trades sure helped stock the talent level.

I’m not sad at all to see the A-Rod chapter finally closed.

We’ll get into free agency next time.

I don’t have the stomach for it right now.

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It seems like almost every year, we sit around and think, “gee, if we could only get a couple of good quality pitchers on the mound, we might take this thing.” I mean, Trip already spoke of Rudy Jaramillo’s success as a hitting coach. The Rangers can definitely bat. But sometimes our pitching just reeks. Well, anyway, I found a couple of decent links that talk about free agent pitchers. I know that right now we can’t talk to most of them - and there are a few that we don’t want to talk to when we can… but here are some folks to start thinking about. (yeah, that last one is from one of the three Washington National fans’ blog site, but he does a good job of listing folks. Obviously his commentary refers to the Nationals, but it is a good starting point…

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The Rangers have some glaring needs as the team enters the offseason. And over the next week, we are going to talk about all of them. But one area the organization doesn’t have to worry about is finding a hitting coach. Rudy Jaramillo has signed a two-year deal to stay with the team.

To understand why it was imperative the Rangers keep Jaramillo under contract, you just have to look at his results. He took over as hitting coach for Texas in 1995, and in his 13 seasons, Jaramillo has produced 4 A.L. MVP’s, 16 Silver Slugger Awards, 3 HR titles, 2 RBI titles and a batting average title.

A few years ago, Mark Teixeira had this to say: “He doesn’t try to cookie-cut your swing. He learns your swing and adapts his philosophies to your swing. At this point, Rudy knows my swing better than I do. Whenever something is not right, he’s able to adjust me mentally and physically very quickly because everything is so easy to understand.”

This from Michael Young: “Whenever I do something at the plate, I don’t feel so much that I did it, but that ‘we’ did it. He is the best and most loyal coach I’ve ever been around. He has an innate ability to know what makes players go. Having Rudy in my corner was huge. As much as I believed in myself and thought I had confidence, knowing that he believed in me too really helped. He always told me what I could do. Now it’s to the point of being second nature. But he’s still the first guy I see in the clubhouse every day and we go over my approach. We’re so much on the same page. It’s a lot of help.”

That is the type of belief that players have in Jaramillo. He has a long history of success, from superstars like Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Bagwell to reclamation projects like Mickey Tettleton and Lee Stevens. Even players who have been around the league with limited success, have sometimes turned into players under Jaramillo. The Rangers signed Gary Matthews Jr. to a minor league deal in 2004, and two years later Matthews was an all-star and signed a $50-million contract with the Anaheim Angels. David Dellucci, Marlon Byrd, Rod Barajas, there are plenty of examples, but players just generally hit better after spending time with Rudy Jaramillo.

I can’t begin to explain how Jaramillo does what he does, but I know he has five essential keys to help hitters: (1) rhythm, (2) see the ball, (3) separate your hands (4) stay square and (5) shift weight.

“All it is about is timing and improving your odds,” Jaramillo said. “If you put the work in and develop the muscle memory, you don’t have to think up there. You are in a good position to hit whatever is thrown. You work hard and when the game begins, it’s there for you.”

However he does it, he is going to keep doing it for the Texas Rangers. And this news should be a relief to all Rangers fans because the team came very close to losing him last week.

We are currently in the two week period following the World Series, where MLB teams can only negotitate with their own free agents. They can, however, express interest in other teams’ free agents, and the Rangers have already expressed interest in CF’s Torii Hunter and Aaron Rowand.

Tomorrow we will get into free agency and how A-Rod leaving the Yankees impacts the Texas Rangers. It does. Believe me it does. And he isn’t coming to Texas.

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We are ready to launch ‘Die Hard Rangers Fan‘, and Clint and Trip will be bringing you your Rangers news, analysis, rumors, and opinion.  Clint and Trip also write for Die Hard Cowboys Fan, and have their own Cowboys blog, Bleeding Blue and Silver.  Definitely check out Bleeding Blue and Silver!!!

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