Other Crap

Believe it or not, there is good news for Rangers fans

"The Rangers have far and away the best farm system in the game right now, with impact prospects, lots of depth (particularly in very young pitching) and plenty of prospects close enough to the majors to help the big league club in 2009 and 2010."

Given the Rangers' existing pitching staff, one of the worst in the 139 years of professional baseball, their kids should have no trouble making the big club.

How bad were they last year? They allowed 967 runs. Is that bad? Well, I'll tell ya ... the Rockies' staff allowed only 420 at Coors! The Rangers had the best offense in baseball by a wide margin, and their pitchers still allowed 60 more runs than the offense could score. The club ERA was 6.63 in July, and four other months were above 5. Yeah, that's bad.

The staff ace, Vicente Padilla, had a WHIP close to 1.5 - and still went 14-8 thanks to the club's firepower. You probably know about Luis Mendoza, who created a new Mendoza line for pitchers with an ERA of 8.67 in 11 stars. The opposition scored in double figures in five of his starts, including a 19 and an 18 back-to-back! The Rangers did have one guy who was pitching well, Sidney Ponson, who was 4-1 with a 3.88 ERA. They promptly dumped him, supposedly because of his personality conflicts, but probably because he was embarrassing them with victories. (The Yankees picked him up and he continued to be a jerk, but did not continue to pitch well.)