How is it that the Tampa Bay Rays are contenders?

Sorry, man. It's not all about how much money you spend, as what you get for the money you do spend. Anaheim obviously thinks they can't compete with Texas without spending all that money. Texas is A.L. West champions even though their closest rival spent over $40MM more on payroll last year. It's not all about how much money you spend.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you don't have shareholders in your company that have to realize a fair return on their investment. That creates a different scenario. I believe the Rangers are also spending around $11MM to renovate the outfield pavillion, and last year they installed new video equipement (including screens) and scoreboard to make the experience better. Seems to me they redid the turf as well. I hope you're not intimating there's no structural improvements going on.

>>>...but you guys still don't get it. You are thinking small.>>>

No, you're wrong again. Thinking small is sinking a ridiculous amount of money into one or two players, and taking the chance that those contracts will handcuff the team in the future. Thinking BIG is considering the team in the short-term (immediate season) AND the long-term (future seasons). JD is a long-term planner and it's resulted in the last two AL pennants.

and what might be the plan for 2013 than huh? fire sale or will we 'handcuff the team with expensive contracts'.

I don't think you'll se JD give anyone a contract like AP. Might be wrong, but I don't think so. I doubt that the contracts for all the FAs that are coming due in the next couple of years equal the Pujols deal.

Agree with you totally, with the exception of the term "handcuff."

Thanks to the Angels new TV deal, they will be bringing in about $100M more per year, starting in 2014 (I think). So they will not be losing any money on it.

Still, committing such a high percentage of your money to 2 players, one of which is already declining (but still great) and one of which is your #3 starter, is not bright.

Good point.

I think you'll be surprised. I think much of our top talent will, like CJ, see $$$ signs. As Rep said (and nobody seemed to disagree) they will be far and away the creme of the crop out there, we will be LUCKY to re-sign them all. LUCKY. Just look at CJ Wilson, I bet all these kids have a home to go to and not all of them are in the Dallas area.

We also have talent in a number of areas to replace them so no, their bes bet will NOT be to sign an extension with The Rangers, they will try to go for that top dollar in free agency and SOME of them will get it! Maybe not AP kind of money, but I'm sure Kins for one will get a Carl Crawford type deal or even better.

What will I be surprised at? I said that I don't think JD will offer the kind of contracts that AP got. I did not say that we'll resign all the FAs that are coming due. Maybe a couple of them, I don't know. But I don't think a massive contract is in the works for any of them.

I agree most won't re-sign as great as it sounds to keep the core players already here. Generally the ones most motivated to sign prior to free agency are giving up a year or two of free agency in exchange for a quicker pay increase on their pre-arb years.

All one has to do is look at who represents Elvis to realize he's headed to the open market. Hamilton will be challenging based on determining a fair value for such a unique player. Since he's only a year away now, he has less incentive to make that happen now because he'll have tremendous leverage after this season.

I'm not sure if the team values Cruz enough to entice him to skip out on free agency so it could turn into a him or Josh situation where they have to really open up the wallet. The lack of power coming in outfield prospects to replace him here will work to his advantage as well.

I could see them having success buying out a year or two of several young pitchers free agency but even now, it's difficult to gauge their value if they engage in those talks now. They rushed to extend Feldman after one solid season and the overpayment there is the only thing that likely saved his roster spot last season. Probably a good thing now, since he'll be depended on to eat innings with Feliz moving into the rotation.

surprised that maybe we should've grabbed that ace when we had the chance? surprised that you've become a Marlins fan circa 2008 and end up having to root for all new players every 5 years.

All I'm saying is the ONLY way around that IS the multi-year contract and the only players that get multi-year contracts are the very best ones that go for 10s of millions of dollars! When was the last time you saw a 5+ year contract (beyond international markets, where WE don't see them in the bigs for a few years anyway) go for less than 50mil? That number is quickly reaching 75, 80 mil as well! Some say you gotta spend money to make money which, as Hicks would tell you, is simply not true. You do, however, need to spend money to WIN. It'd be nice if we DID spend that money, maybe we'd WIN more consistantly. possibly put together a loooong, unheard of, 10 game winning streak or something!

<<<surprised that maybe we should've grabbed that ace when we had the chance?>>>

We should have grabbed that "ace" that has exactly zero world series game wins? Is that the "ace" you're referring to?

<<< When was the last time you saw a 5+ year contract (beyond international markets, where WE don't see them in the bigs for a few years anyway) go for less than 50mil?>>>

By my count that would be over 6 contracts to equal the two the Angels just signed. I think I will take 6 $50M players instead of 1 $250M player and 1 $75M player.

<<<You do, however, need to spend money to WIN. It'd be nice if we DID spend that money, maybe we'd WIN more consistantly. possibly put together a loooong, unheard of, 10 game winning streak or something!>>>

You must be talking about all those pennants we won and the world series we went to when we were signing players to 10-year $250M contracts.

1) Arod was 1 player, ofc we weren't gonna win with 1 player.

2) I wasn't referring to CJ Wilson maybe I was referring to Cliff Lee, maybe I was referring to Andy Pettite and the list goes ON and ON! I'm not referring to one specific ace, I'm referring to all of them.

Established players get too expensive and Texas turns to something cheaper, it's always the same deal. This is fine sometimes, even the MAJORITY of the time but WHAT contract can you think of that Hart or Daniels signed that was for an 'overpriced' commodity? Young, Arod, CHP You might even point to Padilla's contract... but I'm not sure if that counts. Anyway that's 4 pricy deals since the glory days of the 1990s. 4 contracts out of THOUSANDS, no wonder players are so content to test free agency, we act like we're small market! You know it wouldn't be so bad if we WERE small market but Dallas ISN'T a small city! Especially considering we pretty much represent all of west Texas. I doubt there are many marketing areas bigger than ours.

I'm not ashamed of our current roster, I'm just ashamed of our talk about not being able to expand. We're not a small market but we sure do act like one.

Could not agree more.....saved me a lot of typing....same ole ranger philosophy, win with the draft and when they mature and need to be paid let um go and start over. Ryan and friends have the money to sign PF probably 100 mil and incentives and they better sign Hamilton.....but they will line there pockets with world series cash instead of doing whats right for the fans......Ryan will get a new herd for his ranch, or maybe a new ranch or 10....and we will watch Wash make the same mistakes but this time no pitching too bail him out. Prediction 87 wins, third in div.

Another idiotic post from someone who has zero understanding of business.

your right, money does buy you a ws championship, just look at the phillies last year........oh wait, nevermind.

Can anybody show me a 6+ year big dollar contract that actually worked out in the last year or two? Virtually every one screams "DON'T DO IT!!!" Yet, everyone seems to want to. Can anyone say B.J. Ryan?

Oh, and BTW, how many of the top-10 payroll teams made it to the World Series this year? Hint: it's less than 1.

I think your much too strict as to your qualification of 'worth it'. Too you nothing is worth it. To me Arod won 2 mvps and brought a modicum of respect to a texas team that otherwise was in Kansas City Royals land. I bet if you numbered the amount of nationaly televised games with the Rangers to the amount with the Royals in those years you'd see a bit more on the Rangers side, biggest (if not only) reason being is multi-year MVP, Alex Rodriguez. Say what you want, but that contract was VERY close (if not over) to worth it. Even if we're still paying for it 5 years later... that's not Arod's fault, that's Hicks'.

As to other long contracts, I can't really tell you, I honestly don't pay enough attention to contracts that WORK OUT. And I'm sure neither do you. Yes probably 99% of them (the exception being Chris Carpentar/ Evan Longoria/ Troy Tulowitzki) end in 'disaster', but that doesn't make the whole thing a disaster. Say David Ortiz is signed to a 7 year contract and David Ortiz is part of the club that breaks the 'curse' of Babe Ruth, does that make David Ortiz' last year of hitting .240, does that make his last 6 seasons a bust?? Derrik Jeter is an unMISTAKABLE Yankee draw, I doubt ANY contract he gets will be a bad one... though his current one (IE Jerry Rice, though football always does that since very little of it is gauranteed but...) is totally ludacris if you ask me. Not for the money amount, but the length :/. I suppose you could make him the MLBs richest paid bench coach in a few years.

Anyway some say if Albert wins a few WS titles and breaks even just Ruth's record while staying clean in Anaheim (or anywhere else Moreno moves them too :/) than his contract will be a big win for them. Who knows? but I agree with him. If Albert goes into the record books as an Angel he would make it worth the money. Not because he'd make it all back right then even, but because folks will be buying (and recognizing) Albert Pujols LAA merchandise for years afterward.

It is hard to define "worth it," so let me try this: if you knew then what you know now, would you still do the deal? If so, it was worth it. If not, it wasn't worth it.

I might be too positive, I see very few contract that I wouldn't do lol. Probably just Chan Ho Park, that's all. The others had some modicum of positivity that makes it a little worth it. I'd have traded Arod for someone else though... not Arias. I wouldn't have traded Soriano for Galarragha either. Unless that was the only offer on the table.