Rangers Roster

It's very interesting reading to examine a roster of a good team and how it came together. The biggest thing is it reinforces the need to draft well, no matter which sport. In 2007 the Rangers went whole-heartedly into the "build from the bottom up" philosophy. They allowed Carlos Lee, Gary Matthews, and Mark DeRosa to leave and rec'd picks which gave them 5 picks in the first 54 of the 2007 draft. Four of those 5 picks were hits which gave Daniels flexibility when discussing trades. Julio Borbon and Tommy Hunter are roster contributers from that draft, while Blake Beavan and Michael Main were instrumental in the Lee and Molina trades. Mitch Moreland was a bonus from that draft in the 17th round.

After failing in the Chris Young and John Danks trades, Daniels stepped up again and hit big trading Texiera to Atlanta for Feliz, Andrus, and Matt Harrison. Then he risked another young pitcher, Volquez, and scored a once-in-a-generation talent with baggage in Hamilton. Finally he got David Murphy and top prospect Engel Beltre from Boston for worn-out Eric Gagne. Those trades also all happened in 2007, the year which we will look back and say built the Rangers into a contender.

Then, scouting paid off when their Pacific scouts told them Colby Lewis was worth another shot, and the scouting dept. also scored on deciding that Guerrero was not finished. He gave them a feared power threat to put behind Hamilton.

Then, they got lucky when they exposed Nelson Cruz to waivers in 2008, but savvy enough to wait until the last possible day, when rosters were already set and no one wanted to undo new rosters for an unproven Cruz. He snuck through and has developed into a lethal, although fragile, #5 hitter. More luck when they plucked Alexi Ogando in the rule 5 draft when he was still an outfielder, switched him to pitcher, and waited through the legal problems until he could arrive this year. Finally, a waiver claim on Darren O'Day produced a set-up man with 6 wins and a 2.03 ERA.

Daniels seems to believe in scouting and development more than the other boy geniuses around baseball. This gives us hope that we'll continue to see talent arrive from the minors. Good drafting, good free agent decisions (forgetting Rich Harden), good trading, a just a little luck, and the result is an AL pennant 39 years in the making.

S