Names To Look For on the 40 Man Roster
Rosters expand in a mere 3 days. From September 1st to the end of the regular season, which is September 29th this year, any player on the 40 man roster is allowed to be used by the big club during the...
View ArticleThe Bench of Misfit Toys
Roster fluidity. As the season creeps up to its start, we the fans heard that phrase almost a million times over the last few days. The 25 man roster is finally set, but it looks vastly different in...
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Catcher Conundrum
Geovany Soto is out until late May, early June. This injury is just one of many that set back the Rangers plans for 2014 before the season even began. Surprisingly, the starting pitching is giving it’s...
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Numbers Never Lie But My Ex Wife Did A Lot – Part 2
As we continue to examine the Rangers in 2014, one thing comes to light. Depth is hurting the team. As injury after injury decimates the Rangers, players are being asked to do more and perform beyond...
View ArticleThree Bright Spots
Well, we’re here at the de facto halfway point of the 2014 MLB season. To say this season hasn’t gone according to plan would be an understatement. As we enter the All-Star Break, your Texas Rangers...
View ArticleThe State of The Catcher
Since the latter part of 2011, The Catching position has been in a real state of flux for this organization. Yes back in the magical second run at the pennant, Mike Napoli was tagging the heck out of...
View Article2015 Preview – Catcher
As we draw closer to Spring Training 2015, I will continue my tribute to the late Richard Durrett by previewing each position on the Rangers, just as he did. Every position, the pitching staff, and...
View ArticleContract Extensions – Three Up?
One of the more prominent signs of a successful ball club is the ability to lock up talent for the long term, thus establishing a core to build around. Gone is the idea of a “franchise player,” as it’s...
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First Half Report Cards – Part 2
It’s (still) the All Star break and now is the perfect time for the Rangers midterm report cards! Over the next few days, Shutdown Inning will be looking at key Rangers and evaluating their 2015 thus...
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Building the 2016 Rangers – The Position Players
Let me lead off with a qualifier: I’ve tried to be both optimistic and realistic in the moves below. I’ve given us the benefit of the doubt in places, both in terms of trade partners and in terms of...
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 ArticleALDS preview: INFIELD
TEXAS RANGERS (88-74) We know what the Rangers have in the infield. There is a future MLB Hall of Famer at third in Adrian Beltre, a suddenly rejuvenated, and refocused Elvis Andrus at short, a dirt...
View ArticleA Long Lasting Odor
At the beginning of July – so, before the All-Star Break – I wrote an article detailing three Texas Rangers players that I thought could be due for an extension. As most hypothetical things in...
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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 ArticleArbitration Predictions
Wednesday, December 2nd, is the deadline for teams to tender their players that are arbitration eligible. This basically means that the Rangers are telling the player that they want him back. If they...
View Article2016 Position Preview – Catcher
We continue with our position preview with the backstop. Catcher has been something of a rotating door over the years for the Rangers, seeing the likes of A.J. Pierzynski, Geovany Soto, J.P. Arencibia,...
View Article2016 Position Preview – The Bench
The bench, the reserve players, for any baseball team remains one of the easiest to overlook, yet highly impactful part of a 25-man roster. These guys never get the recognition they deserve for trying...
View Article2016 Position Preview – The Bullpen
Times, they are a-changing in the game of baseball. It’s okay, it happens. Baseball used to be a game of power hitting – monstrous home runs, swatted into the next county, abetted by the use of...
View Article2016 Texas Rangers – Full Position Previews
As Pitchers and Catchers report for your Texas Rangers, today, Friday, February 18, 2016, there is something of a different sense of optimism with this club. It’s different than from that 2011 year –...
View ArticleWhy Wasn’t Jonathan Lucroy Traded This Off-Season?
Hey everyone, Steve Boynton here. This is my inaugural post here at SDI – I hope that you all enjoy my content. My background is in my long profile at the bottom of this article if anyone is...
View ArticleOut Of The Gates, Onto The Pine: Bench Battle
Let’s face it, there are now zero spots in the Texas Rangers Opening Day 9-man roster to be decided (barring injury, of course). Your likely lineup against the Seattle Mariners’ King Felix Hernandez...
View ArticleRangers Take A Spring Holaday To Solve Their Catching Woes
It’s no secret one of the struggles that have plagued Jon Daniels during his tenure as GM is bench building. Texas, at times, has had below average subs but over the last two seasons, Daniels has made...
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Texas Rangers Hitters in Daily Fantasy Sports (FanDuel, DraftKings, DFS)
Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) is awesome. Greedy politicians who are in the pockets of casinos, and those who fully support lotteries but attempt to eliminate DFS because they find it a “game of chance,”...
View ArticleChirinos To The DL, Choo Out, Mazara Coming Up?
Saturday was a big day for the Rangers. It was announced shortly before game time that right fielder Shin-Soo Choo was being scratched from his start due to a strained calf muscle and that he would be...
View ArticleStop the Whining! Rangers Fans are Spoiled
Right now, it’s Monday morning. It’s about 5:30 and I’m sitting down to write while reviewing the Rangers opening week in my mind. Baseball is back. Not “pitchers and catchers report”. Not spring...
View ArticleChirinos Injury Gives Opportunity Behind the Plate
Aside from the pitcher, the most important defensive position has to be the catcher. If for no other reason at all, this player touches the ball more than any person on the field. Communication with...
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...
View Article20 in 20: A Huge Test of Managerial Fortitude
From afar, and if we, as fans, only looked at results, the Texas Rangers are in great shape. At .585, they are owners of the second-best winning percentage and record in the American League. Their...
View ArticleBack It Up: The State of Catching in Arlington
Rangers won’t survive having Holaday and Nicolas as their catchers — jamie (@JamieLanders10) April 26, 2016 @Friar_Faithful so why you keep trying to send him to texas. The Rangers already have enough...
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 ArticleFirst half debrief: Despite heavy blows, Rangers remain standing
When the season started for the 2016 Texas Rangers, the fans held lofty expectations. Certain professionals had them listed as division winners, at the least, and a select few were expecting a...
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...
View Article2016 Texas Rangers 2.0: Win Now
By the time 4:00 PM EST/3:00 PM CST rolled around on Monday, August 1st, 2016, the Texas Rangers had changed from utilizing role players with a perpetually fighting “next man up” mentality to a...
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Jonathon Lucroy: Texas’ New Pitch Framing Expert
I’ve listened to a lot of sports talk radio while reading several articles and tweets since the Rangers picked up Jonathan Lucroy yesterday at the non-waiver trade deadline. The general consensus seems...
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 ArticleThe Most to Prove: Rangers playing with a purpose in October
When FanGraphs has conceded that the Texas Rangers are the inevitable American League West Division Champs, it’s easy for us blog writers to say “No News is Good News.” Right now, nothing terribly...
View ArticleOn the Fringe: Best and Worst Last Impressions for Rangers Postseason Roster
One-hundred and sixty-two games have been played. Now, what? Now it’s time to play more, of course, but the question remains: Who gets to play? Who gets to be a part of the Rangers postseason roster?...
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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 ArticleSettling into the groove
“No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.” ―...
View ArticleCole, Joey, Robinson….take a bow
Friday night in Arlington, Cole Hamels took the mound knowing that the Rangers needed him to go deep into the ballgame. A day after the Rangers 13-inning, 1-0 marathon win, there was no room for an...
View ArticleDarvish responds to Oakland adversity with complete effort
The great thing about baseball season is that, in the span of 4 days, a team can completely change their stripes. On Wednesday afternoon, we wrote about a team that was heading home having lost their...
View ArticleWhat a letdown
Punch to the gut. Letdown. Meltdown. Collapse. Free fall. Lost. Lack of identity. That list of words and phrases could go on for some time and all of them are fair assessments both of last night’s game...
View ArticleHome is where the shutout is
It’s hard to get much lower than the Rangers were after Monday night’s game. Their season was slipping away from them and it seemed no matter what they did, things just weren’t falling into place. No...
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Even if it breaks your heart
“Pennant races drain the energy from the best of them. Old-fashioned baseball races are to me the most grueling daily test in any sport. Gotta keep coming out, every day, in the face of looming...
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