Rangers Trading Deadline History

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/07/25/sports-rush-trading-deadline-what-have-we-done/

As baseball’s non-waiver trading deadline approaches, we find ourselves asking important questions. Are we buyers? Are we sellers? Are we standpatters?

Teams really try not to be standpatters, and not just because it’s actually not a word. You either want to get better for this year so you can win the World Series now or improve for subsequent years so you can win the World Series then.

Should the Rangers be sellers this year, unloading veterans in return for young players who need seasoning but have high upsides? Or should they buy talent at the price of their own farm system depth? I’m a flip-flopper, because while the hometown team is not currently in playoff position, part of me thinks they could sneak into a wild card slot, and once in the postseason teams can get hot. Darvish and Hamels could pitch lights out and Beltre could rake and that new-bullpen-piece-we-acquired-because-we-decided-we-were-buyers could dominate.

Or the team might give up prospects for proven talent and tank anyway. Both scenarios have happened to clubs before. So if I can’t predict the future, I decided I would look at the past.  Perhaps you’ll remember some of these in-season exchanges.

On May 30, 1972, that first Texas team traded Norm McRae to the Tigers for Dalton Jones. McRae never threw another pitch in the big leagues and Jones hit .159 for the Rangers that year in what would turn out to be the final 166 plate appearances of his Major League career. Jones was the older player, so we can characterize the Rangers as buyers. However, they were 16-23 when they made the deal and would lose 100 games, so they should have been sellers. In fact, Rangers manager Ted Williams knew Jones from his time with the Red Sox and I’ll surmise that had something to do with the club’s first-ever “deadline deal.”

In those days, the non-waiver deadline was earlier, June 15, and only two teams per league made the postseason. When the deadline moved to July 30 in 1986 and the playoffs expanded in 1994 and 2012, mid-season trade activity increased. The stakes have also risen as prospects have become an increasingly valued commodity. Deals get made after the deadline, too, although they are more difficult because other teams can block the trade by claiming a player off waivers (with the risk that they may have to take on his salary if his current club decides to unload it).

The guys in Arlington have made some solid deals as buyers. On July 9, 2010, they sent Matt Lawson, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, and Justin Smoak to the Mariners for Cliff Lee and Mark Lowe. Do they reach their first World Series without Lee? Probably not, so it’s hard to say any deal had a bigger impact than that one. None of the other players in the deal really did a lot until Smoak’s breakout season this year for Toronto.

On July 31, 2015, Jorge Alfaro, Alec Asher, Jerad Eickhoff, Matt Harrison, Jake Thompson and Nick Williams went to the Philadelphia Phillies for Jake Diekman and Cole Hamels. Hamels and Diekman have been key contributors to two playoff teams, so no matter how good the young players they gave up become, it’ll be hard to count this as something other than a win.

Perhaps the best deal as a buyer actually worked out more like a seller’s deal for Texas. On July 28, 2006 Julian Cordero, Francisco Cordero, Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix went to the Brewers in exchange for veteran Carlos Lee and stalled prospect Nelson Cruz. Coco became Milwaukee’s closer and Lee hit ok for the Rangers in an ultimately fruitless ’06 playoff pursuit. But the deal’s “insurance,” Cruz, became perhaps the most impactful postseason player in Rangers history.

As sellers, one deal that’s still paying dividends is the July 31, 2007 one in which Ron Mahay and Mark Teixeira went to the Atlanta Braves. Texas received Beau Jones, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and their current starting shortstop, Elvis Andrus. They also picked up David Murphy from the Red Sox that day and he now contributes as a broadcaster after posting some good years on the field for winning Rangers teams.

photo credit: Brian Gagnon/Texas Rangers

The July 19, 1985 trade of an aging Buddy Bell to the Reds for a player to be named later and Duane Walker turned out well for the Rangers when future closer Jeff Russell became the PTBNL four days hence.

They don’t all work out as well. Robb Nen might been Russell’s heir as closer had he not gone to the Marlins with Kurt Miller for Cris Carpenter (not to be confused with future Rangers nemesis Chris Carpenter) on July 17, 1993. Nen saved more than 300 games for the Marlins and Giants.
One deal that drives one crazy is the 2011 Chris Davis/Tommy Hunter for Koji Uehara trade with the Baltimore Orioles. Davis became a star, which would have been fine if the Rangers had gotten what they needed from the trade. While Texas did go to the World Series that year, Uehara inexplicably had the highest ERA of his career pitching three months for the Rangers and didn’t make the World Series roster. Two years later he became ALCS MVP for the Red Sox and allowed no runs in five World Series appearances. Rangers fans may recall a need for a shutdown reliever in a certain Game 6.

Fans might feel a similar frustration about the August 19, 1983 trade that sent Rick Honeycutt to the Dodgers for Dave Stewart and Ricky Wright. Stewart’s talent never emerged with Texas, but he became a star for the Athletics teams the Rangers chased in the late 1980s.

Another tough one came in 2001 as Ruben Mateo went to the Cincinnati Reds for young pitcher Rob Bell. Bell never realized his high upside, but the teenager the Reds convinced Texas to add to the deal became All-Star infielder/DH Edwin Encarnación.

On June 29, 1989, the Rangers traded Tack Wilson and Scott May to the Milwaukee Brewers for Todd Simmons and LaVel Freeman. None of those players ever played in the bigs for their new team. And had that been it for 1989, the year would not have been included in this roundup. Unfortunately, however, there was another trade that summer. Exactly a month later, Texas picked up a veteran bat they thought might propel them to their first postseason berth, plus a serviceable utility infielder. Harold Baines and Fred Manrique did not get the Rangers across the threshold. However, Wilson Alvarez, Scott Fletcher and Sammy Sosa went to the Chicago White Sox in the swap, making this likely the most notorious trade in Rangers history.

As sellers on July 11, 2003, Texas executed a superb exchange in sending Ugueth Urbina to the Florida Marlins for Adrian Gonzalez, Will Smith, and Ryan Snare. And it would have been a perfect example of the vet winning a ring and the young player developing into a potential Hall of Famer for his new team, except that Gonzalez had his superb career with the Padres, Red Sox, and Dodgers after later deals.

More than one player, including Saltalamacchia, has been both acquired and traded at separate deadlines. Ryan Dempster went to the Marlins on August 8, 1996 for veteran right-hander John Burkett, which helped Texas to its first division title. On July 31, 2012, Texas brought Dempster back at the cost of Christian Villanueva and Kyle Hendricks. Dempster posted a 5.09 ERA in 12 starts with Texas, but Hendricks helped push his new team, the Cubs, to a World Series win last fall.
The guy who went with Dempster to Florida came back to the Rangers on August 12, 1997 as the Rangers were sellers. Ed Vosberg went to the Marlins, who were on the way to their first championship. Rick Helling returned to the club that had drafted him and led the starting staff of two Rangers postseason teams.

In 1998, the club picked up another one of those twice-dealt guys, Esteban Loaiza, along with Todd Stottlemyre and Royce Clayton in deadline deals. Those players helped push Texas to a second A.L. West title.

Who’s the best player ever acquired by Texas in an in-season deal? You could make the case for Cruz, Hamels, Lee, or for Michael Young, who came to Texas with Darwin Cubillan on July 19, 2000 for Loaiza. The Rangers also picked up future Hall of Fame curveballer Bert Blyleven in a 1976 deal. But this is, in fact, a trick question. The best player Texas ever acquired was . . . Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez. By the time of his August 19, 2009 re-acquisition from the Astros, he was no longer the perennial Gold Glover and offensive force of his first swing through Arlington. But he’s Pudge and I expect to get no argument from Rangers fans about this selection.

So now you have an overview of past Rangers deadline deals. If I left out your favorite Ruben Sierra or Ed Kirkpatrick trade, I apologize. Perhaps in a few years they’ll be included when I write about how we just reacquired Justin Smoak or Nick Williams.


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

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Doing More Than Just Talking About It

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/07/18/sports-rush-more-than-just-talk/

Thursday night, someone asked a group of noted play-by-play men about the most difficult venues in which to call a game. New York City native Chuck Cooperstein of the Mavericks, the subject of this post’s video interview, reluctantly cited his beloved Madison Square Garden’s subpar sightlines. The Rangers’ Eric Nadel noted that he loved Chicago’s venerable Wrigley Field in general, but not its lilliputian broadcast booth. (He observed that early broadcasters “apparently were very small people.”) Brad Sham from the Cowboys placed Washington, D.C. first. He also named them second, third, and on up through number 32. Sham explained that the visiting radio booth is low and in the corner and he has to call certain distant plays using the monitors in the instant replay booth next door.

photo by Carrie Adams

At the Talk of the Town event, radio announcers for North Texas’s top four pro sports teams assembled to swap inside stories about their profession. The audience could submit queries on note cards and the venues question was one of the first moderator John Rhadigan read. Dave Strader wasn’t on stage at that point and we didn’t find out his answer to it. The Stars’ announcer had planned to attend, but a recent complication in his cancer treatment prevented him from being physically onsite. It didn’t stop him from participating, however. A few minutes after the broadcast booth discussion, Rhadigan introduced a classic call of a Steve Yzerman playoff overtime goal, one Strader had made as the voice of the Detroit Red Wings. As it ended, the skinny but energetic hockey broadcaster appeared on the video screen via Skype and described how they had just watched his final call as a Red Wings team broadcaster.

photo by Carrie Adams

Strader then stuck around virtually, contributing his viewpoint to every question and clearly enjoying the night. After the event, he tweeted “Thank you for having me! It meant a lot.” I’m sure the experience raised his spirits, and it lifted the room up a lot, too. Perhaps my most enduring memory of a fully enjoyable evening will be of the occupants of the Dallas Stars’ table, including former Stars forward Vern Fiddler, watching their colleague on the screen and clearly being moved by the sight.

In addition to serving as a pick-me-up for Strader and his Stars colleagues, the event also benefited five charities dedicated to serving less-fortunate children. Earlier in the evening, after Sham had described the challenges of having no depth perception when calling a Cowboys-Redskins game, he had added a caveat.

“The one thing you won’t hear us do is complain about it. Because one of the things I think we all understand,” explained the longtime announcer, “Is there’s a line of people three times around the stadium who would do it for free.”

Sham and the rest clearly appreciate what they have. In a night filled with great stories, that message was truly a lasting one.


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

RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Why It's My Texas (and Also My Rangers)

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/07/13/sports-rush-putting-the-texas-in-texas-rangers/

Why did Tom Grieve say my name on the TV Friday?

OK, my first name is also a common noun, but he wasn’t referring to a pitcher rushing his delivery or a runner in a rush to beat a throw while going from first to third. He meant me.

Grieve and his broadcast partner, C.J. Nitkowski had noticed the Rangers’ home jerseys have script across the front reading “Texas.” The more common practice in baseball is to have a team’s geographical home printed on the road jerseys, while the home versions boast the name of the team’s mascot. The Rangers, however, use “Texas” on both. The announcers wondered why.

So I sent Grieve a text that read “My memory of why Texas is on the front of the home jersey is that it was part of an effort to brand the club with the qualities of the state a few years ago. We ended up doing a whole ad campaign around My Texas My Rangers. I think the jersey branding was related to that.”

The longtime Rangers analyst then read the message on the air. Later in the game, Rangers Executive Vice President of Communications John Blake confirmed my memory was correct (which caused them to say my name again, pleasing my parents who were watching the telecast in Fort Worth). While it’s always cool having an esteemed personality like Tom Grieve say nice things about you, one of the bonuses of the situation was it got me thinking about the ad campaign and how it came about.

it started intuitively, but was ultimately backed up by data. Nolan Ryan had taken over as team president in February of 2008 and the ownership group in which he participated took over the team in August of 2010. The new head of business-side operations, Chuck Greenberg, wanted to direct fans to identify the Rangers as their team, so we quickly shot and edited some new spots consisting of highlights mixed with fans telling the camera some variant of “these are my Rangers.” Though that advertising effort was an unscientific one, in the offseason, Greenberg directed resources toward something the Rangers had done only sporadically during my years there: audience research.
I found the process truly valuable. As a creative director, one likes to know to whom one is speaking (through the medium of television or radio or the internet). It helps you craft better material, because once you know what you’re trying to accomplish, you can find innovative ways of achieving it. As consultant Corky Hall of Stellus Consulting put it, “Give me the freedom of a tightly defined strategy.”

Hall’s firm had taken existing data and spearheaded new research initiatives so we could find out what our fans thought of us. We also wanted to know what they liked and what we could do to position ourselves to better reflect their preferences. One of the things we discovered (not that it was a surprise) was that people liked Texas symbols and values like loyalty, toughness, and friendliness they felt reflected those of Texas and Texans.

The Rangers had long sported a Texas flag patch on their jersey sleeves and the Lone Star State had found its way into plenty of branding elements over the years. The year before (2009), in fact, was when the club had made the move to have all its jerseys read “Texas.” Identifying with the state made sense instinctively, but now we had data to back it up. Out of those brainstorming sessions came a tag line that combined elements of the previous year’s end of season spots with the new research, one that encouraged people to take pride in their team the same way they did in their state: My Texas, My Rangers.

The next step was to figure out how to embody the concept in actual creative executions that would both encourage ballpark attendance and create the brand perceptions we wanted. The solution we adopted involved portraying what was then known as Rangers Ballpark in Arlington as a place where Texas values were ever-present. For television commercials, what I thought might be funny (and therefore memorable) was if the images symbolic of those values actually existed at the park. Some manifestations included:

Grazing
Longhorns grazed in the outfield, ostensibly to save on mower fuel. This spot starred Mitch Moreland and Head Groundskeeper Dennis Klein and no, those were not real cows in the outfield. We digitally manipulated some stock footage.

photo credit: Brian Gagnon/Texas Rangers

Bass Fishing Texans love their bass fishing, so Alexi Ogando and Neftali Feliz demonstrated an innovative way of doing it, as observed by Pitching Coach Mike Maddox and Bullpen Coach Andy Hawkins. For props, we used old batting practice balls and some whole fish carcasses I bought at an Arlington Asian market. Yes, our marketing budget went to buy dead fish. I did check, by the way, to make sure the fish I purchased could actually be found in Texas lakes. I didn’t want a detail-minded angler hating on our spot because we used the wrong bass.

Pecans
A pecan tree grew in the upper deck, with Nelson Cruz and Thad Bosley in charge of cracking the nuts of the official state tree. I wandered the Central Arlington neighborhood in which I lived at the time picking up sticks and pecan fragments dropped from the local trees. For Bosley and Cruz’s part, shot in spring training in Surprise, Arizona, I had to trek to Tempe to find unshelled pecans.

Horns
Horses are pretty Texan, and the Rangers happen to have one working for them. During the Rangers’ first World Series run, the “claw and antler” craze consumed the local fandom. After this spot starring Rangers Captain began running, the mascot reported kids coming up to him doing the antlers sign.

Lots of Dogs
Grilling out with friends and family is a Texas tradition, but apparently some Texans can take it too far. This was one of the most fun shoots I ever did, and not just because Nolan and Ruth Ryan are great people (two of their granddaughters appeared in the commercial, too). Ballpark chef Cris Vazquez hauled out a humungous quantity of hot dogs and an enormous grill that morning and started cooking. We grabbed every cooler in the ballpark to ostensibly be full of hot dogs and the crew brought some ice chests from home, too.

If you don’t watch the Spanish-language version, too, you do yourself a disservice. We knew Nolan would be reluctant to speak a phrase in Spanish, so we recruited his former teammate Jose Guzman to help. The scheme was that Jose was going to say the Spanish line, but we plotted all along to try to get Nolan to say it. So we cut a take where Jose said the line, then I asked Nolan if we could try one more thing. Nolan guardedly agreed, and Jose, with help from team videographer Hugo Carbajal, coached him in what is, as far as I know, the Hall of Famer’s only appearance ever speaking in Spanish on camera.

photo credit: Alan H. Rose/Texas Rangers

This spot got a lot of discussion on the Ticket radio station, too, thanks to a shot Carbajal added in the edit of a well-inked lady eating a hot dog.
Nolan’s image as the quintessential Texan helped the My Texas, My Rangers campaign a lot. We referenced him in the copy (it was ostensibly his idea to put in the pecan tree and, in another spot I didn’t mention above because it’s unfortunately not available to view online, an oil well along the right field wall).

We created other media besides television. Billboards offered baseball variations on state themes, like its country-and-western dancing and miles of open road.

design by: Rainer Uhlir/Texas Rangers

design by: Rainer Uhlir/Texas Rangers

We had radio, too. Can Texans sometimes exaggerate? We decided Texas Tall Tales was a worthwhile theme, so Eric Nadel voiced a series of spots positing Texas ties to certain team-related items. For instance, did you know the word Tejas means “he who hits with the strength of a bear?” Or that the dye in the Rangers’ blue uniforms is made from organic bluebonnets? Or that Nolan Ryan gives the Rangers employee of the year a heifer from his personal herd? Of course, those are all made up, but Eric would go on to emphasize that it was not a Texas Tall Tale that the Rangers did, in fact, embody many of the good qualities of the Lone Star State. You can check out some samples of the radio campaign here.
We also didn’t want to turn off non-Texans, so we did some radio and TV themed as “Welcome to Texas,” that suggested you didn’t have to be from the state of Texas to cheer for the team named “Texas.” And when the pennant race heated up, we did some new spots that hit on Texas pride in retaining the American League title (which that 2011 team did).

When one thinks of the Texas Rangers, one inescapably thinks of the state – heck, it’s the team’s first name. In the latter part of the first decade of the 2000s, the team made that connection a little more explicit. Tom Grieve noticed.


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

RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Hoop Camps and a Hall of Famer

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/07/03/sports-rush-talking-hoop-camps-with-a-hall-of-famer/

Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman has been putting on kids camps in North Texas since the early 1980s. With the summer in full swing, some families may still be in need of activities for the kiddos. You might also be wanting to figure out how to evaluate the camps you did this year. She and I discussed these topics in this video interview, and also an idea Lieberman stole from DeMarcus Cousins (not physically - he's a big dude- virtually). You can find details on the camps she runs (one in July, one in August) at nancyliebermancharities.org.

Side note : As you’re checking out the cool framed memorabilia in the background (we shot chez Lieberman and she has some remarkable stuff there), you might notice a little movement, too. Don’t be alarmed, it’s just Magic and Thunder, her dogs. Later in the interview you can even hear them a bit as well when they decided they’d like to wrestle beneath where we were sitting.


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

RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports