guess this means Mike is staying with the Rangers too.

In other baseball news, looks like the Red Sox are about to sign Bobby Valentine to manage.

WOOHOO!!!

/Third time's the charm!

Dear Rangers,

I appreciate you appearing to make all the right moves to win me back.

Love,

Uncle Pooky

I'll bet Maddux could still pitch 3 innings and not give up an extra-base hit.

When you've just coughed up the World Series, bringing in an ex-Cub is poor strategy. Even if it is Maddux.

The Rangers staff, which was already pretty good, now has Greg Maddux AND Nolan Ryan to give them pointers.

Best pitcher of his generation.

They could sign Cy Young himself and it wouldn't make a lick of difference if Washington shows the same lack of faith in his bullpen that he did in games 6 and 7.

jmr61: Baseball sucks.

Always has, always will.

So, if baseball sucks, why are you in a thread about it?

/you looooove to pitch, don't you?
//rack me. I'm out.

The Bestest: In other baseball news, looks like the Red Sox are about to sign Bobby Valentine to manage.



That pretty much guarantees that the cesspool of human filth that is the Red Sox will be a circus sideshow for the foreseeable future.

SharkTrager: The Rangers staff, which was already pretty good, now has Greg Maddux AND Nolan Ryan to give them pointers.

Damn, damn, damn and damn.

Buzzie Bavasi after Nolan Ryan left the Angels before the 1980 season: "He can be replaced by two 8-7 pitchers". Note: Ryan threw 3 more no-hitters, won 157 games and pitched for 14 more years after the Angels let him go.

/Angels fan
//Bitter
///Still

CSB:

My aunt dated him in high school.

SharkTrager: The Rangers staff, which was already pretty good, now has Greg Maddux AND Nolan Ryan to give them pointers.

Yeah, that's all kinds of awesome.

Randy Johnson would like a word

Randy Johnson can have the first spot in line behind Maddux for best pitcher of his generation. On the upside, while he's in this line he can amuse himself by holding a baseball high in the air and telling Pedro Martinez (at #3) to jump up and grab it.

Maybe you should drive: Randy Johnson would like a word

Randy Johnson can have the first spot in line behind Maddux for best pitcher of his generation. On the upside, while he's in this line he can amuse himself by holding a baseball high in the air and telling Pedro Martinez (at #3) to jump up and grab it.

Absolutely correct. Pedro's 1999 (or was it 2000?) was the best single season in the history of baseball when you account for the time period, but Maddux is a better overall pitcher with a better career. Heck, Maddux wasn't even a strikeout pitcher and still has more K's than Pedro (bet you didn't know that). Johnson too was dominant for a longer time than Pedro, though the average beginning of his career keeps him a notch below Mad Dog in my book.

Gulper Eel: One of my favorite pitchers ever, even if I couldn't stand the Braves otherwise. With a Maddux game you knew you could tune in at 7 and have a pretty good chance the game would be over with by 9.

Came here to post the same thing. A lot of guys would love to have the chance to take BP vs. a fireballer, I'd love to try and hit Maddux. The movement and speed changes must have been so much more than it looked like on TV.

A favorite Maddux story (new window).

I don't know that you can ever go wrong with a 4-time Cy Young winner on your coaching staff. This is highly intriguing and, as a Ranger fan, very exciting!

He was the ultimate control pitcher... something the Ranger's staff need to learn a thing or two about & who better to teach them than The Professor? He could very well work wonders with Feliz and the up and coming Ramirez & Perez. We'll have to wait & see, but I think the future just got even brighter!

I can't wait for the season to start!

jmr61: Baseball sucks.

Always has, always will.

This is freaky. I wrote up, on another board, a comparison of the 1991 and 1992 Braves and the 2010 and 2011 Rangers (including my lingering hatred of Kent Hrbek) to show there was still good reason for Rangers fans to think there could be a championship in the near future. I concluded with "now the Rangers just need to sign a Greg Maddux like the Braves did after 1992." And now here we are. Not exactly what I had in mind, but if the Cardinals repeats against a non-Rangers team (like Jays did in 1993) then my spooky analysis will be complete.

Gulper Eel: 4NTLRZ: I don't know that you can ever go wrong with a 4-time Cy Young winner on your coaching staff.

Anything can go wrong...Ted Williams had a .429 record managing the Rangers/Senators.

True. Anything can go wrong, but bringing up Ted Williams is an apples to oranges comparison on several levels, my friend.

Compare the two teams first.
The '69 Senators finished just above .500 with 86 wins; 4th in the East. No playoffs.
The '70 Senators finished well below .500 with 70 wins; dead-last in the East. No playoffs.
The '71 Senators were even worse. Only won 63 games; finished 4th in the East. No playoffs.
The '72 Rangers were horrible. Won 54 games, finishing dead-last in the West. No playoffs
Then 1973 brought us the Herzog/Wilbur/Martin trifecta & Ted Williams is out of baseball.

The '07 Rangers won 75 games. Finished 4th in the West. No playoffs.
The '08 Rangers improved a bit. Won 79 games, finishing 2nd in the West. No playoffs.
The '09 Rangers improved appreciably. Won 87 games, finishing 2nd in the West again, but missed the playoffs.
The '10 Rangers continued to imporve. Won 90 games, won the West & an AL Pennant.
The '11 Rangers improved even more. Winning a franchise-record 96 games, the West again & another AL Pennant.

The point here is, we clearly have two very different teams headed in two very different directions. Apples to oranges.

Next, let's keep Williams and Maddux in their proper operational contexts: Williams was the Senators'/Rangers' Skipper. Greg Maddux will be working as an assistant coach. Very different roles. Again, apples to oranges.

Next,take a look at the two as players. Williams was a hitter. Maddux a pitcher.
More apples... more oranges.

All that said, I'm not trying to argue that bringing Maddux into the fold is the be-all/end-all. But I am saying that having Maddux around the pitching staff, conveying the things he most definitely knows about pitching (namely control) will help the Ranger pitching staff.

Right now, My Texas My Rangers have a lot of young hurlers that toe the rubber and very few, if any, control-type pitchers outside of Darren Oliver (and that's a stretch). Neftali Feliz is a fine example of this and is moving to the starting rotation in 2012. He's a fuggin' flame-thrower who must develop, master and add other pitches to his tool-kit if he's going to be a serious starter in the majors, much less have any gas left in the tank at the end of the season. Same goes with some of the great young pitchers on the Texas farm in Frisco & Round Rock like Perez and Martinez. Saw in your profile that you're from NY and don't know if you're really aware or not, but Texas summers are hotter than love. So long and hot, in fact, that they suck the energy out of everything in sight, including pitchers!

Bottom line is, Texas could definitely use someone in the coaching ranks that knows pitching with control, using a wide array of pitches with changing speed to keep hitters off balance and who isn't as far removed from the game as Nolan Ryan in terms of years and can more easily relate to the pitchers on the staff today. Not to take anything away from Ryan. He's a genius and is primarily responsible for the increase in arm-strength we've seen in Ranger pitching with the re-introduction of long-toss workouts.

To me, Greg Maddux definitely has the credentials & I'm excited that he's on-board.

Like you said, though, "Anything can go wrong." But, things can also continue to go right, Texas could end up finally winning it all in 2012 and I think the addition of Greg Maddux is a step in the right direction... continued improvement.

Let's also not forget the big truckload of $$$ thanks to the new TV deal with Fox Sports Southwest that the organization will be able to tap into to upgrade at some other very important positions during thsi free agency period.

*COUGH*
1st base help
*COUGH*
Prince Fielder
*COUGH*
Albert Pujols
*COUGH*

I wasn't around for the prime of Maddux's career, but I got to see the tail end a little, read about him, film, etc.

Always seemed like an amazing pitcher. The 1997 3-0 count stat always amazed me: Has anyone who pitched a notable number of innings come close to that in the modern era?

Lifeless: They could sign Cy Young himself and it wouldn't make a lick of difference if Washington shows the same lack of faith in his bullpen that he did in games 6 and 7.

None of this is an issue of the Rangers right fielder isn't a pussy who stops short before getting to the f*cking warning track.

dukeblue219: Pedro's 1999 (or was it 2000?) was the best single season in the history of baseball when you account for the time period

The point of a pitcher is to allow as few runs as possible, regardless of method, and to win games (not lose them). Pedro was so lights out (in a sabermetric statistical sense, it was the best pitching season in modern history, yes), but he still lost six games.

I'd have loved to see where Maddux's ERA+ would have ended up had he had 4-7 more starts in 1995 (probably how many he would have had in a full season). I don't think he would have lost another game, either.

puffy999: dukeblue219: Pedro's 1999 (or was it 2000?) was the best single season in the history of baseball when you account for the time period

The point of a pitcher is to allow as few runs as possible, regardless of method, and to win games (not lose them). Pedro was so lights out (in a sabermetric statistical sense, it was the best pitching season in modern history, yes), but he still lost six games.

I'd have loved to see where Maddux's ERA+ would have ended up had he had 4-7 more starts in 1995 (probably how many he would have had in a full season). I don't think he would have lost another game, either.

I'm guessing he meant 1999, where Martinez went 23-4, with an absurd 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts. The year he got basically robbed for the MVP.

2000 was good too, though: Even better ERA @ 1.74, 18-6 record and losses where he lost by one run or, twice, getting out-dueled by Pettite. His ERA in losing games was lower than the best ERA in the NL.