Roy Oswalt Will Miss At Least One Start

Texas Rangers pitcher Roy Oswalt will miss his scheduled start Monday with tightness in his lower back. The 34-year-old right-hander will visit a doctor in Houston on Monday, but is not expected to be placed on the disabled list.

“Prior to signing Roy he expressed to us what exactly is happening now,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “Sometimes this acts up with his lower back. If it’s the same thing he’s had in the past, and he expects it is, he believes he’ll make his next start. We’ve got to wait and see, but that’s our hope at this point.”

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It looks like Oswalt isn’t even going to make one of those starts. From Rangers VP John Blake:

“There wasn’t a wow factor, but he used both sides of the plate,” Ryan said. “He threw strikes. He wasn’t as sharp as he can be, but he wasn’t wild. Ideally, if this was spring training, he’d have two more starts and be ready. But given the circumstances, we’ll just have to review everything.”

blah blah blah Rangers are so good and they have so many pitchers blah blah blah what’s the point? blah blah blah they’re guaranteed to make the playoffs so whatever

So that stupid stuff about Roy Oswalt being a luxury for the Rangers? Sorry about that. I had a deadline, and I think my blood sugar was low. It’s now pretty clearly a great thing for the Rangers to have Oswalt and the depth he provides, especially through the slog of the regular season.

“It’s funny. When you throw in the Minor Leagues, they don’t let you throw a lot of pitches,” Oswalt said. “They swing early, and you don’t get to work on a lot of stuff.

“Tonight I think out of six hits, I gave up five on first-pitch fastballs. So you try and get your fastball established and try to work on it as much as possible. But when they swing at first pitches, it’s hard to work on your other pitches,” he added.

If the Rangers make a move for a starting pitcher, they need to make a move for a guy who will make the playoff rotation better. I don’t see that Oswalt does that. I do see two starting pitchers who will potentially be available for trade in another month or so, however, that would slot in at the top of the Rangers’ playoff rotation, and immediately make them better.

Oswalt is a pitcher for the regular season. He’ll help the Rangers win in 2012, and he’ll help their efforts to win a division title. But that’s a title that was about as likely with Oswalt as it was with Scott Feldman. Hell, Corey Feldman. The regular season was never the issue.

No, he wasn’t great last year. But you don’t have to be great to be worth $5 million over the course of three months (or four, if you think the Rangers have a good shot at the World Series). He did allow 153 hits in 139 innings, but that’s partially because he gave up a .321 batting average on balls in play; his career mark is .301, and he’s likely to come in around that mark this season.

Oswalt missed July last season, for various reasons. After returning to the Phillies’ rotation, he struck out three times more batters than he walked, and gave up only four home runs in 68 innings. He wasn’t great, but he was real good. And real good is worth $5 million.

Oswalt and the Rangers have agreed to a deal that will pay the veteran right-hander $5 million for the rest of this year, with $1 million available to him in incentives, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.If Oswalt were willing to take a deal from the highest bidder this offseason, he probably would have received at least two years. If he didn’t have a troublesome back, he probably would have had three-, four-, or five-year offers. In the end, he’s still getting paid a decent amount of coin, he gets to pitch for a team that satisfies his offseason demands, and he picked up a couple months of extra vacation. There are worse fates.

The Texas Rangers have signed free-agent right-hander Roy Oswalt, according to an individual familiar with the process.As a guy who knows how telephones and computers operate, I’m also familiar with the process, but the Morning News probably means someone who actually knows what’s going on in Ranger Land. The move made sense when it was rumored last week, and it still makes sense.

Oswalt will likely need a few minor-league tuneups before returning to the majors, and the word earlier was that it would take him about a month to get ready.

Seeing as Jayson Stark is the lord and mayor and owner of that particular town, you’d have to figure he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

Oswalt didn’t sign this offseason because he was looking for a team close to his Mississippi home that was also a contender, and of the teams in the Oswalt market now, the Texas Rangers are the only team that still satisfies those desires. With Neftali Feliz on the shelf, the Rangers could sign Oswalt and rerereresend Feliz to the bullpen when he comes back from elbow soreness. Because the Rangers were running low on power arms in the bullpen. Gotta lock down that fourth inning.

First-place teams often look around for whatever assistance they might be able to find that could help get them to the postseason. The Orioles aren’t used to this, as they haven’t been to said postseason in 15 years, but they seem to have the hang of looking around:

And he could help the Orioles. Maybe there will, at last, be a match.

No! Reportedly.

Here’s what this means: not a lot. If it’s true, it doesn’t mean the Red Sox and Oswalt won’t talk contract; it just means they haven’t talked contract, yet. And maybe Oswalt isn’t ready to talk contract. Or maybe the Red Sox want to give things a little longer with their current roster. Roy Oswalt might still join the Red Sox, and we won’t know until Oswalt makes some kind of decision.

Think about the progression of a professional baseball player for a second. They start in the bowels of the minor leagues, riding buses and eating nothing but fast food. A year goes by, and you’re moved up a level if you’re lucky. Then another year, another level. Another year, still in the minors but another level. And if you’re really good, after four or five years, you get to enjoy the majors … where you have six full seasons before you can decide where you go.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be annoyed the dude still hasn’t picked a team. I mean, c’mon already. But you can understand it.

...but Roy Oswalt is looking to sign a free-agent contract, soon. He’s back on your radar, and according to Ken Rosenthal, he could put pen to paper within a week, if players have to actually physically sign contracts nowadays. Maybe it’s all about iris recognition software. Anyway, Rosenthal:

But he could come back soon. From Ken Rosenthal:

Until now, when he’s apparently deviated from it:

So this is pretty significant, even if Oswalt isn’t going to do anything any time soon. If he stays in shape and stays healthy, he should get a summer job, and maybe that summer job will even get him a championship.

If the full-court press doesn’t work, they could huddle up and go for an end-around, making a power play for him before throwing a Hail Mary if all else fails.

The baseball season is very, very, very long, so it’s a little presumptuous to chide Oswalt for wanting to stay close to his family. And if this is all a negotiating ploy to make the Red Sox overpay, well, that’s sort of brilliant. And risky. It wouldn’t be as risky as the Red Sox going into the season with the back end of their rotation being held together with crossed fingers and sprite kisses, of course. It’s still the best fit for both sides. It’s just up to Oswalt to a) settle or b) figure that out.

Not that Valentine sounds too concerned. From WEEI.com’s Alex Speier:

I’m not sure why 139 is in brackets there. If Valentine said 139 -- the actual figure, by the way -- you wouldn’t need the brackets. If Valentine said “shit-all” or something, we need an indication that he’s got a potty-mouth.

The idea being that Roy Oswalt could help himself more by pitching against real batters in real games for the first few months than by working out independently. It would be kind of awkward for the signing team, since everyone would know that Oswalt is a goner, but there are worse things than having Roy Oswalt around for a little while.

Anyway. I’m sure Cameron’s idea has flaws. Beyond that, it’s just not going to happen. But there’s no denying the creativity.

We were told that free agent Roy Oswalt would make a statement through agent Bob Garber on Thursday. Sure enough, said statement has been made, and it confirms what was reported by sources Thursday morning.

* I guess not really

Oh, right. Clemens did that too. Of all the dramatic things.

The main difference between Oswalt and the two should-be Hall of Famers is that Oswalt is just 34. He should be somewhere between the prime and twilight of his career, ready to sign a multi-year deal. But the right-hander pitched only 139 innings last year because of back concerns, and teams are wary of his health. That, and he’s being exceptionally selective with the list of teams he’ll pitch for.

You can see how it’s February and Oswalt hasn’t found a home yet. But according to Gordon Edes, Oswalt is going to make a statement today on where he’s going. And according to Jon Heyman, it isn’t going to be with the Rangers or Red Sox:

it is NOT rangers or red sox for oswalt, at least not now, according to people who know.No word on if the people who know are linked to sources with knowledge of the situation, or if they’re just familiar with the organizations’ thinking.

Teams have opened spring training camps and the first games are in about 10 days.

The Red Sox have been rumored as a team interested in Oswalt. However, that interest has not been mutual; Oswalt has been said to not want to play that far from his home in Texas.

It’s February 14. There are still free agents. There are still decent-to-good free agents who could help teams expecting to contend.

This is annoying.

Now what? Where is Roy Oswalt supposed to go? We look towards Jayson Stark:

Of course, that’s much, much easier said than done. Blanton had physical problems a year ago. He posted a 78 ERA+. He posted an 85 ERA+ the year before that. It’s unlikely that some team’s going to be willing to take Blanton on at his price. His price being free in one regard, and not free in another.