Thanks. 86 comments


Thanks.

Thanks for sticking with RangerRounding3rd.com for another season of Rangers baseball. Our slogan, “Making Rangers baseball tolerable since 2014,” couldn’t have been more appropriate.

2018 was a mostly forgettable season. The front office threw in the towel. Fans followed suit soon thereafter. The Ballpark looked like a Sears on a Saturday night.

We just wrapped up the fifth season of RR3. That is amazing. In that time we’ve seen mostly losing baseball: in 2014, 2017, and 2018. We’ve seen two division titles. We’ve seen epic meltdowns in Toronto.

We’ve seen the sustained brilliance of Adrian Beltre, the redemption of Elvis Andrus, the shear willpower of Cole Hamels putting the team on his shoulders and winning Game 162 in 2015 to avoid another collapse. We’ve seen the farm system finally produce a crop of youngsters that is the core of the next few seasons.

We’ve been through Ron Washington, Tim Bogar, and Jeff Banister.

Sadly, we’ve lost a few great friends along the way. We have picked up a lot of new ones, too. In all, I am always amazed at the passion and time people devote to this online community.

And I thank you for it.

It’s hard to predict so soon in the off-season what the Rangers are going to do to improve. But common sense and past performance would dictate there isn’t enough money and aren’t enough bargaining chips to make this a playoff-caliber team next season. Stranger things have happened. But I will go out on a limb right here and right now and say the Rangers have as much chance of making a playoff run in 2019 as Elvis does of riding a unicorn over a double rainbow to Sasquatch’s house. And I mean the original Elvis.

We have three and a half long cold months until pitcher and catchers report in mid-February. Then a month of meaningless games where guys in Rangers uniforms play games against guys in other team’s uniforms.

The Rangers begin defense of their last-place crown Thursday, March 28, at home against the Cubs.

Between today and then I will post daily to keep the site going. Not sure what it’s going to be. Probably just links to other articles. There isn’t a whole to look back fondly on from the 2018 season.

The next few days are about players declaring free agency, teams and players picking up options, qualifying offers being made, then free agent rumors ad nauseam.

For the Rangers front office, let the bargain hunting begin.

Thanks again for stopping by for another year.