I'm sitting in the back of a classroom right now watching a student teacher perform a problem on the area of a surface of revolution. In other words, you have a solid piece of something with curved sides, and you want to know its surface area. At the moment, I'm laughing, because I just asked how this applies to anything I'll ever do in my life, as my undergrad major here is history, and I'll be going for my MBA upon graduation. Then it struck me that this actually applies to baseball in a pretty unique way. Baseball bats are made in such a way that the amount of surface area that meets an incoming baseball determines to a large amount the velocity with which it goes from there. If players can master the art of meeting a pitcher's pitch with the greatest part of their bat, they can become a great hitter. This explains the unique sound of a batting practice session by Josh Hamilton and other great hitters. They've learned to square the greatest amount of surface area on the head of their bat against an incoming ball. That's just a quick thought of mine to pass the time.
The big club was obviously disappointing yesterday afternoon, but that's not any reason to panic. We are still a club looking more at 2010 than 2008. Write that down. I think CJ Wilson deserves more time at closer, and Eddie Guardado is hit around every once in awhile. Things happen. We tend to forget that Carlos Quentin was great before this game, and his hitting skills have beaten many other pitchers. If we make any trades, they need to be for pieces that will be here when we start winning again, and at a fairly reasonable price financially and in players we send away. Gerald Laird is a quality catcher both offensively and defensively. If he comes back healthy (which is in doubt), he is an immediate upgrade over Salty, who continues to look like he's overmatched and overconfident for someone who has had little success in the big leagues. Laird can be here in 2010, the year just about everyone is pointing to for the next Rangers playoff run. If he leaves after that, thanks to his agent Scott Boras, we will get draft picks (health is once again the question). As for the moment, Salty looks like he needs another refresher course at Oklahoma. We've already used his option for the year, and this is his first option year (he didn't see the minors after his contract was purchased by Atlanta last year). He's still only 23. We don't have a pressing need to baptize him by fire, since we have three other quality backstops on the 40-man. I would love to see Salty in Oklahoma soon, with Teagarden in as the #2 backstop behind Laird. Max Ramirez can spend time at Oklahoma or Frisco honing his skills as a future Catcher/First Baseman/Designated Hitter. These people need ABs, and the only one I see as developing in spite of those ABs is Teagarden. Forget the Olympics thing. It's not what's best for the Rangers and for Teagarden. They're busy using his option a year early (for a few days of ML service time), and he'll lose the development time splitting catching duties with the Phillies' Lou Marson in Beijing. If we want him to development on our own terms, we need to keep him here. Winning the last baseball gold medal is not everything.
Hank Blalock's name has crept back up in rumors, but he'll still be here in August. That's my not-so-bold prediction. He's still a quality third baseman who needs to get healthy again while we find a suitable replacement. Unless we find a replacement in trading someone like Laird, losing Blalock will be risky. If we pick up his option for next year and he plays well, we'll be in line to either get a decent return at the deadline next year or draft picks. That will also give time to someone like Johnny Whittleman to develop. Another line of thinking might be that trading Blalock away can give Ramon Vazquez the stats to sneak into becoming a Type B free agent at the end of the season. He might accept arbitration, but with the rumor of recent grumblings, he might not. Considering he's only making $810,000 right now, accepting arbitration wouldn't be too costly to the Rangers anyway. They've been discussing the Elias rankings over at MLBTradeRumors, so check it out. It could be relevant to us more in the next couple of years.
That's the extent of Major League news pertaining to the Rangers as of now, and I'll be along with minors stuff later in the day. Drop me a line at texasrangersanalyst@gmail.com for questions or comments. It'd be great to run this somewhat like Minor League Ball, with readers driving player profiles, lists, rumors, or whatever. Have a good morning.
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