My Almost-Favorite Season

Spring training and the season’s early days provide an opportunity for the baseball fan to optimistically speculate. He or she envisions what might happen if the back end of the rotation comes together, and the young closer holds up, and the cleanup hitter finally has that bounce-back year we thought he would the last couple of seasons. You’re allowed to think, "if things go just right, our roster just might put up numbers like this" :

1B : .324 BA, 47 HR, 148 RBI, 1.050 OPS, Gold Glove

2B :.331 BA, 24 HR, 91 RBI, 221 hits, League Batting Champ

SS : .300 BA, 57 HR, 142 RBI, 1.015 OPS, Gold Glove, League HR Champ

3B : .276 BA, 32 HR, 110 RBI, .355 OBP

LF : .300, 20 HR, 101 RBI, .405 OBP

CF : .325 BA, 25 HR, 108 RBI, 27 SB

RF : .325 BA, 35 HR, 140 RBI, .960 OPS

C : .332 BA, 35 HR, 113 RBI, .914 OPS, Gold Glove, League MVP

DH : .330 BA, 31 doubles, .882 OPS, 15 SB

SP : 18-10, .3.27 ERA, 217 K

SP : 14-8, 3.46 ERA, Gold Glove

SP : 16-6, 4.47 ERA, 180 K

SP : 14-9, 5.19 ERA

SP : 12-12, 3.39 ERA, 166 K

RP : 3-4, 2.13 ERA, 49 saves

RP : 4-5, 2.49 ERA, 38 saves

RP : 1-2, 1.96 ERA, 21 saves

RP : 4-4, 2.40 ERA, 28 saves

RP : 3-1, 2.79 ERA, 7 saves

RP : 4-1, 2.52 ERA, 10.8 K/9

That looks like a team that could win some games, huh? Actually, the roster with which I’m associating those stats finished last just over a decade ago.

The squad was the one whose on-field performance bummed me out the most of any baseball team with which I've ever been associated. Of course, they didn't put up the numbers listed above during the year in question. Here were the actual totals that season for those players :

1B : .273 BA, 43 HR, 105 RBI, .962 OPS

2B :.262 BA, .690 OPS

SS : .300 BA, 57 HR, 142 RBI, 1.015 OPS, Gold Glove, League HR Champ

3B : .211 BA, .632 OPS, 49 G

LF : .296, 1 HR, 17 RBI, 51 G

CF : .267 BA, 16 HR, 62 RBI, 105 G

RF : .282 BA, 8 HR, 35 RBI, 70 G

C : .314 BA, 19 HR, 60 RBI, 108 G

DH : .269 BA, 3HR, 23 RBI, 68 G

SP : 9-8, 5.75 ERA, 145.2 IP

SP : 13-8, 3.84 ERA, Gold Glove

SP : 4-5, 5.42 ERA, 111.1 IP

SP : 6-9, 3.93 ERA, 146.2 ERA

SP : 3-5, 4.98 ERA, 28 K, 59.2 IP

RP : 2-0, 1.29 ERA, 10 saves

RP : 2-3, 6.66 ERA, 1-4 in save opportunities

RP : 3-6, 4.22 ERA, 1 save

RP : Did not pitch, injured

RP : 3-2, 3.44 ERA, on the D.L. until June

RP : 3-2, 5.45 ERA, 1.5 WHIP

Those numbers look more like they might have come from a 72-90 team, the record the 2002 Texas Rangers actually posted. Why was that group the most disappointing for me? It was because of how high the ceiling could have been for the team. The numbers in the first table came from individual campaigns posted within three seasons of 2002 by players on that ’02 Rangers roster. Here are the identities of those players and the years in which they put up those monster statistics.

1B : Rafael Palmeiro, 1999

2B : Michael Young, 2005

SS : Alex Rodriguez, 2002

3B : Hank Blalock, 2004

LF : Rusty Greer, 1999

CF : Carl Everett, 1999

RF : Juan Gonzalez, 2001

C : Ivan Rodriguez, 1999

DH : Frank Catalanotto, 2001

SP : Chan Ho Park, 2000

SP : Kenny Rogers, 2005

SP : Dave Burba, 2000

SP : Ismael Valdez, 2004

SP : Doug Davis, 2004

RP : Francisco Cordero, 2004

RP : John Rocker, 1999

RP : Dan Kolb, 2003

RP : Jeff Zimmerman, 2001

RP : Jay Powell, 2001

RP : Todd Van Poppel, 2001

Note : I used traditional stats as opposed to advanced metrics to keep the blog more accessible, but even traditional numbers have no problem supporting the contention that the roster had talent that had recently, or would soon, produce(d) prodigiously.

In the spring, every player aspires to have a career year, and every fan of his franchise shares that hope. Of course, all the guys on a team won’t have their best seasons at the same time. The more talent collected together, though, the better the chances that at least some of it will contribute big years in accordance with pedigrees and track records. The numbers above, for the most part, were not outliers, either. While I picked the best seasons within three years of 2002, almost all of those players had one or more (or many more) seasons nearly as good. You don’t expect it to all go wrong all at once for so many different guys with that level of talent.

What got me so emotionally involved with the 2002 Rangers was a meeting the marketing department had with General Manager John Hart shortly before spring training. He walked us through the thinking behind each player they had acquired and explained how ownership had stepped up to add substantial extra payroll when Gonzalez and Park saw their prices drop a bit on the free agent market. One could tell John was excited about the roster and we were, too.

One of my jobs with the Rangers was creating TV commercials, and I thought fans would be as excited to hear John talk about this Murderers Row as I had been. We shot a spot in Florida that year where he enthusiastically ran through the lineup. He showed up with sunglasses and I asked him to keep them on when we shot. I felt like they added a cool, "yeah, this lineup is made up of some bad dudes" vibe. Fans like feeling as if their team has guys who can put a beatdown on the rest of the league.

The spot backfired. When the team started the season poorly, John's "cool" demeanor in the commercial came to be perceived as "aloof." One particularly hateful columnist dubbed him "The Empty Golf Shirt." He came under a lot of media criticism as the season went south. I will always have a great deal of respect for John Hart, because he could have taken me or another subordinate to task for the spot and its unintended contribution to negative media perception of him. He never did and he was never less than pleasant or respectful any time I worked with him.

When a team does creative based on team performance, it makes sense to have some backup advertising in the hopper. We had such a plan, but injuries defeated it. Two days after we finished editing a spot welcoming Juan Gonzalez back to Texas, he got hurt. A week later Ivan Rodriguez’s injury invalidated a spot starring him and Frank Catalanotto. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway, as Catalanotto joined him on the D.L. less than a month later. Michael Young stayed healthy the whole season, but Gabe Kapler, who co-starred in two of his three spots, got hurt in June.

Michael Young and Gabe Kapler on set (photo courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers)

That wasn’t the worst of it. A lack of scheduling prowess that spring had prevented us doing a spot with Chan Ho Park and Ivan Rodriguez together, but Park’s April 5 trip to the D.L. would have negated its effectiveness anyway. We did shoot a commercial with relievers Jeff Zimmerman, Jeff Powell, and Todd Van Poppel appearing opposite a very cute little girl. It was no fun explaining to her mom why we could never edit the spot, as Powell missed two months and Zimmerman the entire season. Those early season injuries, in fact, caused the John Hart spot, planned for only an early season run, to stay on the air far longer than intended. The extra exposure, with the lineup not performing as hoped, didn’t help its reputation.

Of course, the injury bug caused even more damage to the product on the field than it did to the marketing department. The club set a team record for total days spent on the disabled list. 17 different players, including all the closers, spent time on the D.L. Hideki Irabu had started to flourish in that role, so we did a video to play on the scoreboard when he entered a game. I believe it ran once before blood clots finished his season.

The team opened the season with five quality outfielders : Juan Gonzalez, Carl Everett, Rusty Greer, Gabe Kapler, and Frank Catalanotto. All five spent time on the D.L. Greer never had another Major League plate appearance.

You couldn’t blame all the injuries on age, either. The team carried only two position players over age 33, and neither Bill Haselman nor Rafael Palmeiro visited the disabled list. The Rangers had good young talent, too. Had Blalock, Young, Colby Lewis, Joaquin Benoit, Kevin Mench, Travis Hafner, Mark Teixeira, and Ryan Ludwick been a season or two closer to their breakthrough seasons, or if R.A. Dickey had taken up the knuckleball sooner, perhaps things would have gone differently.

And things might go differently for your team this year. The current team in Arlington seems beset by injuries, but with none season-ending, they could easily find themselves in the thick of the race. Hopefully your favorite will be more the 2013 Miami Heat that lived up to expectations than the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays, whose stars couldn’t duplicate past performances.

Teams (even fantasy teams) have to play the games on the field, with the guys available to play them, and past or future glories have bearing on the game, the season, or the at-bat at hand. We have to accept that reality sometimes delivers a high hard one, and realize that no matter how much it enrages us, we have no way to charge the mound.

Most of my brain understands that.

The other part of my head really, really wants to know what would have happened if Chan Ho hadn’t gotten hurt that spring and Juan had hit like he did for the Indians and Zim hadn’t proven that bad things can happen to good people and Pudge had played the full season, and a July trade had shored up the rotation, and . . .

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

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All statistics cited in this article came from BaseballReference.com or Texas Rangers media guides.