I think the last part is the one that is wrong. From what I have seen over the years, teams with the best farm systems are the ones that others teams will hold hostage the most. They will only take a top player from a good farm system, but are more willing to deal with another. I know it makes no sense, but for some reason that is the way it works.

Such that remember how the Rangers when trading Tex wanted Kershaw and other top prospects from the Dodgers, but “settled” for lower prospects from Atlanta. At the time Feliz and the others were not necessarily in the top 5.

Evan, what do you think we will do in August? Will we sign somebody if they go through waivers? Who would we be looking at?

@D Scott
Totally agree with your assessment. As Evan alluded to a few days ago: it’s not good enough for a team to just rape you, now they want to add a “donkey punch” as well..

@Pulp reality: Not sure those were my exact words a few days ago, but what I’m not sure is if other teams were holding too tightly to demands for high prospects or if the Rangers simply have a too-high opinion of their lower prospects.

Evan,
Ever considered actually proof-reading your column, or maybe hiring someone to edit it for you? Geez, this was incredibly difficult to read.

On to my point. Aside from the many errors within the colum, I think you completely contradicted yourself. You claim that Daniels is a winner for holding on to his young talent, but the Rangers minor league system is a loser?? How can Daniels be a winner, but yet you still criticize him for failing to move any prospects for players such as Washburn or Garko? Am I the only one confused by your reasoning?

What more could Daniels have done? How about found a guy like Willingham to help us “bash the ball all over the city of Arlington”.

The trade deadline is about evaluating where your team is at, what’s lacking and doing something about it, even if you’ve already done a few things early in the season.

@Jon: Let me say this: Derek Holland may be very, very, very good, but you can’t ever project a pitcher is going to be as good as Halladay. Halladay has done it in the big leagues. My guess: Halladay’s 2010 season in Texas would have been better than anything any pitching prospect the Rangers would have sent Toronto would have put up there. You can not predict 20-win seasons.

And Smoak? Yeah, he may be a special hitter, but what’s to say the draft picks the Rangers would get if Halladay doesn’t re-sign in Texas wouldn’t include a hitter of that quality.

Halladay would have made the Rangers significantly better this year and next. Holland and Smoak might have made the Blue Jays better, but there is nothing close to a guarantee.

Fair trades are painful to both sides. But believe me when I say that even though I’ve got no issues with a deal not getting done, the talent exchange would have been equitable.

I’m confused as to when Halliday told the Blue Jays that he did not want to come to Texas. Wasn’t the rational thing to tell the clubs that a couple of weeks ago? Why did he let the two teams go through all this if he had no intention of accepting a trade to the Rangers anyway?

@Evan (not EG) and Joey, I agree with you, Evan, that some minor grammatical errors made me read some things twice. However, Joey, I think this does not warrant a “Geez” reaction based on three factors:

1) This is a blog, not a newspaper article or syndicated column. Readability is nice in a blog and 99.8% of the time Inside Corner is light years ahead of most other blogs you might stumble upon.

2) Seeing how this is a blog, I find that the information relayed is a bit more important than how it is relayed. EG has done a stellar job at providing a voice from inside the front office and locker room as well as offering well-informed and astute observations since the beginning of the season. I’d much rather read EG, AJM, Newberg, Perryman, et al. than any of Galloway, JJT, Cowlishaw, and the rest of their ilk simply because the former care enough to put the time into their craft/reporting; their efforts show on every post.

3) Considering the frenzied pace of the trading deadline and how much information EG and InsideCorner have had to sift through and weigh before publishing online (both the rumors leading up to and the fall out from the deadline passing) I think right now EG deserves a little slack if he uses/misuses a word here or there since he and the whole team have probably been just as busy as the Rangers front office for the past couple weeks.

@Evan (Grant), keep bringing the excellence brother.

[...] though the Rangers missed a chance to add an actual ace to their rotation, they weren’t necessary big deadline losers. In the long run, the Rangers just might be better off by holding onto prized prospects like [...]