Carpe Datum

Paying Attention

Well, damn, here we are nearly halfway through June, and the Rangers just swept the Pirates to move within a half game of first place in the division, just behind Oakland and just ahead of Anaheim. They are nine games over .500, and as I hoped, they managed to sign Rick Helling to a triple-A contract. I hope they get the nerve to call him up, because I have an inkling he'll pitch his heart out once he's back on his old team (and they're competitive).

The main reason for the Rangers success is that several years ago, they basically decided they were incapable of scouting young pitching talent, so the General Manager at the time (Doug Melvin) decided to basically draft twice as many pitchers as they had drafted before, figuring the only way to develop good pitching was just to rely on sheer numbers. Like buying 10,000 lottery tickets instead of 100.

Sure enough, some of the young arms have hit. Juan Dominguez, who dominated the Yanks last week, pitches tonight against the Cardinals. He's young, so he won't be great every time out by any means, but he's shown many flashes of greatness. Kenny Rogers is pitching great, leading the majors in wins with a respectable ERA. He's a pitcher, like Helling, who should've been here all along. Unfortunately, it's his fault he's not.

A few years ago when Rogers was up for contract renewal, he wasn't pitching so well, and he demanded way too much money for way too long a term. The Rangers had made a reasonable offer, but he walked to test the free agent market. He quickly found the bottom had fallen out of the market for pitching that year, so he ended up signing a one-year deal for less many than the Rangers had been offering to guarantee him per year for 2-3 years. So he bounced around for a couple of years before finally coming back here for the right price. He's another guy it is good to have back.

With Helling and Rogers plus a few good young starters and a half-decent bullpen, we finally have some average (instead of the usual abysmal) pitching to go with the usual above-average offense. The result is that we could end up as much as 15-20 games over .500, and that'll be enough for the division title if Oakland falters (hey, I can dream, can't I?). More likely is that we'll fall back to Earth and end up about 5-10 games over, which is a respectable start with lots of promise for the years to come since almost all the key players are signed for a few years.

I can live with that.

Posted by Observer at June 11, 2004 08:38 AM