Perhaps Mr. Hicks should refer himself to a certain Korean right-hander.

I know I am preaching to the choir here but A-Rod averaged 52 homers and won two GGs as a shortstop in three seasons with the Rangers. That the Rangers weren't even competitive is amazing considering how great A-Rod was for them.

I know I am preaching to the choir here but A-Rod averaged 52 homers and won two GGs as a shortstop in three seasons with the Rangers. That the Rangers weren't even competitive is amazing considering how great A-Rod was for them.

Indeed. I agree completely. The idea that the Rangers inability to win during that period was in any way the fault of A-Rod is as ridiculous as blaming the failures of the 1950s Cubs on Ernie Banks.

But the truly sad part about Hicks' remarks is that they are nothing but a pathetic attempt by Hicks to deflect blame away from himself for his failures as an executive, which in and of itself would be bad enough. But for Hicks to then compound this foolishness by trying to place that blame onto a an individual who had given his all to the organization during his time of employment speaks volumes about Hicks' deficiencies, not just as an executive, but as a human being. At least, in my humble opinion.

DB

Choosing between feeling sympathetic towards Tom Hicks or A-Fraud is much the same for me as choosing between death or oogabooga.

Wouldn't it be easier for Hicks to blame it on Juan Gonzalez and Chan Ho Park than A-Rod?

If I remember correctly Hicks in those two FA went out and signed the best available player and pitcher of each FA. I think one year it was ARod-Mussina and the next one was Manny-Park. If he had simply flip flopped the signings he probably would have saved a ton of cash and gotten a better bang for his buck. Or he could haave gone nuts in one year and signed ARod and Mussina and he would have done pretty darn good as well.

Perhaps Mr. Hicks should refer himself to a certain Korean right-hander.

Not to mention a popular LF who signed a multiyear high dollar contract then immediately hit the DL for pretty much the entire duration of the deal.

Perhaps Mr. Hicks should refer himself to a certain Korean right-hander.

Not to mention a popular LF who signed a multiyear high dollar contract then immediately hit the DL for pretty much the entire duration of the deal.

Though there were warning signs about both of them at the time of the signings, I wouldn't feel good about accusing them of malingering or of intentionally sabotaging the team. Park effects (you see what I did there?) are real. Players get hurt.

Not insinuating that Greer was dogging it. Just observing that paying Rusty Greer $7 million a year to do nothing more than keep the club medical staff company did more to keep the club in last place than anything regarding Rodriguez's time in Arlington.

"Bad organizations blame their problems on their best players." - Bill James

I got into an argument once with a guy who was totally certain that ARod killed the Rangers and it was only possible for the Rangers to turn it around by getting rid of him.

Here was what I wrote then:

Not really. When the idiot owner of the Rangers signed A-Rod for that obscene amount of money, there was no increased ticket sales. Or more wins for that matter. After the initial curiosity, attendance did not increase, nor did their won-lost record improve. The Rangers could have signed an ENTIRE free-agent pitching staff for what they gave A-Rod.

Actually attendance did increase and Hicks did spend money on the pitching staff.

Kenny Rogers
Chan Ho Park
Jeff Brantley
Ismael Valdez
Dave Burba
Jay Powell
Todd Van Poppel
Rudy Seanez

plus they made several trades for pitchers.
Tom Hicks spent a lot of money on pitching. It didn't work out but ARod's contracted didn't stop Hicks from spending on free agents. Hicks signed a ton of free agent players.

2001 Free Agent class for pitchers
Mike Hampton
Mike Mussina
Denny Neagle
Darren Dreifort
Alan Ashby
Kevin Appier
Rick Reed
Ismael Valdes
Pat Hentgen
Kent Bottenfield
Cal Eldred

Jeff Nelson
John Franco
Rick Aguilera
Mark Wohlers
Turk Wendell

2002 Free AGents
Chan Ho Park
Aaron Sele
Jason Schmidt
John Smoltz
John Burkett
Sterling Hitchcock
Dave Burba

Bob Wickman
Jeff Shaw
Jason Isringhausen
Todd Van Poppel
Jay Powell


In the winter of 2000 Tom Hicks signs Andres Galaragga, Ken Caminiti, and traded for Randy Velarde all were multi million dollar deals. After 2001 Hicks spends money on Todd Van Poppel, Jay Powell, Dave Burba, Irabu, Juan Gonzalez, Chan Ho Park, Ismael Valdez, Dan Miceli, Rudy Seanez, Steve Woodard, Pat Borders, and Justin Thompson.

In 2000 the Rangers payroll was 61.4 million. In 2001 it was 88.5 with ARod getting 21 million. In 2002 it was 107 million with ARod getting 21 million. In 2003 it was 104.5 million with ARod getting 21 million. Hicks increased the payroll besides Arod by 20 million dollars. So Hicks was not limited by ARod he was spending ARod size money on other things. Chan Ho Park in 2002 was considered the best pitcher on the market.

He signed a ton of players, but with what kind of talent? For $252 mill, he could have gone after QUALITY, not just bodies. Their attendance was OVER 2 1/2 million in the year BEFORE ARod, and was MUCH less in his last two seasons with Texas. They won 71 games in 2000, 73 in 2001, 72 in 2002, 71 in 2003, and EIGHTY-NINE the season AFTER he left. That's hardly 100 losses. And their fewest losses were 87, again not near 100. They didn't gain one place in the standings until he left. Their attendance was over 2.5 million once, and over 2.3 million twice after ARod.

With $252 million, the Rangers could have picked up enough quality players to possibly make a run for the pennant. And not the has-beens and never-wasses they got.

And those figures are what I mean about learning more about baseball. Don't give figures that are mis-proven by fact. READ the statistics.

So how many games would they have won in 2001, 2002, and 2003 with all of their moves minus ARod? Would they have still gotten to 71 wins?
Okay Bob who could they have got?

If they had signed Mike Hampton instead of ARod would they have been better off? Jason Giambi? The problem with your view is that it is simply a myth. Sure it is easy to say they should have spent money on some phantom free agent but the problem is that they actually have to exist. In 2002 the Texas Rangers signed what many people believed was the best free agent pitcher available. He didn't turn out to be good but the fact that they went after and signed the best available pitcher disproves your view.
If they had signed Manny Ramirez at his 160 million dollar price tag and Mike Mussina at his 88.5 million dollar price tag in 2001 would they have won 90 games? Would they have won 85 games? How about in 2002? And that is ignoring the fac that Texas would have to outbid both Boston and NY for those players services. So add at least 10% to each of their salaries.

Here is your free agent class, pick me out some winners:
What followed was a list of all FA and how much they signed for.

So tell me why the Rangers would have won more games with a player like Royce Clayton playing SS instead of ARod?

There is the list, if you look you will see that 25 million a year will not get you quite a bit. In those two years the biggest free agents available were Jason Giambi, Manny Ramirez, Chan Ho Park, Mike Mussina, Alex Rodriguez, Denny Neagle, and Juan Gonzalez.
Jason Giambi, Chan Ho Park, Juan Gonzalez, Denny Neagle, and Mike Hampton were all a disaster. Plus out of those premier free agents Texas signed three of them. The ones who turned in good performances were Manny, Mussina, and ARod. But both Manny and Mussina were considered let downs for good chunks of their contracts with Boston routinely trying to get rid of Manny. Manny wasn't and still isn't better then ARod so I don't really see how getting him instead of ARod is an improvement. Mussina has been good but not great.

A couple of catchers came out but why would they sign them when they had Ivan Rodriguez? Brett Boone was going to be a better signing? The fact is that their wasn't a whole lot of good free agents available in that time period and for the most part the "premier" free agents flopped. You've got Manny and ARod from that era for position players that proved they were great and you had Mussina do alright.

Landing Mussina and Manny probably would have cost 300 million dollars and the two of them probably would have only combined for a few more wins then just signing ARod. If ARod at 250 is a problem I can't see why signing Manny and Moose at 300 wouldn't be either.

Or how about Giambi and Hampton? Again you are talking about 250 to 300 million dollar cost and it would have been a huge disaster.

If you don't sign ARod or two of the big boys then all you have left to cobble together a team is "has-beens and never-wasses" If you sign Manny and all of those has beens and never-wasses you are not better off. If you sign Mussina and all those has beens and never wasses you are not better off.

Think about this Mike Mussina signed a 6 year 88.5 million dollar contract with the Yanks. Rangers probably could have gotten him for say 6/102. That comes out to on average 17 a year. If the Rangers don't trade for Velarde, sign Caminiti, Galarragga, and Oliver that 19.6 million dollars off the books for 2001. Then they don't have to give Chan Ho Park 13 million a year the next year. Rangers signing and trading for Velarde, Caminiti, Andres, and Oliver probably produced very little if anything at all yet it cost them 20 million dollars that year. There is your albatross, that is the reason the Rangers did not win.

A-Rod helped the Rangers win games; the fact that it wasn’t enough games to reach the playoffs is largely attributable to bad pitching, inefficient spending and poor organizational planning/decision-making, all three of which are intermingled to some extent and all three of which really had nothing to do with A-Rod. You can dislike the hell out of A-Rod for all that I care, but let’s not conflate the A-Rod signing with the failure of the early-00s Rangers.

Of course. Thinking otherwise is silly, IMO.

I thought he was going to be the best player in baseball.

Damn ARod couldn't be as good as Barry Bonds!

the truly sad part about Hicks' remarks is that they are nothing but a pathetic attempt by Hicks to deflect blame away from himself for his failures as an executive

OTOH, what did he actually say right off the top there? “I think [the Alex Rodriguez signing] was a big mistake.” OK then, whose mistake was it? Sure, he's trying to deflect blame, but he certainly isn't succeeding.

All this conversation about some Texas billionaire, clueless about sports, who woke up one day and said, "Hey, I want me one of them baseball teams!"