What went wrong, Jon?

The diminishing fortunes of the Texas Rangers

When Jon Daniels traded Kenny Lofton, Eric Gagne, and Mark Teixeira before the trading deadline last week, he received credit for getting a good prospect return and giving his franchise a future in lieu of its failed present. No matter how well his newly acquired prospects turn out, long-term rebuilding was not the idea when Daniels took over for John Hart at the end of the 2005 season. Under Hart, the Rangers went from 73 wins in 2001 to 89 wins in 2004, featuring a solid nucleus of Teixeira, Hank Blalock, Michael Young, Alfonso Soriano, and Kevin Mench, as well as solid young players like Laynce Nix, Gerald Laird, Adrian Gonzalez, Chris Young, and Kameron Loe.

It looked as if Daniels was poised to take over a contender in need of a couple of pieces in the pitching staff, but otherwise set to challenge the A’s and Angels for dominance in the AL West. Instead, the Rangers have fallen below .500 for the last 2 years, failed to get out of the AL West’s second division, and recently decided to give up that core of young talent in exchange for the next wave. How did such a rosy horizon turn sour so quickly? Did Daniels make mistakes that doomed the franchise, or have the Rangers suffered through some terrible luck? By looking at the problems with the 2007 roster, we can get a better idea of the franchise-wide failures.

At 48-62, the Rangers are the second worst team in the American League, and their 595 runs allowed explain exactly why that is the case. Only Tampa Bay, with a ghastly 671 runs allowed, ranks below the Rangers, who are actually sixth in the league in runs scored. Daniels knew when he took the job that he would have to cope with a home field that favors runs scoring to a high degree. This year, however, the newly re-christened Rangers Ballpark has a 1.004 park factor for runs, which means two things. First, it means that a league average offense would score four more runs than average in that park. Second, it means that this particular Rangers pitching staff is really as bad as advertised.

The 2007 rotation consists of six pitchers, the aforementioned Loe and five starters acquired by Daniels, indicating that he has perpetuated some consistent mistake in acquiring starting pitchers. In a stadium that has historically favored homerun hitting, it stands to reason that Daniels would want pitchers who avoid throwing gopher balls right over the center of the plate. I don’t blame him for looking for pitchers with live stuff, but he has tipped off of the balance point, walking way too many batters to remain effective. The Rangers are dead last in the AL in K/BB ratio at 1.45, way below the league average of 2.00, and even well below the next-to-last Yankees, at 1.66. Additionally, the rotation’s BB/9 rate is 4.3, about a full base runner worse than the AL average of 3.32. Giving away a full out every game is going to have adverse effects on any pitching staff. Teams can get by with one starter with control problems, but when every starter is worse than league average (Kameron Loe is the best at 3.48 BB/9), the pitching staff is in a great deal of trouble.

The pitching acquisitions seem to have some common threads, mostly that Daniels has bought high on a lot of his pitchers. Kevin Millwood, for instance, is a solid pitcher, slightly better than league average. In 11 seasons, he has posted an ERA+ between 90-104 7 times, has gone above that threshold 3 times, and this year is setting a career low at 77. The problem is that Millwood was coming off of his second best year when the Rangers signed him to their ace at 5 years, $60 million. He’s a decent pitcher who is starting to age, and Daniels paid him to be a star in his prime, not a number 2-3 starter.

Similarly, he traded David Dellucci- a valuable chip- for Robinson Tejada. Tejada had 13 good starts for the Phillies in 2005, posting a 127 ERA+, but with a 4.56 BB rate that would make that ERA unsustainable. Tejada has always been a number five starter at best, a fact too common in the Rangers rotation. He also traded for Vicente Padilla after he posted a 4.53 BB rate and a lower-than-commensurate ERA with the Phillies, then signed him to a 3 year, $34 million deal in the worst buyer’s market for starting pitching in recent memory. Most recently, he traded for Brandon McCarthy in the same market, giving up the arguably more talented John Danks in the deal. The starting pitchers’ VORPs for this year show just how bad they have been: Wright- 4.6, McCarthy- 3.4, Loe- -4.9, Millwood- -6.5, Tejada- -13.5, Padilla- -14.8. Part of the problem is the team’s defense, ranking 25^th in defensive efficiency, and part of the problem is a convergence of everyone having a bad season at the same time. Nonetheless, you would have to squint to see any number one or two starters in this rotation, and Daniels bought every one of them at his highest point.

Daniels has even made the same mistake in his trades. He dumped Alfonso Soriano after his worst year since he was a rookie (including a .309 OBP). Brad Wilkerson, the crown jewel of the return, had 32 homers in 2004, then had one of the best offensive seasons of any of the Nationals in their first year in RFK. He traded Chris Young after he struggled through the second half of 2005, posting a 3.34 ERA in April-June and a 5.52 ERA thereafter. He also gave up Adrian Gonzalez in the trade, and got Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka in return. Otsuka has been solid, Eaton did nothing for the Rangers, and Young and Gonzalez have rebounded to become stars for the Padres. He did well in trading Laynce Nix and Kevin Mench for anything, but he also gave up Francisco Cordero in the midst of his first ERA+ season below 125 in the last seven. Getting back Nelson Cruz could turn out to be a nice addition, but the centerpiece of the trade was Carlos Lee, predictably having the best OPS+ season of his career.

In his most recent round of trades, he sold Mark Teixeira when he had some leverage, but did not have to trade him. The return looks good for now, but be wary of prospects that John Schuerzholz decided to cut loose. In the Gagne trade, he pulled a classic Daniels move by getting Kason Gabbard, a guy who is barely a number five starter, but has strung together a few good starts in a row that make him look like a number three. Altogether, Daniels has systematically bled his roster dry by trading his best players while struggling, and acquiring players coming off of unrepeatable performances. His most recent trades look like they provide a good foundation for the future, but unless Daniels learns how to put performance into perspective, the team is doomed to perpetual rebuilding, and failure to get out of the second division.