Just seen this on News Now, it appears that one of our new owners may not be spendthrift messiah we were waiting on:
Jim Reeves: Rangers short on bang, bucks
By Jim Reeves
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Tom Hicks, watching his Liverpool soccer team play in March, has given the Rangers the fourth-lowest payroll in the American League.
Tom Hicks, watching his Liverpool soccer team play in March, has given the Rangers the fourth-lowest payroll in the American League.
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Tom Hicks flew in here from Liverpool, England, on Monday, presumably with the $10 million he saved by not re-signing Gary Matthews Jr. this past off-season jingling around in his pocket with a few extra British pounds in his loose change.
What the Angels got for their $10 million was Matthews' usual spectacular defense in center field and a three-game sweep of the Rangers to open the season.
I'll let you figure out who got the best end of the deal.
Wouldn't you know it, on the day that USA Today came out with its annual report on major league payrolls, damning information that should leave Hicks red-faced with embarrassment, Matthews was showing us exactly what an extra $10 million here or there can buy.
Considering that he regularly did the same thing for the Rangers last season, it shouldn't have come as any surprise when Matthews leaped high at the fence to rob Michael Young of a home run in the first inning of Wednesday afternoon's 5-3 Angels victory.
In the dugout, manager Ron Washington and his Rangers could only slap their foreheads and say, "Oh, no, not again!" Over these opening three games, every time it seemed that the Rangers might spark something offensively, Matthews was there to make another circus catch and help put out the fire.
"It's like he's in our heads," Washington said, shaking his own George Jefferson-'do from side to side. "He knows exactly where he needs to be. We hit one, and he's standing there.
"He is what he is. He took a home run away from Michael. He seems to make every play out there."
Suddenly, the $50 million the Angels will pay Matthews over the next five years doesn't seem quite so extravagant, especially in light of the payroll listings that show the Rangers ($68.3 million) a distant fourth in their own division and more than $11 million behind the notoriously low-paying Oakland A's ($79.4 million), who just let Barry Zito walk.
The Angels and Mariners, also AL West rivals, check in at $109.3 million and $106.5 million and are two of seven teams in the majors with payrolls exceeding $100 million.
The Rangers' payroll, on the other hand, is ahead of only three other American League teams: perennial bottom-feeders Tampa Bay ($24.1 million) and Kansas City ($67.1 million) and young but talented Cleveland ($61.7 million).
That's downright shameful, but Hicks' pat answer is simply to lay it off on Rangers fans. Buy more tickets, pay more excessive parking fees, drink more expensive beer, eat more $5 hot dogs, and he might consider raising the payroll.
Asked how he might have spent an extra $10 million this season, general manager Jon Daniels, not wanting any part of the discussion, just shook his head, so let me answer for him.
He could have had Matthews in center, making those spectacular catches for the Rangers again. He could have signed left-hander Ted Lilly ($6 million a year with the Cubs), or kept Adam Eaton ($7.2 million with the Phillies) or Kip Wells ($4 million with the Cardinals), perhaps even two of the three.
He could have even used it as a kickoff point for negotiations with Mark Teixeira.
Ten million dollars, obviously, can make a huge difference. It's helped Hicks buy a soccer team in England, for instance, and fly back and forth across the Atlantic to watch it play.
What's improving his chances of winning a baseball championship compared with that?
We certainly can't lay all three losses to the Angels off on Matthews, however, or the fact that the penny-pinching Hicks refuses to keep up with most of his fellow owners in baseball when it comes to spending money. The fact that the Rangers collected a total of 15 hits in three games and managed to score only seven runs had a little something to do with it.
Teixeira's eyebrows shot up when he learned that the Rangers' payroll exceeds only three other teams in the league, but he quickly recovered his poise.
"It's about the guys we have here doing the job, not how much money they make," Teixeira said in true company-speak.
So far, not many of them are doing the job they're paid handsomely to do, including Tex, who is off to a 1-for-9 start to the season with no RBI. He's not alone, though. In three games, the Rangers were a dismal 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position.
Here's another difference: The Angels made the big defensive plays to curtail most of the Rangers' threats. When Young had a chance to do the same to help bail out Brandon McCarthy in the first, he instead let Orlando Cabrera's low liner skip through him at shortstop for a back-breaking error, opening the door for a four-run inning.
That guaranteed this ignominious fact: The Rangers have yet to even be tied at the end of a complete inning this season.
"We caught no breaks," Washington said, "and we didn't make any breaks either. You can't keep starting out behind every game."
Included in the Angels' "breaks" was Garret Anderson's sliding catch of Kenny Lofton's sinking liner in left in the third, which helped limit a Rangers rally off starter Ervin Santana to two runs. I have it on good authority from an Angels media source that the last time Anderson actually left his feet to attempt a play was in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the 2002 World Series against the Giants, when he robbed -- you guessed it -- Kenny Lofton, of a base hit.
This wasn't how Washington envisioned his managerial career getting started, but he remained remarkably positive.
"After [his players] came off the field, I just told them to keep their heads up and not let frustration set in," he said. "Our strength is our offense, and we haven't seen that yet. But we will. Maybe we just need some home cooking."
Not having to watch Matthews stealing hits from his team for a while will help, too.
"Right when I hit it, I knew he had a play," Young said of Matthews' high-flying act at the center-field wall in the first. "It wasn't one of those no-doubters.
"He makes a difference for anybody."
To put a number on it, $10 million worth of difference, in fact.
Jim Reeves: Rangers short on bang, bucks
By Jim Reeves
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Tom Hicks, watching his Liverpool soccer team play in March, has given the Rangers the fourth-lowest payroll in the American League.
Tom Hicks, watching his Liverpool soccer team play in March, has given the Rangers the fourth-lowest payroll in the American League.
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Tom Hicks flew in here from Liverpool, England, on Monday, presumably with the $10 million he saved by not re-signing Gary Matthews Jr. this past off-season jingling around in his pocket with a few extra British pounds in his loose change.
What the Angels got for their $10 million was Matthews' usual spectacular defense in center field and a three-game sweep of the Rangers to open the season.
I'll let you figure out who got the best end of the deal.
Wouldn't you know it, on the day that USA Today came out with its annual report on major league payrolls, damning information that should leave Hicks red-faced with embarrassment, Matthews was showing us exactly what an extra $10 million here or there can buy.
Considering that he regularly did the same thing for the Rangers last season, it shouldn't have come as any surprise when Matthews leaped high at the fence to rob Michael Young of a home run in the first inning of Wednesday afternoon's 5-3 Angels victory.
In the dugout, manager Ron Washington and his Rangers could only slap their foreheads and say, "Oh, no, not again!" Over these opening three games, every time it seemed that the Rangers might spark something offensively, Matthews was there to make another circus catch and help put out the fire.
"It's like he's in our heads," Washington said, shaking his own George Jefferson-'do from side to side. "He knows exactly where he needs to be. We hit one, and he's standing there.
"He is what he is. He took a home run away from Michael. He seems to make every play out there."
Suddenly, the $50 million the Angels will pay Matthews over the next five years doesn't seem quite so extravagant, especially in light of the payroll listings that show the Rangers ($68.3 million) a distant fourth in their own division and more than $11 million behind the notoriously low-paying Oakland A's ($79.4 million), who just let Barry Zito walk.
The Angels and Mariners, also AL West rivals, check in at $109.3 million and $106.5 million and are two of seven teams in the majors with payrolls exceeding $100 million.
The Rangers' payroll, on the other hand, is ahead of only three other American League teams: perennial bottom-feeders Tampa Bay ($24.1 million) and Kansas City ($67.1 million) and young but talented Cleveland ($61.7 million).
That's downright shameful, but Hicks' pat answer is simply to lay it off on Rangers fans. Buy more tickets, pay more excessive parking fees, drink more expensive beer, eat more $5 hot dogs, and he might consider raising the payroll.
Asked how he might have spent an extra $10 million this season, general manager Jon Daniels, not wanting any part of the discussion, just shook his head, so let me answer for him.
He could have had Matthews in center, making those spectacular catches for the Rangers again. He could have signed left-hander Ted Lilly ($6 million a year with the Cubs), or kept Adam Eaton ($7.2 million with the Phillies) or Kip Wells ($4 million with the Cardinals), perhaps even two of the three.
He could have even used it as a kickoff point for negotiations with Mark Teixeira.
Ten million dollars, obviously, can make a huge difference. It's helped Hicks buy a soccer team in England, for instance, and fly back and forth across the Atlantic to watch it play.
What's improving his chances of winning a baseball championship compared with that?
We certainly can't lay all three losses to the Angels off on Matthews, however, or the fact that the penny-pinching Hicks refuses to keep up with most of his fellow owners in baseball when it comes to spending money. The fact that the Rangers collected a total of 15 hits in three games and managed to score only seven runs had a little something to do with it.
Teixeira's eyebrows shot up when he learned that the Rangers' payroll exceeds only three other teams in the league, but he quickly recovered his poise.
"It's about the guys we have here doing the job, not how much money they make," Teixeira said in true company-speak.
So far, not many of them are doing the job they're paid handsomely to do, including Tex, who is off to a 1-for-9 start to the season with no RBI. He's not alone, though. In three games, the Rangers were a dismal 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position.
Here's another difference: The Angels made the big defensive plays to curtail most of the Rangers' threats. When Young had a chance to do the same to help bail out Brandon McCarthy in the first, he instead let Orlando Cabrera's low liner skip through him at shortstop for a back-breaking error, opening the door for a four-run inning.
That guaranteed this ignominious fact: The Rangers have yet to even be tied at the end of a complete inning this season.
"We caught no breaks," Washington said, "and we didn't make any breaks either. You can't keep starting out behind every game."
Included in the Angels' "breaks" was Garret Anderson's sliding catch of Kenny Lofton's sinking liner in left in the third, which helped limit a Rangers rally off starter Ervin Santana to two runs. I have it on good authority from an Angels media source that the last time Anderson actually left his feet to attempt a play was in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the 2002 World Series against the Giants, when he robbed -- you guessed it -- Kenny Lofton, of a base hit.
This wasn't how Washington envisioned his managerial career getting started, but he remained remarkably positive.
"After [his players] came off the field, I just told them to keep their heads up and not let frustration set in," he said. "Our strength is our offense, and we haven't seen that yet. But we will. Maybe we just need some home cooking."
Not having to watch Matthews stealing hits from his team for a while will help, too.
"Right when I hit it, I knew he had a play," Young said of Matthews' high-flying act at the center-field wall in the first. "It wasn't one of those no-doubters.
"He makes a difference for anybody."
To put a number on it, $10 million worth of difference, in fact.
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