Monday Morning News and Notes

We’re diving into our second full week of baseball-less Rangers action, with a familiar quartet of teams remaining in the postseason. The American League features the last two teams Texas defeated to make it into the World Series, and the National League holds the two teams that beat us when we arrived there. Yeah, it’s hard to root for any of the remaining teams, basically by default.

Anyway.

– Baseball Time in Arlington’s Joey Matchulat writes an interesting piece about the strike zone (or lack thereof) in regards to the Rangers in 2012.

– Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas weighs in on what Michael Young’s role on the club will be in 2013, and whether it’s time he becomes only a part-time player. (Full disclosure: I don’t believe there’s a rational person out there who thinks he’s anything but a limited-capacity player at this stage of his career.)

– The Dallas Morning News’s Evan Grant plays GM and trades Ian Kinsler to Toronto, acquires Zach Greinke and Nick Swisher via free agency, and bats Michael Young 2nd in his 2013 Opening Day lineup.

– Adam Morris of Lonestarball offers up a poll asking how many guaranteed years Josh Hamilton will receive on his next contract.

Just another day in the life of Josh Hamilton

And honestly, I don’t see much sense in Evan Grant’s scenario of trading Kinsler, and I especially don’t know why Toronto would be willing to get rid of a young, controllable catcher as part of the return. Kins is due $70M over the next five years, so it would essentially be a salary dump on the Rangers end.

As for Michael Young, I think he probably needs to go. It won’t be easy to trade him, particularly with respect to his 10/5 rights. But if Ron Washington and the front office had a sit-down and told him his role on the club would be reduced dramatically (say, 40-50 starts next year), I have a hard time fathoming that Young wouldn’t want to be traded. He is, after all, on a long-shot mission to reach 3,000 hits.