Rangers Sign Eddie Guardado

What are you talking about? Guardado was about the only bright spot out of the Ranger's bullpen last year. I'm on board with bringing him back for one year.

"i'm amazed everyday eddy's arm is still attached."

The punchline is they still prefer him over signing Gagne.

"Guardado was about the only bright spot out of the Ranger's bullpen last year."

For a guy who was average as a reliever, that's a sad statement about the rest of the pen.

Yeah, he gave up 5 runs in his time in Minn, 3 of which were in 2/3 of an inning. That is the problem with bullpen arms, small sample size, which you make even smaller by just looking at his Minn data.

What it looks like if you look at his game by game data at fangraphs is that his last 10 games or so he was out of gas. All of his peripheral numbers took a jump about that time, and that was before he became a Twin. Lets not forget that he just came back from TJ late the yer before. He had pitched a total of 24 innings the year before and a total of 55 2/3 since 2006 before joining the Rangers pen in 2008.

Tailing off severely at the end is not a real major surprise. There is a reason why the Twins gave up a long away bullpen prospect for him.

He still had a 4.15 ERA, 3.90 FIP and a 1.22 WHIP. Good cheap signing that allows Texas to let Gabbard to become a LOOGY in the AAA bullpen instead of the MLB pen. If Guardado craters, cut him and just promote Gabbard.

I have a hard time finding any real fault in this one, as long as it is a relatively cheap deal.

Mark Hamburger isn't really a prospect unless you call everyone playing minor league baseball a "prospect". The Twins sent him the the Rangers because they believe his ceiling is AA; they were never going to send a legitimate prospect in exchange for Guardado.

It looks like Texas has more faith in Hamburger than the Twins did, considering they automatically moved him up a level and installed him as the closer for their A ball team in Clinton where he had 3 saves in 4 games before the end of the season. To combine his numbers from the 2 levels would put him 16 of 17 in save appearances in 2008.

I am not going to say he is the next all star closer, but from what it sounds like he will move up into A+ with a chance at AA this year. Not a great prospect, and will probably not make the Rangers top 40, but he is a legit prospect, not organizational fodder. It is hard to label a guy that throws in the mid-90's and a decent slider on a large projectable frame a "non prospect".

Hell the last Ask BA had the 30th guy in the Ranger's organization at 7th in the Astros, so not making the top 40 or 50 in Texas in not a huge slight.

Hamburger was most likely picked because Texas had a list of guys they considered to have enough value to take a flyer on in the low levels and they needed a guy to close for A Clinton for the minor league playoffs.

Yeah, I don't think they're going to try to flip him. They saw last season that he has very little value on the trade deadline market - and he's a year older now. He's a junkballer who gets by with smarts & experience more than any great stuff. But they need a second lefty, and he could probably get by serving as closer if he just had to - so I think it's not a bad signing. Wish they would have gotten Springer. Oakland is going to be a lot better this season.

Jeez kinsler5

Argument for the sake of argument. You knew full well that the deal includes incentives to reach 3 million. Think before you type.

You also know full well that if he reaches all those incentives, he's well worth the 3 million.

Eddie was a huge clubhouse favorite and mentor to a whole lot of the young pitchers on the staff. EXP C.J Wilson. Good pickup. More than likely he will pitch great, and we will trade him mid season for more prospects (we've done it with relievers the last 2 years). You need a good guy like that in the club house anyways. NOW BRING IN SHEETS!