Matters like this Michael Young mess often require a lot of reading between lines, particularly on actions and statements by teams. They are generally going to refrain from trashing a player, and - particularly when Jon Daniels is involved - they don't like to show their hand until it's played. So when Jon Daniels said yesterday that no trade was on the horizon and that the club wasn't certain that it would trade Young before spring training, I had to assume that Daniels was understating the situation. There have been stories written by reliable sources that gave concrete timelines on how advanced trade discussions were. And there was a whole lot of fire below that smoke making the rounds over the weekend.
But a couple of tweets this afternoon are much more difficult for me to reconcile, including one from Daniels' rumored buddy Ken Rosenthal in particular.
Ken_Rosenthal Ken Rosenthal
Source: With Vlad off board, #Rangers increasing asking price for Young. Tougher to replace Young's offense now. #MLB
The picture that's been painted by enough people that I took it as likely fact was that the Rangers have had enough discussions with a handful of other teams (a couple on his list of eight allowed destinations and a couple not on his list) that everyone was pretty clear on what the Rangers would expect as a return and how much of his remaining salary they and other organizations would expect Texas to eat.
According to Daniels, it was was a week ago that Young demanded a trade. A few days later word got out that they could be close to moving him. Once Young demanded a trade, you know that Daniels was all over the phone lines working to get a potential deal in place, while he and Nolan Ryan addressed the issue further with Young. It wasn't until Saturday that Vlad Guerrero signed with the Orioles.
Am I really to believe that the Rangers were caught with their pants down, five days after Young asked to be dealt? That Daniels has been twiddling his thumbs on this issue, waiting for it to play out before he took any preparatory action? That's really hard to believe. Now, maybe the Rangers were well down the road with Vlad, thought they were going to get him, and were right on the doorstep of doing a Young trade, Vlad deal 1-2. That's a little more believable, but still a little far fetched.
So how does this information all fit together? Do differing opinions on Young from Daniels and Ryan account for what would seem like divergent actions here?
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