In Response to Ian Kinsler
As you’ve heard by now, ESPN magazine released an article by Robert Sanchez (click here for the full article) on Tuesday in which former Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler had some negative comments...
View ArticleWhat If?
By now everyone is well versed in the comments Ian Kinsler made blasting the Texas Rangers and Jon Daniels. I have no intentions of giving my opinions about Kinsler because that horse has been beaten...
View ArticleThe Last Time
It is time for us to realize that this Rangers team is not going to the promised land this year (I pray and hope that I am wrong and will be glad to eat crow if I am). I am not trying to imply that...
View ArticleThis One Hurts
In 2013 Major League Baseball announced that Cruz would be serving a 50 game suspension for violation of the leagues performance enhancing drug policy which would keep him out of the lineup for the...
View ArticleShould I Stay or Should I Go?
There are several options for the Texas Rangers and their front-office personnel this coming trade deadline, but unlike the past few years this team will be building for 2015 and beyond instead of...
View ArticleA Slippery Slope
Recently, Dave Cameron explored the idea that the Texas Rangers should look to blow this team up and rebuild. The article, found here, suggests that 2015 looks just as bleak as this season because of...
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How The Rangers Can Use This Offseason To Be Competitive in 2015 and Beyond
The Texas Rangers enter the 2014-15 offseason coming off of a last place finish due to a myriad of reasons which have been covered at length by many columnists, bloggers, and hot takers. The author...
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Is Jon Daniels Really Overvaluing His Prospects?
I know, the title gave me tired head too. Just bear with me. Up to this point, the Texas Rangers offseason has been what one might define as both underwhelming and uneventful. The club has not yet made...
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2015 Preview: The Manager
For the first time in eight seasons, a number other than ’38’ will be at the helm of the Texas Rangers’ ship. Players have come, players have gone, staff has been switched around or moved on to...
View ArticleLike the offense, defense also struggling.
Writing about a bad baseball team is not fun. Writing about a bad baseball team is also hard. The Texas Rangers are currently a bad baseball team, and are also not very fun to watch play baseball. At...
View ArticleInteractive Josh Hamilton Fan Poll
With the controversial return of former slugger Josh Hamilton, we here at SDI thought we would get the fans voice. Below is an interactive fan poll, fill it out and tell us how you really feel about...
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Number 4: Texas Rangers 2015 MLB Draft Preview
Picking at number four is the highest selection the Texas Rangers have had in the draft since the mid 80s when they took Kevin Brown with the fourth pick out of Georgia Tech in 1986. The Rangers could...
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A New Formula Yields a Staple at Second?
Young. Hapless. In over his head. Disappointing. All of these adjectives were used to describe the start of the 2015 season by the Rangers’ second baseman Rougned Odor. Coming in to this season, both...
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It’s Time to Say Goodbye to Hambone
Speculation. That’s the main thing that enveloped Ranger Nation on and around April 27th, when Josh Hamilton was traded back to Arlington from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for not much more than a...
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Evaluating The Jon Daniels Trade Deadline Deals
It happens around this time every year. The Hot Stove is fired up, rumors are swirling and fans are sitting on edge hoping their team makes the right move. Here in D/FW, fans are waiting until they can...
View ArticleRookie of the Year? Delino is making his case
As the season winds down, individual player awards start to make their way into everyday discussions. Most Valuable Players, Cy Youngs and everything in between are suddenly ripe for debate. However,...
View ArticleJon Daniels Top 5 Moves
When Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels took over for predecessor John Hart in 2005 as a mere 28-year-old, the Rangers were coming off a 79 win season. Five of the Rangers 10 highest season win totals...
View ArticleHamilton’s Taillights Disappear Around the Bend
I celebrate my 35th birthday in one week. The older I get the more nostalgic I feel. I started thinking about my first car; a 1984 Ford truck. How hard I worked to get that thing going. The money I...
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In Limbo: What Can The Rangers Get From The DFA Bin?
Friday marked the deadline day when Major League clubs needed to make a decision on which players, that were not already on their 40-man roster, would be added to the 40-man to protect them from the...
View ArticleJon Daniels Talks About The Offseason
Today Jon Daniels, during a chat with the media, had plenty to say about the team and the offseason plans. He mentioned Josh Hamilton, Mike Napoli, Elvis Andrus, talked about the catching situation,...
View ArticlePreaching Patience isn’t Popular
Some part of me gets it. You sat in your office chair, on your couch, in your car, listening to coverage, swiping down so Twitter would refresh, or hoping that Shutdown Inning’s Live Winter Meeting...
View ArticleIt’s Time to Let the Cowboy Ride Away
There aren’t many people who love Nolan Ryan more than I do. He not only embodies Texas baseball, but he embodies the whole Texas spirit. A Texas cattleman who was part sports legend and part western...
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The Adrian Beltre Dilemma
Adrian Beltre has been the face of the Texas Rangers for the past five seasons. His value to the organization has gone far beyond his on-field contributions, which have been outstanding to say the...
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The Great Sambino Boldly Predicts The 2016 Season
Let’s face it: We’re in the boring times of Spring Training. The excitement of first report has faded into the ether, and now we sit in the murky bouillabaisse of meaningless game after meaningless...
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Captain Consistency
Through the first 10 days of the season, we’ve started to recondition ourselves to deal with the ups and downs of the 162 game grind. We are reminded that patience is an absolute must and that you...
View ArticleWhy Extending Adrian Beltre Is Wrong
I like Adrian Beltre. I don’t like Adrian Beltre’s extension. That is the distilled essence of what you’re about to read. This is not an assault on Beltre himself. Beltre has been a fantastic Ranger...
View ArticleWinter Patience Paying Early Dividends
Two clichés to ponder: “Patience is a virtue.” “You can’t win the division in April, but you can lose it.” The first has most certainly come into play in being able to use the second. Several of the...
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On Colby Lewis, and His Place In Rangers History
“Colby Lewis, starting pitcher. A man barely baseball alive. Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic baseball player. Colby Lewis...
View ArticleOn Lewis Brinson and baseball’s biggest challenge
Question: What’s the hardest part of baseball? Make no mistake, baseball is difficult. We don’t appreciate often the difficulty of the game that 162 times a year our favorite professionals make look...
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RANGERS HALL OF FAME: MICHAEL YOUNG
When I first started writing here at SDI, I used a pen name – Aaron Mathews (Hank and Eddie, of course). At the time I thought I had good reasons for it but now, in hindsight, it just seems silly. So,...
View ArticleOn the Trade Block: Jurickson Profar
Jurickson Profar is finally producing for the Rangers. The former #1 prospect is posting an unsustainable yet eye-popping, .380/.392/.620 (.415 BABIP and 2% BB rate) line. His isolated power (ISO,...
View ArticleForgotten man: The state of first base for the Texas Rangers
The last few years, many Ranger related discussions focus on the infield. Questions like “Can Rougned Odor keep this up?” or “Should the Rangers have a quick hook on Elvis Andrus if Jurickson Profar...
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RANGERS HALL OF FAME: NOLAN RYAN
This is the second in a series of profiles on members of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, and it’s about one of the most dominant and polarizing figures in the team’s history: Nolan Ryan. As a player he...
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Texas Rangers’ Summer Shopping Wish List
The Texas Rangers are currently the best team in the American League. This season has been incredible thus far, even with little to no production from many expected big time contributors. Moving...
View ArticleWith one trial down, another difficult test awaits Texas
It’s June 24th and the Texas Rangers are enjoying their largest division lead at the earliest point in time in franchise history. They just finished a stretch of 20 games in 20 days, made possible by a...
View ArticleNo way around it: The Rangers need a starting pitcher
0.2. 4.0. 4.1. 4.0. 4.2. Those numbers listed above are the amount of innings the Rangers starting pitchers have completed going into the final weekend before the All Star Break. With Derek Holland,...
View ArticleThe Man in the Arena: Jon Daniels and the quest to find a complimentary ace...
This is an installment in our Trade Week series, where writers focus on potential moves the Rangers might make ahead of the July 31st trade deadline. “…The credit belongs to the man who is actually...
View ArticleHow a Brewers battery could supercharge the Rangers’ title hopes
Trade season is here, and the Rangers are spinning in and out of the rumor tornadoes. For months they have been linked to Jonathan Lucroy of the Milwaukee Brewers. Those rumors have yet to die, even...
View ArticleRay(s) of hope: Tampa Bay the key to Texas’ pitching revival
When I first started playing fantasy football in 1995, I joined an existing league and one of the veteran owners warned me, “That guy is the devil. Don’t make any trades with the devil, you’ll regret...
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Looking at what’s wrong with Sam Dyson
Our lives are consumed with finding answers. What’s our purpose in life? What happens when we die? Where are you getting your energy? The trade deadline is a marketplace of questions and answers. Just...
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A Moment of Majesty: The Michael Young Retirement Ceremony
Much to the dismay of many, baseball is changing. Gone are the days where anecdotes and plain vision are the story-telling tools of choice. They’re still employed, but they’re no longer the only thing...
View ArticleSDI MD: Examining The Injury History of the New Texas Rangers
If you’re reading this, you survived. The trade deadline that is. Let me just start off by saying all of the anxiety, suspense, twitter refreshing, pacing around, nausea and vomiting WAS SO WORTH IT....
View ArticleDiagnosing(and curing) the Rangers’ offensive maladies
I don’t think it’s a big secret that a lot of analysis is based in guesswork. At least in how you start. You identify a problem or situation, before figuring out what’s wrong or right. It’s rare that...
View ArticleWinning Pieces: How Texas can maximize their bullpen in 2016
There are few things in baseball more amazing than the evolution of bullpens. From not existing when the game began to the reason Kansas City won their title last season, the progress is stunning....
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Jonathan Lucroy deserves an extension; Texas should give it to him
Background/Current Situation Full disclosure: I’ve wanted the Rangers to acquire a long-term solution at catcher for a while. I’ve been banging the drum for Jonathan Lucroy for over a year now. August...
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Texas Rangers Opening Day 2017
Opening Day for the 2017 season is finally upon us. Months of following rumors, trades, acquisitions and news around the league have all led us to this point. Your college football and basketball...
View ArticleLucroy On The Block As Rangers Limp Into All-Star Break
The Rangers beat the Red Sox 8-2 on Wednesday night, giving their fans a brief reprieve from what has been a dismal ten days for the club. The Rangers have won just three of their last ten ballgames;...
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Before Beltre was Beltre
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 dawned much like it’s counterpart seven years hence over the Ballpark. Warmer in terms of climate (46 degrees) but cooler in the hearts of Rangers fans. Rangers’ fans...
View ArticleBelief in Things Unseen
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” –...
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What to do about a hometown boy made good?
“You can struggle for a little while. It’s going to happen. If a guy hits .200 for a while, it doesn’t mean he’s a .200 hitter.” – Jake Arrieta At the prime of his powers, Jake Arrieta threw the best...
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