THE SKY, USA — By the time this story publishes, I’ll be somewhere northeast of Dallas, a few thousand feet above America. Tennessee, if I had to guess. Maybe I’ll be waving off a bag of mixed salted snacks while shuffling through the one playlist I have downloaded on my phone so I can listen to music on airplanes. Or maybe it will publish a bit later and I’ll be wandering aimlessly through the Baltimore airport on a three-hour layover, waiting for a plane to Buffalo. It’s the Rangers’ last road trip before the trade deadline, and this time of year — between the All-Star Game and the trade deadline — always feels strange.
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In winning seasons, it’s the anticipation of the deal that might tip the scales and make the difference between playoffs or no playoffs, a championship or a stumble just short of the goal. But those acquisitions have to come from somewhere, from some storm cloud-laden room doing their best to ignore the fact that one or more of their best players will soon be elsewhere. The players, largely, answer the questions politely, but it doesn’t take a clinical psychologist to read the room: it’s not the most enjoyable time of the season for a losing team.
For the Rangers, the potential departures are well-chronicled, though there are always surprises possible. While the team goes from Dallas to Buffalo to Detroit to Houston, then back home for the final week of July, there’s every possibility that some member of the team will also find themselves on a layover in some terminal, having been jettisoned from the Rangers organization and en route to meet their new teammates.
As always, we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you have any Baltimore airport food recommendations, I’m all ears.
Topics of the week: Heim’s homecoming, post-hype hope, and Huff’s hammer
Jonah Heim is from Snyder, New York, so this week is particularly special for him. With the Blue Jays still playing their home games at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, it’s a chance for him to play in front of friends and family in the Buffalo area for the first time since the last game of his senior year at Amherst High School in the northern suburbs of Buffalo.
“It’s so crazy; I never actually thought it would happen,” Heim said on a Zoom call on Thursday. “I thought maybe there was a chance to come here and play Triple A and that would’ve been cool, but now being in the big leagues, it’s going to be a pretty amazing experience to have my whole family there.”
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Heim said he remembers going to Sahlen field as a kid, and recalls one time when he was around eight years old, watching the pitchers warm up in the bullpen.
“I remember thinking that it was going way too fast for me,” Heim said with a laugh. “And now to think back, that’s what I do for a living. It’s pretty crazy.”
As for friends and family coming to see him, Heim says it’s not a question of who will be there but “Who won’t?” For a stadium that already has a capacity of just 16,600, it should be easy to hear the Heim fan club on the broadcasts this weekend.
While I’m there, I’m going to have to try out one of the catcher’s recommendations: a chicken finger sub from Jim’s Steakout. Per Heim, it’s a pretty straightforward recipe: “We go mild chicken fingers, some lettuce, tomato and mayo in a bun. We can’t even find them anywhere else other than Buffalo. So that’s why there’s so good.”
If you’re hoping for a wings recommendation — you know, being Buffalo and all — Heim suggests Duff’s Famous Wings, but there’s not one within walking distance of the park, so maybe that will have to wait until the Rangers’ next trip to Buffalo.
The MLB draft happened this week, perhaps you heard about it. We wrote about the Rangers’ top pick Jack Leiter and the subsequent nine picks (and Jamey Newberg wrote a great feature comparing the Leiter pick to the Mark Teixeira pick 20 years prior) but in case you’re looking for a full list, here you go:
DAY ONE:
Round 1: RHP Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt University
DAY TWO:
Round 2: OF/3B Aaron Zavala, Oregon University
Round 3: SS Cameron Cauley, Barbers Hill HS (TX)
Round 4: C Ian Moller, Wahlert HS (IA)
Round 5: LHP Mitch Bratt, Newmarket, Ontario / Georgia Premier Academy (GA)
Round 6: RHP Chase Lee, University of Alabama
Round 7: RHP Bradford Webb, Virginia Commonwealth University
Round 8: LHP Larson Kindreich, Biola University
Round 9: C Liam Hicks, Arkansas State University
Round 10: LHP C.J. Widger, Rowan College at Gloucester County (NJ)
DAY THREE:
Round 11: OF JoJo Blackmon, Escambia HS (FL)
Round 12: RHP Jackson Leath, University of Tennesee
Round 13: LHP Thomas Ireland, Polk State College (FL)
Round 14: C Tucker Mitchell, State College of Florida Manatee – Sarasota (FL)
Round 15: RHP Evan Elliott, Lethbridge College (Alberta, CA)
Round 16: LHP Ryan Ure, Eaton HS (CO)
Round 17: SS Michael Alfonso, Key West HS (FL)
Round 18: RHP Kyle Larsen, TNXL Academy (FL)
Round 19: OF Will Taylor, Dutch Fork HS (SC)
Round 20: RHP Joseph Montalvo, Central Pointe Christian Academy (FL)
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Of the picks made on the third day, the most interesting one is certainly Taylor, who was believed by many to have first-round talent. Alas, his commitment to Clemson, where he hopes to play both football and baseball, is not expected to be swayed from that decision by having been drafted in the 19th round.
“We did a lot of work on Will prior to the draft — not just evaluating the kid and the talent and etc. — He was here with his father here in Texas and worked out for us,” said Rangers senior director of amateur scouting Kip Fagg. ‘We had a chance to meet him and (we) felt like the talent (warranted) a draft pick. We’ll see where this goes; he’s at Clemson playing football right now. Can’t predict anything and haven’t had any conversations with him, but we like the talent, like the kid, like the family, like what he’s about, so that’s why we went there.”
In conversations on Twitter, the conversation came up: do the NCAA’s new NIL rules allow for a loophole wherein the Rangers might be able to sign Taylor for a menial 19th-round pittance, retaining his baseball rights, while allowing him to go play football at Clemson for a year or two, but paying him what amounts to first-round money using something other than draft pool allowance money?
For instance: “Hi, I’m Will Taylor and while I am part of the Rangers franchise, I’m also the biggest Rangers fan at Clemson University where I star on the football team. As we try to lock down the College Football Playoff Championship, you should pick up your tickets for the lower bowl at Globe Life Park! Just go to texasrangers.com and use discount code LOOPHOLE.”
I was so intrigued by the idea that I texted a few people who would be in a position to know if it were technically possible or not.
I was assured that the Commissioner’s office was very clear that no such chicanery would be tolerated.
Sam Huff hit a 495-foot home run this week.
495 ft. 💣 from @sirhuffington35 to regain the lead! @Rangers
B3 | FRI 4, SPR 3 #LetsRide pic.twitter.com/9JTOYwYgjM
— Frisco RoughRiders (@RidersBaseball) July 15, 2021
As to whether the Rangers plan on bringing him up to the big leagues when his rehab assignment is done, it would be as a 1B/DH type — he won’t be doing any catching this year after undergoing knee surgery. Two games is too early to give his stat line much credence, but five strikeouts in 10 plate appearances would suggest it’s perhaps a bit too early to start thinking about that just yet (though it is tantalizing to look at his 1.019 OPS with three home runs in 33 plate appearances in Arizona League games).
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Baseball card of the week: 1984 O-Pee-Chee Phil Niekro
I don’t think the Braves’ powder blues are generally considered to be among the best of the era — the Royals and Expos are the first two that come to mind — but I thought they were great. I still think they’re great, and the primary reason is the pairing with the simple blue cap. It’s a shade of blue you don’t see much in baseball; similar to Yale Blue but lighter — not quite cerulean, but almost … denim?
Don’t get me wrong: I think denim baseball caps would be an atrocity. Please don’t get any ideas, New Era — you’ve done enough lately. I’m just saying I think it’s a nice color.
Speaking of caps, check out the trucker cap in the inset photo here, where Niekro appears to be looking you in the eyes to make sure you’re listening before solemnly and firmly reminding you: “NOW WITH YANKEES”
I do love a good O-Pee-Chee card, which were almost always identical to their Topps counterparts. As this one was released after Niekro signed with the Yankees, the back is slightly different — the Topps version obviously features Atlanta’s logo instead of New York’s — and this one is card No. 29 instead of 650 (and of course, the biggest difference is O-Pee-Chee always had a line in French to explain the statistics). Both have Niekro’s birthplace listed as “BLAINE, O.”
Oregon? Ontario? Oman? Olympus?
I had to Google it. It was Ohio.
Niekro was one of the many giants of the industry that we lost in 2020. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News wrote a particularly touching piece about his passing, which is worth re-sharing here.
Song of the week: “Impossible” by Lyla Foy
I was certain I had discovered this song this week, but upon a little bit of research, I learned that it was featured in the Season 1, Episode 7 of BoJack Horseman, so I would have definitely heard it before. Sometimes it just takes a second (or third) listen for a song to get its hooks in.
I slightly prefer the studio version of the song, but I miss live music a lot, and I also miss the era when these black-and-white performance videos were en vogue. So here’s a discovery/nostalgia crossover event for you guys.
Since last we spoke:
- Joey Gallo, Adolis García and Kyle Gibson were named to the All-Star team … now what?
- We looked at the Double-A Frisco rotation, which is doing quite well this season.
- We can finally stop asking who it’ll be: the Rangers drafted Jack Leiter.
- Then they went and drafted nine more guys the next day (and 10 more the day after that, as discussed above)
- And the trade deadline is rapidly approaching. Can the Rangers’ draft strategy tell us anything about how they’ll approach this year?
(Photo of Jonah Heim: Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
