I have every intention of burying the Michael Young trade discussion (which, come to think of it, has really been little more than an elaborate game of talking in circles for weeks on end, because I still don't think any trade is going to happen) and moving on to more pressing issues, but the baseball blogosphere is moving at a glacial pace right now, and there's one more curious little tidbit out there early this morning that I think is worth mentioning -- partly because of the insight into the trade process, but more because of the corresponding implications about the front office.
According to FOXSports.com's Tracy Ringolsby, the Rangers reached such an advanced stage in their trade talks with the Rockies that Colorado -- presumably at the behest of Texas -- required 25-year-old second baseman/outfielder Eric Young Jr. to undergo a physical, but before any agreement could be reached, the Rangers voiced concern over the stress fracture that Young Jr. incurred in his right tibia last May, and apparently then severed trade talks. Ringolsby further intimates that this isn't the first time the Rangers pulled the plug on a prospective Michael Young trade when talks became especially serious, and goes on to suggest that this is evidence of an existing "disconnect" within the Rangers' upper-management ranks.
If you don't trust Ringolsby's journalistic credibility or his sources, then it's pretty easy to dismiss this out of hand and happily move on with your life, but if you think there's actually something to it, then it raises a few different questions, such as (a) if Young Jr. constituted the entirety of what the Rangers would have netted for Young, (b) why Texas would completely shut down talks over an injury that Young Jr. appeared to make a full and complete recovery from; and why a player with such deficiencies in his game like Young Jr. couldn't be readily swapped out for another player, as well as (c) why this can't merely be a case of the Rangers coming to their senses, as opposed to the Ringolsby narrative of organizational conflict.
Here's the thing: If you read between the lines in this account of the Young trade talks, you most likely come away with the idea that Jon Daniels and those tied closest to him in baseball operations pushed to the brink of a deal, and then had it snuffed out by Nolan Ryan and/or anyone else wielding veto power, thereby forcing the creation of a hasty excuse for backing out of the deal. This idea isn't expressed in explicit terms in the article itself, but it's clearly the conclusion Ringolsby is steering the reader towards, because if you really think about it, Young Jr. isn't such a valuable property on his own * that his exclusion from a deal should prevent two mutually interested parties from hammering out a different trade framework.
[* - Just to give you some sense of what Young Jr. really is, Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections have Young Jr. pegged at .256/.331/.346 next season, which would render him a speedy but defensively limited utility infielder, or perhaps a slightly above-replacement-level starting second baseman. Looking at the current composition of the major league roster, I have a hard time seeing how Young Jr. would have even fit anywhere but the Triple-A level at the outset of the season.]
At the same time, however, I don't think you can look at this as any kind of conclusive proof that there's a chasm between Ryan and Daniels, or development of separate factions, or paralyzing upper-management strife, or anything else along similar lines. I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy (and am always cautious about accepting the happy-go-lucky company line at face value), but with both Ryan and Daniels independently remarking on the health of their working relationship, and with the Rangers now prioritizing a long-term deal for Daniels ... no, this isn't anything close to a smoking gun. But I also can't explain what Ringolsby alleges to have (almost) happened.
And hopefully that is the last time we have to visit the subject of trading Michael Young.
Original Story:
http://www.bbtia.com/home/2011/2/2/th...
