The Legend of Nolan Ryan: A Story of Fastballs and Revenge

[royals19]

If there is one team I hate more than the Astros, it's gotta be the Royals. I wish I could change my name from what it currently is but I suppose that will have to wait for now. I won't bore you with the story of how I came to despise them... but uhh... yeah don't like them punks any more.

Any way, take a look at where we are in the stats. Good to see we've been mediocre so far this season. Also good to see how the pitching report reads... last, 21st, last, last... I hope you got your note-pads out because today is going to teach you how to lose a ball game.

Step 1: Pick up some dude from the Waiver Wire and start him

I'm not going to lie, the Kevin Slowey experiment was pretty much over after he got his **** kicked around at Toronto. Ever since then, Rangers scouts have been on the lookout for a replacement. Finally while checking out the usual list of suspects on the waiver wire we happened upon Paul Clemens... Good movement, throws hard... Might as well give him a shot.

So we fly the kid in from god know's where and slap a Rangers Uni on him and send him out there to face the Royals.

To his credit, he was just as good as Nick Tepesch tonight. The Royals simply couldn't catch up to the fastball up and in. But like any young pitcher, he made mistakes and two big ones. First a dinger to Billy Butler in the 3rd and then a bomb to Alex Gordon in the 4th. We pulled him after the 6th and handed it over to the bullpen.

Step 2: Give the ball to the bullpen and let them do what they do .


Step 3: Tell your coaches to send your slowest players on singles to Alex Gordon out in left field.

I don't even know who the third base coach is out there but all I know is he's getting fired at the end of the season. For whatever reason, he thinks its game 7 of the world series out there and we got to send everybody on everything. That's exactly what happened tonight with Adrian Beltre. We had a chance to tie the game up in the 6th but we blew it and the Royals didn't turn back.

Cue the loss. Cue the face palm.

[royals19]

August 23rd, 2014

A date which will live in infamy…

After many months of waiting, he was back on top.

All was right once again in the world as Texas legend Nolan Ryan sat at his rightful place atop the Rangers front office as General Manager of the team. This was the day everyone had been waiting for. Under Jon Daniels and in Nolan’s absence, the organization had been gutted of the good guys... the “Nolan Ryan people” but now, that was all about to change. Whatever course Daniels had plotted for the organization was irrelevant now. You could be sure that Nolan Ryan was going to build this team the way that he wanted.

Yes, a new era has arisen from the ashes of the old one.

Meanwhile in George W.’s office,

George Bush was pacing his office. Something had to be done quickly. The day that he had been hoping to put off for as long as possible had finally come. Was he afraid that they would disapprove of the return of Nolan Ryan? Perhaps… But that wasn’t the basis for his worries. In fact, he was more worried about what they were going to do instead of why.

You see George was worried that Nolan Ryan was going to try to expand his power to levels that he couldn’t control. Sure he could bear to let Nolan run the team but when he started meddling in other affairs, well, that was something different. Letting Nolan Ryan overstep his authority would likely result in both of them being hanged in the town square.

Over the course of the year dealing with Nolan in the shadows, George came to see that Nolan Ryan was going to blow this whole thing up before it even took off. In other words, they were about to be dead men walking before they had even done anything.

A meeting had to be held… and it had to be held quick.

While we won’t reveal the particulars of this shady meeting now, it will certainly have bearing in the future.

[royals19]

Well folks, it is the that time of year where we go to our home away from home aka Minute Made Park for another Texas showdown. There has always been an interstate rival between these two teams every since they both came to inhabit the state of Texas. The Rangers have typically kicked the snot out of the Astros but the times have changed.



This rivalry has essentially become a one sided smash down. The Rangers are really no competition for the Astros. I've spoken about how talented they are before but I'm gonna do that again. Everyone on that team seems to have some sort of overwhelming tool or a complete set of tools. All of their starting pitchers seem to have one dominating pitch whether it's Dallas Keuchel's sinker or McChugh's curveball. The Astros really don't have a weakness and that's why they're in the thick of the playoff chase at this point in time.



Of course, you knew that we were going to talk about the man, the myth, the legend, George Springer. This dude has really come to top my list of bad guys. He's the player that I wish we had access to here in Texas. He's the type of player you want to build a franchise around. He's the type of player that haunts your dreams night in and night out.

I wish that George Springer would just go away.



But he won't and he keeps getting better every single time we play him. Out of all the Mike Trouts, Albert Pujols', Robinson Canos and pesky Oakland A's players, it has to be George Springer of all people... Unbleepin' believable. This most certainly can't be life folks.

[royals19]

Well folks, I never thought I'd see the day but...


The Mariners and Astros are leading the division while the A's and Rangers are sitting at the bottom. It's late August and we have 93 losses. While I was hoping to avoid the 100 loss mark, it doesn't appear as though that will happen. This season has been nothing short of a full blown disaster. The pitching is bad, the offense is mediocre and several key players missed the entire season. To top it off, Elvis Andrus, Adrian Beltre, Yu Darvish and Alex Rios all had down years.

Needless to say, things have been bad down in Texas and they most certainly will continue to get worse before the season is over.



At this point in the season, the Rangers are beginning to get extended looks at players who could help out next season during our return to glory. As a result, the rest of this season is going to be all about experimenting and evaluating. Tonight was a perfect example of that as we took the lead behind Lars Anderson and Michael Choice.

Instead of going to Neftali Feliz in the 9th and watching him blow another game, we handed the ball to the submariner Ben Rowen because why not?



Rowen isn't going to overpower anyone by any means but maybe if he can paint that sinker on the corners and get guys out in high leverage situations, he could be a key cog in our bullpen next season. After all, how many submarine pitchers are closers in the big leagues? We all know what Chad Bradford did in "Moneyball;" surely there isn't a reason Rowan can't do the same.

He would proceed to give up a walk-off home run to Alex Gordon.

[royals19]

Nolan Ryan's Office
September 1st, 2014
8:43 PM

Something was troubling our hero. It wasn't the drop in ticket sales or the complete collapse on the field, it was something greater... Something that posed a legitimate threat to the newly established regime. During the process of acquiring the team, Nolan kept his poker face and remained fearless but now, his iron and gritty look had turned ghastly and afraid.

There was a ringing on the telephone.

Quote: Originally Posted by Nolan

Hel...Hello?

Quote: Originally Posted by ???

You promised us Nolan...

Quote: Originally Posted by Nolan

I know I did... I know. But there isn't anything I can do, we can't make the playoffs this season. It simply isn't feasible at this point. Please... Just give me next season.

Quote: Originally Posted by ???

I'm afraid we can't do that. Mr. Ryan, you are going to pay up one way or another whether you like it or not.

Quote: Originally Posted by Nolan

What... What are you going to do? Hello? Hello!?

And suddenly, the line was dead.

[WaitTilNextYear]

One thing that's nice about a chise with a bad team--and, no offense, but you have a BAD team--is you get to experiment with fringe players and maybe find a diamond in the rough. With a good team and a set lineup, there isn't as much freedom to plug and play. It'll be interesting to see what your offseason looks like. Just make sure the game protects top 10 picks before going all out in free agency. I'd hate to see you lose the likely #1 overall pick!

[Gronk4M13]

I just read through the entire dynasty posted so far. This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to see how the offseason goes, following.

[royals19]

Quote: Originally Posted by WaitTilNextYear

One thing that's nice about a chise with a bad team--and, no offense, but you have a BAD team--is you get to experiment with fringe players and maybe find a diamond in the rough. With a good team and a set lineup, there isn't as much freedom to plug and play. It'll be interesting to see what your offseason looks like. Just make sure the game protects top 10 picks before going all out in free agency. I'd hate to see you lose the likely #1 overall pick!

Haha none taken. This is probably the worst team I've ever had the misfortune of running. I like the change though. I really think that this makes the game a lot more fun and challenging. It's nice booting up the game and giving somebody you've never heard of before a start or two to see if they're really worth it. I like how it adds that new element to the game.

With that being said, this offseason is going to be interesting. The game doesn't have Fielder's big contract or Andrus' extension so theoretically I could let them walk and begin rebuilding the roster around guys like Profar, Martin, Darvish and Choo. On the other hand, I could resign them and go for the gold in 2015 like the real life squad is attempting to do. There's really a whole host of directions we could take this thing. Either way, we've got a shopping list that's topped by a catcher, starting pitching and bullpen pieces. My preference is to retool the roster because I don't think it needs to be completely gutted. In a perfect world, I'd like to bring in Russell Martin and/or Jon Lester along with a right fielder but Martin and Lester alone are projected to have annual salaries approaching the 20 million dollar range which would make having both a no go.

Aside from the free agent market, I do have a trade or two up my sleeve but I'm gonna wait until the offseason before I get into anything like that.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gronk4M13

I just read through the entire dynasty posted so far. This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to see how the offseason goes, following.

Thanks man, it's always nice to see a new follower or two in the dog days of winter when the dynasty forums go dark. You certainly picked the right time to follow this because we've got a lot of work to do this offseason if we're going to compete next season.

******

Losing games by the reims (I've run out of words to describe our massive volume of losses) isn't exactly what I signed up for when I chose the Texas Rangers over the Miami Marlins and the Houston Astros. Over the course of the season, it's something I've gotten used to and I can't recall the last time that I've been legitimately concerned about our place in the standings. Sure I cuss out the team and talk about how the Rangers just about every other post but I can't say that I haven't been having fun. In fact, this season has been oodles and oodles of fun. We've been able to look at all sorts of players we wouldn't have been able to look at during a winning season.



Shin-Soo Choo isn't exactly the type of player I had in mind when I was drawing up this post but it's to the point where we can't ignore the type of season he's having. Jon Daniels gave him an 8 year contract last offseason and was damn near burnt in the town square for that one. However, Choo has quietly been the best player on the Rangers by far. I don't think anybody believed that he would come in here and hit .290 with almost 30 dingers. It's been fun watching Choo put together a nice season amid a disaster in which the Rangers will lose 100 games.

Now that we got that out of the way, here are the guys I was talking about.



What in the hell has gotten into Lars Anderson? He originally came over with Tsuyoshi Wada and Dallas Beeler in that deal we made at the trade deadline and since being inserted into our lineup as a regular in mid-August, all he has done is hit the ball hard. Sure he only has one homer to his credit and sure he's only hitting .270 but considered that we got this guy for chump change, I'd consider this a win for us. He's not going to start over Prince next season... sorry... But he might be able to find work on our bench as a pinch-hitter and 4/5th outfielder.



The other guy we need to give some props to is Michael Choice, a known consumer of David sunflower seeds and part-time Dallas P.D. sketch artist. Choice came over last offseason as part of the deal that sent Craig Gentry to Oakland. Right out of Spring Training, we plugged him into the DH role and he hit pretty well up until around the All-Star Break when he hit a slump. I'm not sure if his defensive skills are up to snuff to start in right field next season but he's definitely got the DH job on lock at this point. Overall, it's been a solid year for the 23 year old.

Had we not been living in the cellar, it's safe to say that Choice and Anderson wouldn't have seen the light of day under Nolan Ryan's direction. However with this pretty much a lost season, it's nice to get some extended looks a players who could potentially be big contributors next season.