The Dominos Fell on the Texas Rangers

Nobody loves a good conspiracy theory more than me.  Baseball is famous for its collusion, umm excuse me “good old boys” network.  I would love to make this a case of us getting squeezed but it just looks like bad luck to me.  The one thing that is conspiratorial is the fact every year it seems a player uses the Rangers to jack up his asking price and that is exactly what Zack Greinke did.  I think he never wanted to play anywhere but Los Angeles and specifically for the Dodgers. A pitcher friendly park and an three-year opt out on his deal means an even bigger payday down the road.

While we won’t know exactly what happened at the Winter Meetings (we know what didn’t), to see the Diamondbacks pull off a trade whose framework we laid was the height of frustration. As a fan we can’t get mad for several reasons. Reason number one and far above the others?  Would you like to be the guy to trade Elvis Andrus or Jurickson Profar? The rest of the league’s insistence on one of those two players made it impossible to land Justin Upton or James Shields.

Now we move on to Josh Hamilton. While some of us have reservations about having him back, there is no doubt that he makes everyone better when they are at the plate. I only hope if we do, whatever caused his head to disappear for most of the second half of the season, will not be a factor again. Yesterday I heard a report that Josh was asking one team for seven years, so it doesn’t sound like his mental problems have changed.

Can Olt net the player we need?

(photo credit: Dallas Morning News)

Here is the problem for the Rangers as a result of this chain of events. Barring someone taking Mike Olt as the main piece of a trade, we are looking at a mini-youth movement this season. That’s not to say we can’t compete, but these youngsters will have to step up in a big way.  Yes there are a couple of pieces out there that can help, but we have proven again and again (and I approve), we will not overpay for a free agent.

The term that I have used a lot is hard to stay behind but I will. Trust in Nolan and J.D.  But while they were waiting for the dominos to fall, they fell on us.