Catchers: C-
Laird has been throwing runners out at a decent clip, and his walk-rate is up, but aside from that he hasn’t done anything to show that he should be in the Rangers’ long term plans.
Infield: B
Tex is hitting like his old-self, MY is coming around, and Blalock was showing signs of tapping into his potential before hitting the DL. Kinsler has managed to rank as having only an average season thus far after tearing the cover off the ball for a month.
Outfield: C-
Wilkerson, Lofton, Catalanotto, Cruz, and Sosa may be one of the worst outfield rotations in recent memory. Wilkerson was actually having a quietly useful year before he got hurt (250/324/500). Catalanotto and Cruz have been train-wrecks and Lofton has played about as well as you could expect a 62 year old to play. At least Sosa’s chase of 600 homers has given the fans a reason to come to the ballpark.
Bench: A-
Every year the Rangers sign a couple of journeymen to fill the 24th or 25th spots on the bench only to have them end up as productive starters by the All-Star break. Dellucci did it in ‘05; DeRosa and GMJ did it last year; Ramon Vazquez and Victor Diaz are doing it this year. Kinda makes you wonder why Jon Daniels felt the need to pay Frank Catalanotto 13 million dollars.
Rotation: D
I wanted to give this collective group a D+ but the ‘plus’ seemed to give the grade an unwarranted positive connotation. Millwood and Padilla were supposed to be the work-horses but Padilla has been all-around horrible and Millwood has hurt himself with walks. Robinson Tejeda has shown flashes of effectiveness that can at least warrant putting him in long term discussions. The Brandon McCarthy Experiment is beginning to take his place alongside other disasters such as the Titanic and the Hindenburg. At least the DVD-trio should be arriving so…oh…oh, right. Nevermind.
Bullpen: A
I said before the year that the Rangers had the second best bullpen in the league (to the Twins) and now I think that may have been conservative. Benoit, Eye, Francisco, Gagne, Littleton, Mahay, Aki, and C.J. have ranged from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. Feldman is the only regular in the pen to have struggled so far (16 walks in 20 2/3 IP). Daniels should be scouring the league for teams in need of bullpen help.
Coaching: B+
I like Ron Washington. He said before the season that Blalock was his project and before going on the DL Hank was putting up a 285/335/493 line. I like guys who back up their word. He’s had his disputes with players (Tex and Laird, publically), but at least he’s laid his cards on the table and challenged his players to get better. If the team doesn’t listen to his plea to be more patient at the plate after almost being no-hit twice then maybe we should lift some of the blame for this slow start off of Wash.
Front Office: D-
I want to like Jon Daniels. When he signed on in 2005 I thought he would be the one to lead the transition from the failed A-Rod era to the Michael Young era of Rangers baseball. I loved the Soriano trade and even tried to defend the Chris Young/Adrian Gonzalez for Aki/Adam Eaton trade that hurts just to type. But the fact is that when Daniels was given the reigns, the team had control of valuable bargaining commodities in Soriano, Young, Gonzalez, John Danks, Nick Masset, and Francisco Cordero. Daniels has turned those six chips into a half year of Carlos Lee (playoff appearance not included),a month of Adam Eaton, the remains of Brad Wilkerson, the pitcher formerly known as Brandon McCarthy, and (the one bright spot) Akinori Otsuka. He has also shelled out big bucks to Vicente Padilla (33.75 million) and Frank Catalanotto (13.5 million). which ended up losing him the 16th pick in the draft. How he handles the potential trades of Tex, Aki, and Gagne will go a long way in determining how long Daniels stays at the helm.
Tony
