We were hoping the Winter Meetings would have provided clarity. Now we’re left with a picture more muddled than before. We were told Josh Hamilton would be back. Now we’re being told Josh Hamilton probably won’t be back. If there’s something to take from all that has recently transpired, it’s that the media knows about as much as we do: Nothing.

/Associated Press

The future destination of Zack Greinke, the best available player on the market, is remarkably hazy. It seemed the basic math when the offseason commenced was that the Dodgers would pistol-whip Greinke with an avalanche of cash. No one thought a team like the Rangers, with their run-inflated ballpark and burial ground of pitchers who once succumbed to the heat of Arlington, could be serious players for his services. I don’t know if they were all wrong, if we were all wrong for assuming, or if even Zack Greinke doesn’t know what he wants to do with him self.

The consensus of us inhabiting the baseball universe is simple, and steady: We’re waiting.

And as I sit here, drinking the cheapest of Smirnoff vodka, puffing on a Newport short, I remain steadfast in my intuitive belief that Zack Greinke knows exactly where he’s going, and that the location is nowhere other than here. Well, not here, because I’m in Southern California. But rather, there, in Arlington.

My case is simple. If this was merely an issue of money, the Dodgers would already have signed Greinke. The Dodgers are more willing to spend than any other franchise, and, reportedly, would get into the $180M territory to attain Greinke. It has to be more than that. The Rangers, led by Jon Daniels and one of the more advanced scouting departments and minor league systems in baseball, provide security with their success. The model they’ve built, through trades, through the amateur draft, and through international signings, has made them baseball’s most imposing juggernaut.

I don’t know the timeline for when all this is going to go down. If I’m wrong, I will be severely disappointed my perception didn’t come into fruition. However, as far as this offseason is concerned, the ball isn’t going to begin its roll until Zack Greinke decides what he wants to do with himself over the next six or seven seasons.

The complexion of the 2013 Major League season hasn’t even yet reached puberty. Every team is sort of stuck in that awkward stage where they’re actively wanting to rid themselves of all the pimples on their rosters, but there’s nothing they can do about it because time won’t allow them to. For the Rangers, this is an offseason of transition. Yet, that transition cannot begin to take shape, for the epicenter of everyone’s reality will not allow it.

The dream scenario, at least how I see it, is that the Rangers sign Zack Greinke, trade Elvis Andrus for Justin Upton, then see Michael Young accept his pending trade to the Phillies. It will probably require Texas to then relinquish Nelson Cruz‘s $10.5M price tag by way of another trade, but I suppose we’ll just cross that road when we have to.

If I had to handicap the odds of said scenario actually transpiring, I’d say it’s somewhere in area of 25%. The other 75? Well, I guess we’ll all just have to suspend disbelief to imagine what that will be. Because no one knows.

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.

Wilson the day he learned of his All-Star Game selection (Photo: Joel Prince Dallas Morning News)

Wilson was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the fifth round of the 2001 amateur draft. This season he is getting paid 7.05 million and will be a free-agent at the end of the year.

This year C.J. has a record of 9 and 3 and an ERA of 3.20. His strikeout-to-walk ratio this season is much improved at 2.79. His WHIP this season (Walks-plus-hits per innings pitched) is down as well at 1.205. (more…)