I'm not a Texas Rangers fan. While I am a fan of the Rangers (the hockey team), you know where my baseball allegiances lie. With that being said, however, I do enjoy watching the Rangers play and like many of their players. Possibly my favorite of them all is Michael Young. A six-time All-Star (and the 2006 All-Star MVP), Young is the Rangers' all-time hits leader. He's been the face of the franchise for a decade. Which is why the Rangers' treatment of Young this off-season has been disgusting!
This is a guy who's done everything he's been asked and then some for the good of that team. He came up as a second baseman, but moved to shortstop in 2004 after Texas traded A-Rod to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano. Then in 2009, he moved to third so that rookie Elvis Andrus could take over at short. (It's here where I feel the need to point out that Young has made the All-Star team at all three positions.) This offseason, the Rangers asked Young to switch positions again. They want to move him to DH! The reason? They signed free agent Adrian Beltre to play third base.
Apparently it took reaching the World Series for the Rangers to finally realize that they play in Dallas. Dallas is the seventh-largest media market in the country. On one hand, I give the Rangers credit in that they no longer pretend they're a small-market team and have started acting like the big-market team they are. However, the Beltre signing is a classic big market move. The Rangers don't need him and didn't really seem to have a plan for what to do with him. You'd expect a move like this from the Yankees or Mets or Red Sux (who already overpaid for Beltre), but not the Rangers. Every offseason there's the one free agent signing that leaves you scratching your head and saying, "Huh?", and this is this year's.
Now, this isn't a diatribe about how overrated I think Adrian Beltre is. The fact that the guy's had two good seasons in a 13-year career (one of which came in Boston, which doesn't really count, seeing as I could hit in the middle of that lineup, and the other of which was a little, shall we say, "enhanced"), both of which led to ridiculous free agent contracts worth more than the guy deserves is irrelevant. No, he isn't worth $96 million for six years, but don't blame me when he turns out to be the Rangers' Nick Johnson. The point is that one of the most underrated and most underappreciated players in baseball has been screwed again!
I'm not saying that the Rangers shouldn't have gotten Beltre. If they want to waste their money on him, that's their business. What I am saying is that they could've found a way to add him without alienating Michael Young. Each time Young switched positions in the past, he did it for the good of the team. He wasn't happy with the move to third base, especially, but he eventually came to realize that the Rangers would be better if he was at third and Andrus was at short. (Case in point: 2010, when they both made the All-Star team and Texas reached the World Series.) They didn't bother asking if Young was OK with a move to DH/utility infielder. Evidently, Young accepted this at first. Then about two weeks ago, Texas traded for Mike Napoli, a catcher/first baseman who isn't really the best with the fielding. Which means Napoli's going to get a majority of his at-bats at DH. And probably at the expense of Michael Young. That was enough to push Young over the edge. He's finally demanded a trade! I say, "Good for you, Michael. It's about time."
There are a number of teams that could use a productive veteran third baseman/shortstop. It seems as if the Rockies are the early front-runners, but other teams that would benefit from his services include the Angels (probably not that likely, since they're in the Rangers' division), Blue Jays (in the AL East, so I wouldn't prefer that), Dodgers (definitely an upgrade over Casey Blake), White Sox (it would be easy to move Gordon Beckham to second), and especially the Cardinals (I don't even know who their projected Opening Day third baseman is).
Michael Young deserves better. Nolan Ryan and Jon Daniels, I implore you, finally do the right thing where he's concerned. Give him what he wants. Trade him.
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