Adrian Beltre knows the Josh Hamilton/Mike Napoli feeling

ARLINGTON, Texas - In the span of about one month a pair of former beloved Texas Rangers have returned to town with completely opposite circumstances.

Josh Hamilton returned as a member of the Los Angeles Angels, Rangers fans let him have it. Who cares what he ever did for the team? 

When Mike Napoli returns tonight as a member of the Boston Red Sox, Rangers fans will cheer him. Who cares if his production was nowhere what Josh did?

These two are a case study of how to leave your former team, city, and the weight of expectations generated by money. 

Josh had never really done this before, and as a result he completely screwed it up. Yes, he had been traded by the Reds to the Rangers but that was before he blew up. As to be expected, he is bombing so far with the Angels after he signed a five-year, $125 million deal. Hamilton is batting .216 with 2 homers and 19 RBI.

Napoli had been dealt before, and had an idea what to do. He sent out a nice Twitter message to the Rangers fans on his way to Boston. He is batting .283 with 15 doubles, 6 home runs and 15 RBI in Boston.

This happens all the time in free agency and player movement. The guy who goes to the new team with the massive contract struggles in the first year. 

"It happened to me in Seattle," Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre told me. 

In 2004, Beltre batted .334 with 48 home runs with 121 RBI for the L.A. Dodgers.

He signed with the Mariners that offseason for five years at $64 million. In his first year in Seattle, he hit .255 with 19 home runs and 87 RBI.

"I was trying to prove I was worth that contract all the time," Beltre said.

In his next three seasons he posted solid power numbers, averaging around 22 home runs and 80 RBI. His last season in Seattle he was limited to just 111 games and  hit 8 home runs.

He signed with Boston for the '10 season, where he batted .321 with 49 doubles, 28 home runs and 102 RBI.

"I had been through it before and I knew what to expect," Beltre said. "It's never easy."

He came to the Rangers in 2011 for a six-year, $96 million deal. He has averaged over .300, 33 doubles, 34 home runs and 103 RBI in his first two full years.

He knew how to do it.

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What a shock: Report says Red Sox players want Bobby Valentine out

Hope you weren't one of those who fell for the Bobby Valentine love letters from the many members of the FW/d and national media who expressed their love of this man after the Red Sox hired him.

As a media dork, it's hard not to like former Texas Rangers manager Bobby Valentine. He is affable, decent, approachable, professional, and good copy.

He is also a horrid fit for Boston, Mass.

According to this story by Yahoo baseball writer Jeff Passan, many of the Red Sox players have confronted team ownership about Bobby V and want him out.

The Red Sox are 57-59, and 11.5 games back of first place New York in the AL East. God knows it can't be the players' fault.

When the team hired him back in November I wrote this was a bad decision.

The Red Sox were ripe for a slide, and a guy like Bobby V was not the right fit. He wasn't the right fit for that clubhouse, and certainly not that market. In his defense, there may not be a manager alive right now who could survive that team in its present state. The Red Sox may be a harder job than the Yankees.

He is yet another manager being scapegoated by underachieving players. Bobby V can be charming, but with that charm comes a caustic tongue and a serious sharp wit that can be cutting.

These qualities don't make Bobby V a bad guy or a bad manager. He is a bad fit.

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Former Texas Rangers pitcher says former teammate should play a "women's sport"

Professional athletes are accustomed to being called any number of unflattering names, but the one they loathe the most is "quitter."

More than one Texas Rangers player who played behind Vicente Padilla when he pitched for the team from 2006 to 2008 described him as a quitter. That he would literally quit during a game by throwing at a guy's head, or just grooving pitches to get knocked around so hard the manager would be forced to take him out.

The sad part is that Padilla is a tremendously talented pitcher who when properly engaged can get people out. But there is a reason he continues to bounce around the majors - he is a bit of nut job.

Padilla is at the center of a "he said, she said" with former Texas Rangers teammate and current New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeria. The two played together for the Rangers in '06 and '07.

Padilla is with the Red Sox now, and after the NYY/Bos series completed on Sunday Mr. Teixeira called out Padilla after Friday's game saying that Padilla is a head hunter who doesn't have a lot of friends in baseball.

When Padilla was told of Teixeira's comments, he inferred that Teixeira is a racist and shrouded the comments with a sexist shot.

Padilla told the Spanish-language NESN that, "The problem is he talks about all the wrong things that others have done, but the things he's done -- against the Latinos [on the Rangers] -- he doesn't open his mouth about. He once threatened me and said he was going to hit me with a bat, and that's when we were playing on the same team. And then, he also had problems with Frank Francisco, our closer back then. But he doesn't talk about that, does he? Then, of course, he goes on and makes those comments about me."

Then he added this winner, "In this sport, as competitive ballplayers, we get pretty fired up. So I think, maybe, [Teixeira] picked the wrong profession. I think he'd be better off playing a women's sport."

Yeah! Take that, Mark! You're a girl!

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The Texas Rangers to interleague play returns; does it do it for you any more?

The lead for the Texas Rangers in the AL West is down to four games. They now begin a series in San Francisco against the Giants in a "re-match" of the World Series from two years ago.

This is the first of five consecutive inter-league series for your Rangers.

June 8 - 10: at SF
June 12 - 14: v. Arizona
June 15 - 17: v. Houston
June 18 - 20: at SD
June 22 - 24: Colorado

Do any of these series do anything for you?

Inter-league play was created to inject some interest into the game, and put some extra butts in seats in the hot months. What was first a cute novelty has now become an accepted portion of the schedule. The novelty is gone, and the purists who once complained about this break from tradition are no more.

Your interest level goes up based on the proximity of the opponent - LA v. Ana; SF vs. Oak.; Balt vs. Wash; Chi v. Chi; NY vs. NY; Houston v. Texas; Stl. vs. KC - or if the team has a bonafide star that never visits your town.

The interest level is a series by series, and team by team. 

It's no longer a question of whether it works because it's not going away. 

 

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Texas Rangers closer Joe Nathan is the Allstate "Mayhem" guy

Credit to Big Mac Blog reader Gene Suttle for pointing this out to me. 

Texas Rangers closer Joe Nathan is actually the Allstate "Mayhem" guy. 

As you can see from these pictures, the similarity is alarming.

The way Nathan is pitching right now, the Rangers may be better off going with actor Dean Winters, who plays Tina Fey's on/off again boyfriend in "30 Rock" but has also established himself as the Allstate "mayhem" guy.

Nathan is now 0-2 with a 5.14 ERA in seven innings for the Rangers this season. In the Rangers' 6-3 win in Boston on Wednesday night, Nathan turned a safe ninth inning into a "save" situation. The Rangers won, but the Rangers may need a little Mayhem insurance when he takes to the mound these days.

 

 

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Boston Red Sox should have seen this coming with Bobby Valentine

Count me among the masses who scratched his head upon learning the Boston Red Sox hired former Texas Rangers manager Bobby Valentine to run the team.

Bobby Valentine. In Boston.

Baseball is baseball everywhere, but some markets are a better fit for certain personalities. Bobby V in Texas is OK. Bobby V in Boston does not feel like a fit.

The Red Sox begin a two-game series against the Texas Rangers in Boston on Tuesday. The season is not two weeks old and Bobby V made some headlines when he called out Kevin Youkalis. 

Now Bobby V had to issue an apology.

Bobby V doesn't do it intentionally or with any malice, but things have a way of coming out of his mouth that sound wrong. Valentine managed the Texas Rangers from 1986 to 1992 when he was fired. He later managed in Japan and the New York Mets, so it's not as if this is a dumb baseball man.

He is bright. He can be charming. He is candid. He is camera-ready, and always good for a quote or a sound bite. It's also about Bobby Valentine. He is a story. That can work in some markets, but in Boston it feels like a match around dry wood.

What Boston needed was not necessarily another Terry Francona, but a baseball guy who understood he was not the story. Francona may not be a baseball genius or see the game the way Bobby V does numbers wise, but Francona was smart enough to be a side character in the Red Sox traveling circus.

Terry Francona survived in Boston for eight seasons. The last time a Red Sox manager lasted that long was Joe Cronin in the 1940s.

Francona lasted because he won - two World Series, five playoffs - and because he managed personalities, and the media. Other than the Yankees, there is no harder gig in baseball than Red Sox manager. How you handle those who cover the team on a daily basis is almost as important in how you manage a starting rotation.

Tito was on the Texas Rangers' staff in 2002 when I covered the team, and he had the ability to roll with things as well as anyone. I vividly recall an '02 spring training game in Florida when a group of rowdy Phillies fans were mocking and ridiculing Tito, who had managed the Phillies in the late '90s. As he walked towards the dugout towards the fans, he waved and shot them a wide, sincere, smile. The fans were immediately happy, and Francona had made friends for life.

Francona had a way of difusing situations easily, whereas Valentine's personality will likely only encourage them. Valentine has a way of creating something where there is nothing. That's OK if you are in Texas. That's dangerous in Boston.

Much of the Red Sox job is about difusing situations, which is why Bobby Valentine in Boston never made any sense. 

 

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