Texas Rangers Show Some Character

The Texas Rangers aren't known for making shrewd organizational moves. They were nicknamed The Strangers in the 1970s, in part because of their no-name team, but also for their proclivity towards hiring oddballs or also-rans. In the 1980s and 90s, striving for acceptance, they built a new ballfield (which has proved to be not only a sauna in the hot Texas summers, but also a launching pad for hitters) and enjoyed a brief window of respectability, appearing in their first postseason and winning their only playoff game in 1995. 

Then they signed ARod to a bazillion-dollar contract. To be more accurate, it was a 10-yr deal worth $252M, all the more remarkable because the 10-yr contract he just signed with the fat-pocket Yankees is only worth $275M, albeit for a later (and hence less productive) decade-long stretch in ARod's career.

Then they traded him to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias, but not before agreeing to absorb about a third of his remaining salary, and creating a minor donnybrook when their deal with Boston didn't pass muster with the player's association. Soriano was pawned off on the Nats within two years for Brad Wilkerson, Termel Sledge and Armando Gallaraga. Except for Arias--currently on the DL with a shoulder injury--all of these pieces have been subsequently traded off. In the end, after three seasons with ARod, shelling out somewhere around $130M or so for him, they ended up with the polluted mine-tailings of successive trades, sort of the reverse of that guy who traded up from a paper cliip to a house last year. 

This year, they're still engaged in their decades-long struggle for respectability, their homer-producing ballpark ensuring that their batters are happy but their pitchers are miserable. The fact that their pitching ace is Vincente Padilla, who sports a career record of 79-74, with an ERA of 4.21 and a WHIP of 1.38, should tell you volumes. Kevin Millwood, their once-decent #2 starter, hasn't had a good year since 2005 (when he was still 9-11 for the Indians), and is gamely struggling along with a 4.65 ERA and 1.58 WHIP. Their "closer," CJ Wison has a 4.32/1.16 line with 11 walks against 17 strikeouts, neither good numbers from a guy with 25 innings under his belt. Small wonder their team ERA is 5.10, worst in the bigs, and they're currently one game under .500 in third place in an anemic AL West.

Their reasons for being even this good, of course, is their offense, especially Josh Hamilton, about whom much exuberant ink has been spilled, but their team hitting (.285/.354/.464, which ranks #1/#2/#1 in the AL and #2/#4/#1 in MLB, respectively) is not the problem, nor has it ever been. 

The problem with Texas, as indicated above, is their pitching. Same as it ever was, this year they're struggling to keep games within reach. That's what makes yesterday's move so surprising: they took a guy with a 4-1 record and a 3.88 ERA (though a 1.56 WHIP) and designated him for assignment, essentially dropping him off the team.

That guy is Sidney Ponson, and anyone who knows his name can suspect the reason for such a move. Sidney has been a magnet for problems, egotism, and general mischief-making throughout his MLB career. In 2004, he was arrested in his native Aruba for assaulting a judge; in 2005, he was twice arrested for DUI offenses, spending five days in jail for one of them. The Orioles released him, citing his contract's morals clause, and Ponson bounced around the league, bumbling from the Cards to the Yanks to the Twins before landing with a thump in Texas this spring.

Reportedly, the Rangers talked with Ponson about his history before signing him, and Sidney agreed to behave himself. And for a time, it seemed he might. But then in the team's last road trip, he caused a "serious disturbance" at the bar of the team's hotel, and this week he pitched a fit when he was removed after giving up six runs in four innings (Rangers errors led to four of the runs). On Thursday, manager Ron Washington let Ponson know that his next start would be shifted so that Millwood could start on normal rest, giving Ponson an extra rest day. This is fairly normal, and certainly a case where Ponson should have deferred to Millwood, a proven veteran and higher in the rotation than Ponson, or at least he should have kept his mouth shut.

Instead, Shaky Sid pitched a fit, and last night, the Rangers announced that he was designated for assignment, meaning the team has ten days to trade, release him, or send him outright to the minor leagues. Release seems the most likely option, as it's hard to imagine any more teams (major or minor league) taking a chance on him. And Ponson has only himself to blame--in a sport where players who produce are given tremendous latitude in ego and personal conduct, he displayed personality flaws intolerable in someone with ten times his ability and track record (which is 86-102, 4.90 ERA and 1.47 WHIP). 

That he continued to behave in such a selfish, childish, and self-destructive fashion had to be a significant slap in the face of the Rangers president: Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, who may have been a tough guy on the mound, was an angel off of it. He continues to exemplify modesty and class--albeit of the Texas downhome-farmboy variety--in his personal life. To see a young punk with marginal major-league skills act like this was surely an affront, and bravo to Ryan and the Rangers management for taking no more from Ponson.

Team GM Jon Daniels said of the move: "We're trying to to put together a team . . . We want guys who want to be here and want to pull for the team, and not guys who are here for their own self-interests." Ryan added, "We are an extension of society. These things happen, unfortunately, and you have to deal with them and you do what you do to the best interest of the organization and the ballclub and you move on."

The move leaves the Rangers with a hole in their pitching rotation, and the loss of the starter with their second-best record. But what they get in return can't be quantified with statistics or roster slots: they've got a team that understand that nobody's going to get special treatment, and that character is as important as--if not more important than--performance.

That's got to be important to any team, especially one with a losing tradition, and particularly one with a possible MVP (Hamilton) who's overcoming his own history of drug abuse and lawbreaking, and a guy leading the league in batting average (Milton Bradley) known for on-field tantrums and bizarre behavior. So long as the Rangers continue this kind of enforcement, perhaps every major league team will be stocked with guys who don't just play well on the field, but recognize the privilege they are given each time they step between those white lines, and repay it by behaving themselves when they step back over those same lines.

Baseball is a game, and the guys in it are players, but they must always remember (as must we) that there's a more important world out there that they must join each time they stop playing. As much as we are all moved by their accomplishments on the field, we should be equally impressed by what they do off of it.