The best-case scenarios of the Josh Hamilton trade

There was a time when I was obsessed with Josh Hamilton’s pending free agency. There were enough updates and bits of speculation to make a stream of stories about 10 deep. Where was he going? What he was going to make? It was all so very fascinating.

It’s hard to remember what that was like, not knowing this was going to be an utter debacle. The smoldering wreckage of the contract seems like a truism at this point, something that was both obvious and unavoidable, but there was once a time when smart baseball people had smart baseball debates about Hamilton’s future value. Hamilton hit 43 homers the year before he was a free agent -- only two players have hit more in a season since. The natural talent was unmistakable and so very rare.

The hitting stopped. The questions about Hamilton’s personal life didn’t, and neither did the injuries. We watched the worst-case scenario for the Hamilton deal unfold for the last two seasons. If we’ve suffered through the worst-case scenario, that means it’s time to look for the best-case scenarios for the Angels and Rangers. We’re positive people around here. It’s all rainbows and waterfalls running through our mind. Let’s find some best-case scenarios.

That people forget just how nefarious and vile Arte Moreno and the Angels have acted. That the repugnant and soulless machinations of a petty man with a blackened heart don’t interfere with the on-field success. But enough with the positive, happy-go-lucky stuff! We’ll have to explore how the Angels come out of this a winner.

Mind you, they’ll never win with this. Even though Hamilton didn’t have the worst contract on his team, he still had one of the worst contracts in baseball history. This is about the Angels salvaging something/anything. That means the best-case scenario for them has to do with eliminating the distractions that come with Hamilton, which would somehow lead to more wins through clubhouse alchemy. In this scenario, Hamilton would have had to have been so indifferent or aloof -- if not actively poisonous -- that it would have been impossible for the Angels to carry on. Players would have been distracted enough to affect their performance. It was going to be worth $75 million to have him play for a division rival.

The best-case scenario for the Angels is to save any money at all, even just a few million, and to avoid the circus. This was worth enough to give up completely on the hopes of a formerly great player rediscovering his stroke, and it was worth enough to look like mustache-twisting ghouls to fans and players around the league. The threat of distraction was just that high, and now the Angels can move on quietly.

Of course, if Hamilton were really that poisonous in the clubhouse since joining the Angels, the Rangers would have heard about it. That they’re willing to welcome Hamilton back suggests nothing like that was really happening, and he was available because of a public temper tantrum of an oligarch who is used to getting his way.

In the best-case scenario, though, the Angels were just being prudent and pragmatic. They’ll win more games than they would have, free of lingering distractions.

The best-case scenario for the Rangers involves them getting anything at all from Hamilton. Anything.

One good season, for example. Not a great one, not an MVP one. Just a good one. If Josh Hamilton has just one more good season, the Rangers come out ahead. Even if that season comes in a year in which they aren’t contending, the deal is a sentimental winner. Hamilton is a fan-favorite who helped the team to two pennants. If he had one more good season under normal circumstances, it would have been a delightful season filled with goodwill and happy baseball memories.

These are not normal circumstances. The Rangers get the potential of the above, but they also get to slather on creamy layers of schadenfreude. They can get all of that, and they can get the Angels to pay for it. Not the Phillies. Not the Giants. Not the White Sox. The Angels. If Hamilton has one more good season, Rangers fans will enjoy it fully, and Arte Moreno will be so damned mad. What a beautiful dream for a division rival.

Imagine, if you will, a walk-off home run against the Angels. The odds are against that exact scenario happening, even considering the imbalanced schedule, but the very potential of it has to warm hearts around Texas. That would be the kind of win that fans talked about for decades, the kind of light that would shine through the dark clouds of another lousy season. “Remember that time Josh Hamilton beat the Angels, and they paid for it?” the old-timers would ask. The youngsters would shut up and listen because it would be a great story, one of the best.

Even without that, though, there’s value in Hamilton having one last hurrah with the Rangers, both on and off the field. It would please the fans, and it makes the Rangers look like an organization that isn’t run by craven and unsympathetic malcontents. It makes the Rangers look caring, even if their first concern is figuring out how to win again. Considering the early-season struggles of Jake Smolinski and Shin-Soo Choo, this makes baseball sense, too. And maybe, just maybe, he has two more good seasons. How about three? The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a great graphic novel before it was a movie wretched enough to make Sean Connery retire. Maybe Hamilton can be that graphic novel again.

If you’re looking for one of the best-case scenarios to root for, but don’t really care about either team, here’s one way to look at it: In the Angels’ best-case scenario, you’re rooting for Hamilton to be an unredeemable human being who makes everything worse by association. In the Rangers’ best-case scenario, you’re rooting for happy fans and redemption. The two scenarios are almost mutually exclusive, so you have to pick one.

You’ve already picked. That good season might never come for Hamilton and the Rangers, but you can see the reason they’re trying. There was a point when the Rangers would have welcomed Hamilton back for scores and scores of millions, and his subsequent struggles and injuries would have tarnished his legacy. Instead, he gets to be the low-risk, high-reward player he was when he was a superstar. Regardless of the best-case scenario of either the Rangers or Angels, Hamilton seems to have gotten his best-case baseball scenario. All that’s left is for the best-case baseball to follow.