Regular Season Musings

So, I was notified via email this morning that my Boston Marathon article has been taken down. So that’s good. Either way, the families of those victims will be in our thoughts during a sports week that will continue to press forward, like life.

– AJM over at Lonestarball has an interesting article about how bad the Rangers offense is. And by “interesting,” I mean interesting in a dismal way. Either way, it’s a well-constructed piece, but the general message is logically that things will turn around. The BABIP luck dragon has been killing the Rangers so far in 2013.

– The Mariners were the first non-winning series of the season for the Rangers. Before splitting 4 games in Seattle, the Rangers took 2 out of 3 against Houston, LAA, and Tampa Bay.

– From now until May 13th — which will be the first OAK-TEX matchup of the season — the Rangers have 24 games scheduled. Their opponents read like this:

@CHI (NL)

vs. Seattle

@LAA

@MIN

vs. CHI (AL)

vs. BOS

@MIL

@HOU

Right now the Rangers (8-5) are 1.5 games behind the A’s (10-4), but in the same span Oakland has to play HOU, @TB, @BOS, BAL, LAA, @NYY, @CLE, @SEA. Of the two, I’d say it’s pretty clear Oakland has the tougher of the two schedules. So in short, it’s early, but the ensuing days should give us an interesting snapshot of the season.

– Three pitchers in baseball have already generated +1.o fWAR or better: Adam Wainwright (+1.2), Clayton Kershaw (+1.1), and Yu Darvish (+1.0). Alexi Ogando is 11th in baseball at +0.7, and Nick Tepesch and Derek Holland are part of a cluster at of pitchers at +0.3.

– T.R. Sullivan has a new inbox up, and in it he mentions “If the Rangers can get [Giancarlo Stanton or David Price] for a package led by Profar, they will do it in the blink of an eye.”

Now, I’m rarely one to 2nd guess a guy “in the know” as much as Sullivan is, but I have a hard time believing Texas would trade Profar “in the blink of an eye” in any trade, ever. Shortstop is a scarce position in baseball right now, so even though 3+ years of Giancarlo Stanton or 2+ for David Price sounds nice, from a WAR/$ standpoint the Rangers would not be receiving equal value in return.

You might think that’s a stupid thing to say, but from my vantage point it’s completely within reason. If Price and Stanton are each +5.0-win players until they hit free agency (which may be conservative in Stanton’s case), then Stanton figures to make +20.0 fWAR and Price +15.0.

Jurickson Profar, whom Keith Law said (paraphrased) “should battle Mike Trout for future MVP awards,” has 6 years of team control. And, a lot like Stanton and Price, he has the potential to generate 5.0+ wins per season, with room for much more.

So, in this hypothetical — which is sure to get more attention as the season progresses — we’re dealing with the age-old philosophical question: What’s more important, the present or the future?