starving

Part of it is that a four bedroom, 3,500 square foot house with a pool within 15 minutes of the city center is attainable by most professionals in the DFW area. The ~house in SoCal is probably $5M. The biggest trade-off is the weather. ...and I love LA, but slightly less than San Diego. But we're talking about a guy who makes $20M a year, so yeah, I agree.

cocaine is to strippers as spinach is to Pop-Eye.

Did you guys see the entire press conference? I'm not sure if it's online, but they played the whole thing during our rain delay. There were several times where I was shocked by his belligerence with the reporters. Several dead-eyed "next question" and "I already answered that". One reporter asked him if he knows why the Angels FO thought he wasn't being accountable and he said he doesn't know why they would say that. At one point they asked if his acknowledgement of the "baseball town" comment was an apology to the fans, and it was like physically impossible for him to directly apologize. He also looks very pale and his burn-out eyes (which he's always had) seemed to be in full glory. He had that whole thing on a tee to say the right things, sincerely or not, and he couldn't do it. It's really something to behold. All that said, I just have a feeling he's going to be thrive in this situation. It's just how his tiny brain works. He has to be treated like an 18 year old - where his emotional maturity was stunted. The Angels, in exchange for the huge contract, expected him to behave like an adult.

Uh, yeah I guess you didn't understand my post. Did you notice the part about Dennis Rodman coaching 3rd base? Our team is already horrible. It might as well be a circus.

It's weird that I'm excited about this. Let's face it, there's nothing interesting about the 2015 Rangers. One way or another, this will make it interesting at least. I'm just hoping you guys have to take Elvis or Choo as part of this deal. ...and we can get Dennis Rodman to coach third base.

This is the winning answer. The other edge of this sword is blaming "demons" for bad decisions. ...and I'm not dismissing the power of addiction. It is real and it's tough, but I can't imagine beating it unless you're very pragmatic about it. I just don't think he has the mental firepower to understand that.

I've done that for A coke.

I'm gonna pass on that one. Choo didn't have a good year but I'm confident he'll be better. He was hurt all year and he's a very smart hitter. Choo's contract is huge and expensive, but even toward the end I think he'll at least be moderately productive. One way or the other, Hamilton won't even be on the field for the last 1+ years of his current deal.

Agreed. ...but that's the kind of stuff that Josh believes. You're either the type of dude who watches tape, works mechanics, and studies pitchers or you're the type of dude with a Jobu shrine, a juice diet, and a magnetic bracelet. Josh is that second type.

Yeah, I think Hamilton is a cancer too. Several people mentioned that he's at least an average player, so you're getting something out of him. ...but that's projecting his averageness over a full season (and the chances of him playing more than 100 games are pretty slim). So he's a part time, average player who sucks all the air out of the room. If he got a kick out of the DFW and Anaheim fans he'll wet his pants laughing about the fans in Queens. *but, there's a chance that he'll get one of those new NutraSystem blenders, call Miss Cleo, and get some of those magnetic thread bracelet things and show up in February in the best shape of his career.

I don't think you guys should really be worried about Trout though. He's a kid. At his age, I'd be excited if he was putting up his current numbers on our AA team.

I think he does care what the fans think of him, and he cares a lot. ...but his emotional maturity is that of a 15 year old boy. He thinks smirking, dismissing criticism, and acting unaffected makes him look cool. And that makes it so much worse. I never thought he was a great human being, regardless of his very public demonstrations of piety, but he was an incredible player. ...but his raw ability allowed him to be a superstar without really learning his craft. He's a guy that exists on muscle memory and reflex. Those aren't attributes that age well, especially in the absence of the ability to make adjustments. Many of us thought that the turning point for him was the 4 HR game against Baltimore in 2012. It was as if opposing pitchers realized that they just couldn't throw him strikes AT ALL or he'd punish them. ...so that's what they did. They tried to give him unintentional intentional walks and he couldn't stop flailing. That changed the book on him and he has never recovered. Even his body language changed from predator to a guy who looked like his at-bat was forfeit once he got down in the count. I'm curious if you guys see that same thing. I haven't watched enough of his games as a Angel to see it, but in the few I have seen it's been the same.

Hey, that's cool. The Rangers had a historically awful season, but I'm not the type that gets all wound up about it. I was pulling for the worst record in baseball so we'd get better draft picks, but they even failed me on that. ...and you guys will probably never feel a baseball pain as bad as our Game 6. I've got the thousand-yard stare. If it makes you feel better, pull up the video of Freese's double over Cruz. I can't watch it, but it'll probably give you a good laugh.

Is it that offensive? I'm not talking trash to you guys or about the Angels. It's just interesting to see this story unfold. Imagine if Vernon Wells had talked trash about the people of Anaheim after he left, then continued an epic career nose-dive that caused his new team's fans to hate him. Don't tell me you wouldn't enjoy that. I see us as brothers-in-arms on this.

I understand pulling for his recovery story, but let's not give him too much credit for the things he's trying to overcome in his personal life. These are all things he did to himself. He was an incredibly gifted human being who (almost) completely squandered his gift with a total lack of self-control. This isn't a kid who was stricken by cancer or something.

Yep. It still haunts all of us.

Thank you for the offer to send them back, but I think we'll respectfully decline. Besides, we have enough problems. I think over the course of the last two years you guys have learned why we all 'turned on' Hamilton. He's a total dog, and he's probably legitimately insane. As for CJ, don't feel too bad for him. He has a lot of other interests...

I'm just curious, but what is your standard for calling someone a "nice guy"? For example, would someone who becomes a millionaire at the age of 18 on the back of his physical gifts, then becomes a crack junky and gets covered head to toe in tattoos. Then finds "god" and becomes a redemption story. Then becomes a prima donna, cheats on his wife publicly twice, and finds a way to deflect any responsibility for his own behavior (like, for example, the "devil"). Also, he actually has two-way conversatoins with jezis in his head (both parts are being played by Hamilton's own defective brain). Is Allen Iverson a "nice guy" too?

I don't know if I count Darvish the same was as a normal FA signing. He's awesome, but the japanese players are a little different. I'd agree that Beltre and Fielder are the two in recent memory who have turned out great, among mostly terrible busts. I can, obviously, speak to the Beltre deal in more detail than most of the others, but he's been a steal for us. I don't know if it's obvious to opposing teams, but that guy is a badass all the way around. He's the team leader and he's funny. When he was with other teams I always thought he was like a headcase with a bad attitude because of the way the freaks out when people touch his head and his low-cocked cap that hides his eyes. ...but when you see him every day you see that the head touching thing is HILARIOUS. He has some kind of psychological tick obviously that makes it really agitate him when people touch his head, so everyone does it on purpose and he smacks the hell out of them. They all start laughing at the same time though. Elvis says if you want to get spanked really hard try to touch his head. It really makes us see how lucky we were with Beltre when we see so many of these horrible FA signings.

That's a pretty bad value analysis considering he has full use of hindsight. I'd say right now he's worth about a minor league invite. If somehow (magically) the Angels could void his contract and he became a FA, what kind of offers do you think he would get?

Has Hamilton had the opporturnity to spread the word about his faith lately though? I know in spring training he and Pujols were playing a game where they'd exchange bible verses. Maybe, in the search for something positive, the focus could be shifted from baseball to Jesus.

True. But having blue eyes and drinking too many energy drinks are the no.1 and no.2 pussiest things ever. This sinus thing is maybe no.3.

Finally Josh will start to be aggressive at the plate. No more of this 'working counts' nonsense.

Actually that's not true. While a large percentage of Rangers fans and Texans are quite dumb (as evidenced by the fact that George W Bush receives cheers when shown on the jumbotron and the majority voted for Governor Rick Perry), Hamilton is even dumber. In almost any comparison with a modern human being who does not require 24-hour assitance, Hamilton will prove to be the dumber of the two.

Go wade through my posts and find me trolling. I've only ragged on Hamilton because he deserves to be ragged on. I'm not really an enemy. I think most of you guys are pretty funny. Find one example of me making an ad hominem attack on a poster at AW or saying anything derogatory about anyone except Hamilton. My favorite thing about the situation the Angels find themselves in is that it's the situation that Hamilton has made for himself. This is kinda like if Bernie Madoff had gotten away and some of the people he scammed followed him to his new country club to tell everyone.