Wish list.
As I was going through the final edit process on this year’s book, I came across this late-January entry, titled “Things I’d like to see,” which listed a bunch of (mostly) baseball wishes for 2015.
I thought, on this, the four-year anniversary of perhaps the unlinkably worst day in local sports history, that I’d revisit the list to see how things turned out this season.
(Oh, and also, here’s a link to the audio from the nearly hour-long Rangers roundtable I was invited to join Ben Rogers, Jared Sandler, and Mike Bacsik on last week on 105.3 The Fan: http://cbsloc.al/1kAR42H)
The January list:
* A trade for Cliff Lee. If Texas really did go down the road [this winter] with Philadelphia on Cole Hamels, and if money really was the primary sticking point, then it’s probably fair to assume there was some level of consensus on Rangers prospects that (1) the Phillies like and (2) the Rangers were willing to consider putting in a deal. That’s valuable information. Scale back the Hamels package — take the best player in the deal off the table, for example — and go from there. This can wait until July.
Well, Lee never did pitch in 2015, sidelined all year with a forearm strain. But Texas-Philadelphia talks did revive in July, on Hamels after all, and that’s one reason I’m so fired up about the 2016 season and beyond.
* A key non-roster acquisition in the next three weeks. Jeff Banister appears to be committed to using his bench more than Ron Washington did. Maybe that convinces a player who wouldn’t have chosen an non-guaranteed opportunity in Texas the last several years to take one now. Not that there are lots of candidates still floating out there — but I’d like to see the bench boosted one more time.
Over those ensuing three weeks, Texas signed righthander Jamey Wright and outfielders Ryan Ludwick and Nate Schierholtz to non-roster deals. None stuck.
* On that subject, Mitch Moreland and Kyle Blanks putting together the first .800+ OPS season by Texas designated hitters since 2011.
That worked out well, no matter how you look at it. Moreland (who didn’t DH much) and Blanks combined for an .820 OPS (.283/.333/.487), while Rangers DH’s had an .824 mark (.298/.370/.454).
* Blanks doing enough to make the Josh Donaldson trade look even worse for Oakland.
Man, it looked like Blanks was on his way to a really big year before he got hurt in June. (He declined the Rangers’ outright assignment this week and is now a free agent again.)
Of course, Donaldson did enough on his own in 2015 to turn that terrible A’s trade into an unmitigated disaster.
* Juan Gonzalez. It’s been 10 years since he played and I don’t think I’ve seen him since. He was Josh Hamilton before Josh Hamilton. Some former teammate of Juando needs to convince him to show up before one home game this year. Just one.
Never saw that he made it to a game, but my son and I did get to see him in August, and that was really cool.
* More and more beasts landing in the National League. With the Dodgers and Nationals and Cubs spending like they are, and the Padres trading for everyone, it’s kinda cool to see some high-end talent moving away from the AL. Seems like it’s been forever since that’s happened.
Of the impact players who changed leagues this season, things seemed to tilt back toward the American League a bit. You had Hamels, Jake Diekman, and Sam Dyson coming to the AL, along with Johnny Cueto, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Revere, Carlos Gomez, and Mike Fiers, with Yoenis Cespedes, Tyler Clippard, Jose Reyes, and Joakim Soria among those moving over to the National League.
* Delino DeShields having as strong a camp as Michael Choice did a year ago (.369/.406/.708 and standout defense), and a better season.
DeShields didn’t have as strong a camp (.256/.319/.465) as Choice did a year earlier.
As for the season? DeShields was one of the absolute bright spots of the year, obviously, a transformative force in the lineup — while Choice ended up sold in August to the Indians, who kept him in AAA (.204/.306/.3532) even when the minor league season ended and big league rosters expanded.
* Non-roster invite Engel Beltre walking up to non-roster invite Geovany Soto in White Sox camp and asking him to stop smoothing the dirt after every double-pump throw back to the pitcher, to which Soto responds: “Do I know you?”
You can’t prove this didn’t happen before Chicago released Beltre in May. (He finished the year with San Francisco’s AAA club.)
* Three of Lewis Brinson, Ryan Cordell, Ronald Guzman, Jairo Beras, and Travis Demeritte putting up pinball numbers against Cal League pitching. That sort of thing happens in High Desert. Artificial to a point, maybe, but doesn’t hurt trade value, or confidence.
(Speaking of Brinson and trade value, I wrote this back in June 2012, on the day he was drafted: “If it sounds by the tone of this report that I’m already cooking up a 2015 trade that involves Lewis Brinson and Yovani Gallardo, I’m not.” Brinson didn’t go in the trade, obviously, but trading for Gallardo in 2015 happened, and that’s just a little freaky.)
Brinson (.337/.416/.628) and Cordell (.311/.376/.528) certainly did their part, forcing their way to Frisco (and in Brinson’s case, to Round Rock by season’s end), and Guzman did if you break his High Desert season down between May/June (.232/.266/.348) and July/August/September (.311/.358/.498). Hope Guzman (who turned 21 just this month) can build off that in 2016. He needs to.
Beras and Demeritte never made it to High A in 2016. But their arrows pointed in opposite directions this year.
* Some starting pitcher, maybe Yohander Mendez, opening eyes by keeping the ball down and not getting pinballed in High Desert.
Mendez repeated Low A Hickory in 2015 and pitched well (.230/.278/.298, just two home runs surrendered, 15 walks and 74 strikeouts in 66.1 innings, 2.44 ERA). Of the Mavericks pitchers, lefthander Frank Lopez did the best job among the starters (.226/.280/.381 opponents’ slash, 2.95 ERA) and earned a promotion to Frisco, where he struggled in his first look at AA hitters.
* Birdman, Boyhood, Whiplash, Cake, Still Alice, American Sniper, The Imitation Game. Realistically, maybe three of those.
Only got Boyhood and Whiplash in. Whiplash was awesome.
* The new Star Wars movie at least meeting expectations.
We optimistic on that?
* Martin Perez joining the club in July.
Check.
* Joey Gallo joining the club in August.
In a pennant race.
June, and it wasn’t in a pennant race.
Yet.
* Keone Kela wearing the pink backpack over the final six weeks, and maybe more after that.
He instead wore it the very first six weeks, and most every week thereafter. After a two-week break at the end of August, the 22-year-old came back to make 19 scoreless appearances (16.2-8-0-0-4-21, one double among the eight base hits, .145/.203/.164 slash, seven of nine inherited runners stranded) to finish the regular season, after which he allowed one hit in three playoff innings.
What a story that dude was.
* Derek Holland, who led the American League in shutouts in 2011: That guy.
We saw that guy against Baltimore on August 30. His 6-0 shutout of the Orioles (three hits, no walks, 11 punchouts, retired the final 14 hitters) completed a sweep and brought Texas to within three games of the division lead, and they hadn’t been closer than that in more than two months.
Wish we saw it more often than that. And I hope when he’s that guy again, that it’s still in Texas.
* Jurickson Profar, who led baseball in prospect hype in 2012: That guy.
Welp.
The early AFL returns (.412/.500/.882 in 20 plate appearances, five of his seven hits for extra bases, just one strikeout) are promising, at least.
* Jellyfish reuniting.
(That’s the least likely thing on this list.)
#sad-emoji
* Hamilton meeting his season goals (which, as always, are focused on his own statistics), but his team missing the bigger ones.
To be fair, this was in reference to the Angels team that then owned (but disclaimed) him.
And Los Angeles did fall short, happily — at the Rangers’ hands on the regular season’s final weekend, with Hamilton driving in runs in three of the four games, including the two Texas wins.
* Robinson Chirinos and Carlos Corporan suppressing any urge to rush Jorge Alfaro.
I doubt Alfaro would have seen Texas before September and maybe not even then, considering he didn’t return from his ankle injury until late in the year, well after his trade to Philadelphia. But Chirinos and Chris Gimenez (and at times, Corporan and Bobby Wilson) held things down adequately anyway.
* Kyuji Fujikawa closing out a shutout that Yu Darvish started for the first time since the 2009 World Baseball Classic.
Remember Fujikawa’s two games in relief for the Rangers in May? I don’t believe you.
Still, he pitched twice more than Darvish did in 2015.
And Texas was still a playoff team.
* Darvish and Adrian Beltre, maybe 10 months from now, replacing their current contracts with newer, shinier ones.
OK: One of them.
It’s been nine months.
Will the Rangers extend Beltre this winter beyond 2016?
* Prince Fielder, at even 15 percent less than the 100 percent that he’s said to be at now. Good Prince changes everything.
Named yesterday by The Sporting News as the AL Comeback Player of the Year.
Sure missed his bat in the Jays series, though.
* Getting past Ballghazi Week so we can get to Kyler’s Monday decision on which school he’ll disappoint four months later when he decides to go pro as a second baseman en route to developing into a lockdown center fielder.
The baseball thing didn’t happen, but there’s been plenty of drama anyway. Fascinated to see where this heads.
* Matt Harrison between the lines.
Those three July starts were among the really cool moments of 2015.
Hope he’s not done.
Bet he lands back here, somehow.
* Rougie.
Rougie.
* Weeks before sending three legitimate prospects to the Phillies, Texas obliterating its international bonus pool on July 2, adding further to the pipeline that will have been boosted a few weeks earlier in the draft.
Phillies: Check (though it was five legit prospects, not three).
Texas didn’t blow through its international cap, but the organization did land a few high profile names, starting with center fielder Leody Taveras.
* The number four pick in the country, at Fall Instructs.
On the long weekend of October 1-2-3-4.
When I’ll be watching the season-ending series at home against the Angels from the Brookside Sports Bar in Surprise, with the primary objective of those four games getting Darvish, Holland, Gallardo, and Lee and the bullpen properly lined up for the following week.
I did see Dillon Tate in Surprise, but it was one weekend earlier, and it was Rangers-Astros I was watching while out there. It was tense and awesome and I can’t wait to watch pennant race baseball in Surprise at the end of the 2016 season.
And 2017.
And 2018.
And on some weekend — maybe one of the above — about four weeks short of a new reason to celebrate October 27, and make it an anniversary worth remembering, and linking to.