Is Zack Greinke the Rangers’ to Lose?

We’re one day closer to Zack Greinke being a Ranger. Well, I guess you could also say we’re another day closer to complete and utter misery. Whatever floats your boat.

Per MLBtrade rumors:

"“There’s a growing sense among Dodgers personnel that Greinke will end up with the Rangers, tweets Scott Miller of CBS Sports. They feel that if Greinke really wanted to pitch for them, he’d have signed by now.”"

Is that good enough for you? It’s good enough for me. I mean, I’d like it a lot more if he would just sign on the goddamn dotted line, but I’ll take any positive news I can get, particularly when every other tidbit of information basically says “It’s all about money” and “The Dodgers are gonna back up the Brinks truck” and all this other unfunny, erroneous nonsense. It’s getting tiring.

/Associated Press

Zack Greinke is a different bird. Some would (and probably already have many times) called him weird. He’s a smart, gifted, analytical weirdo, which is why Arlington would be the perfect place for him to pitch. I was listening to one of the MLB Network guys (who, just for the record, do a disservice to their audience by recycling the same garbage over and over; when you have Jon Heyman as one of your lead “insiders,” there’s a problem, but whatever), and he was paraphrasing a discussion Greinke had with Boston general manager Ben Cherington, in which Cherington said “Greinke probably knows more about our farm system than we do.”

Okay, he was embellishing; I get it. I hope you do, too. But you have to figure there’s some level or truth to the above quote/Tweet. If the great Rangers vs. Dodgers race for Zack Greinke was strictly about money, he would have already been signed to LA. They have more money than us. They could outbid our best offer by $20M-$40M, all things considered. They are desperate to spend their money on the best available talent, and, well, Greinke is the most valuable player on the market.

If Greinke is sizing up the two organizations, the Rangers have a distinctly crystal clear advantage both in the sense that they carry both Maddux brothers and Nolan Ryan — essentially pitching royalty — and the far superior farm system. The Dodgers hardly had anything to give even back when they acquired Hanley Ramirez from the Marlins. Mostly every other prized commodity (from an already weak system) was given to the Red Sox in the mammoth Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford trade.

If you’re Greinke, and you actually give a damn about these sorts of things, you know the Rangers are flush with Minor League talent, the same talent that will be defending him and scoring his runs over the next 6-7 years.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some sort of definitive article saying Zack Greinke is ours to lose. However, all we’ve heard since the season ended was that the Dodgers were just going to outbid everyone and the Rangers had no chance in hell. Well, here we are less than two months later, and the odds seem to have drastically shifted, not necessarily in our favor, but at least to the level where we can say we’re on even ground.