Hopefully they are calling about Koji and Koji jr.

Kirkman? One kan only hope, but I doubt Micheal has ANY trade value. even as a toss in. But they DID manage to get value for Salty so (and Boston is still using him!!)

I was wondering if the Rangers might be swayed from trading or releasing Uehara and/or Tateyame so Darvish could have a better comfort level with a countryman on the squad? I would hope not, but.....

I still think Kirkman can turn it around, he just needs to regain some confidence.

I doubt Darvish is all that fragile. I'm sure there is some degree of a comfort lvl but he's not 100% born and raised Japanese or anything. I believe he knows and is fluent enough at English not to need a translator. I could be wrong there though, I'd not seen any of his interviews.

To the Chicken Little Club : "Falling Skies Predicted"

A team of specialists commissioned by the CLC has learned that the Texas Rangers baseball players are actually human and that they may not win every game this season. Especially in the case of Yu Darvish, it is believed that he will actually surrender base hits and in some cases home runs. When this happens expect to experience large chunks of falling sky. In the event that the Rangers fall behind the Angels in the Al West standings it is being predicted that Doomsday will follow shortly. A team of experts will be on standby to provide counseling for CLC members.

Hopefully the schedule their meeting will be held far away from computer during all Ranger games.

Yes, good point. Trends are hard to develop with only four games, and a loss or two is easy to write off based on the small sample size. Trends are far clearer with 32 games (bigger sample sizes, by definition, lead to better trends). Thus, Payton's point is probably even more pertinent to baseball.

That said, the real point he was making, I think, is that preseason performance is relevant to at least some degree, as opposed to completely and totally IRrelevant.

Good catch.

We can hope but if the past has taught us anything it's that these types have a compelling desire to share their pessimism with everyone else.

Nice try. The fact is that baseball and football are totally exclusive of each other. The required skill sets and teamwork designations are so different I can't believe I even have to point it out. Now, I believe that both winning and losing are contagious. But you'll never be able to tell in spring training how well you'll do once the season starts, and that's more prominent with championship calibre teams - like Texas.

Spring training means different things to different people and different teams.
For the Rangers this year at least 80% of the players only concern was getting timing down and staying healthy.

I just checked and the book says that comparing apples to oranges is totally irrelevant in any debate. To take a Football coach's perspective on what is and is not pertinent to baseball is doing just that. And, after what just happened to Payton, I wouldn't bet any money on any of his opinions or points, period.

Oddly enough, I've seen NFL teams have lousy pre-season records and win divisions. Pretty flabbergasting, huh?

In 2010, they had a 10-19 record during the Spring.

Oakland has the 2nd best record in spring games this year, and somehow they lost their first game?

btw... The A's beat the M's last night 4-1. Bartolo Colon went 8 innings for Oakland, and the sole Mariners run came from a Justin Smoak solo homer.

I think all this whining proves is that though they claim to be long time Ranger fans, they really didn't follow them until October 2010.

Rangers are tied for last.

cue the trolls!

lol.

While I don't doubt that holds true for some, I think most have been more casual fans in the past since the Rangers have been less than stellar through most of their history. It's hard to get too excited over losing, and only true fans of baseball (in general) want to converse in times of woe, or get so involved in the building process that they understand future ramifications in the daily transactions.

Does that make sense?

We often think of those as bandwagon fans, but in reality many fans of losing teams often find other venues of interest at such times. And I think that explains why many don't know much of anything about our minor league talent, other than those few names the press mentions. (That last statement might be overzealous)

Not really flabbergasting. I've been a Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers fan too long to be surprised by anything that happens before or during the season. Actually, I'm not a fan of pro football at all anymore.

The baseball season is long enough to give a team that starts out slow catch up and overtake a team that starts out "hot".

Just saw the pitchers for tonight's game. Matt Harrison starts. With Yoshi Tateyama, Mike Kirkman and Koji Uehara in relief. Oh my.... Get the Alka Seltzer ready.