Michael Young Acting Like a Professional. And a First Baseman.

By Richie Whitt Mon., Feb. 21 2011 at 1:00 PM

Categories: Texas Rangers

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We knew Michael Young would show up to Texas Rangers' spring training on time. We were pretty sure that he'd address the media and his teammates and act professional, saying all the right things.

But did we think he'd already be taking grounders and throws at first base?

Young apparently was working with infield coach Dave Anderson yesterday in Surprise, Arizona. Not exactly the sign of a guy who has demanded to be traded and wants the hell outta here.

Pouting and being a distraction has never been in Young's DNA, but this smacks of 2009 when he briefly and publicly snipped about being moved from shotstop to third and then arrived in Arizona and played his butt off while being a team leader. I wouldn't be surprised if Young quiets down, learns first base and stays in line ahead of Mike Napoli as Texas' designated hitter/part-time first baseman.

The more I also think about it and hear about how the Rangers are counting on Brandon Webb, the more I fear a reality-check crash back to Earth this season.

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Baseball, Jon Daniels, Michael Young, Mike Napoli

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I may of crawled into the beera a wee bit on that..but I stand by everything else (unless I'm called out on it) Go Rangers!
I would like to know what steriods Elvis is taking to go from ZERO, thats 0 HR's last year to hitting 8-14 this year? Ill be happy if he hits one as long as he gets on base and steals another 35-40 steals
Oh yeah and one more thing, Imagine Effing that: MY showing up with a gameface on..huh..what choice did he have? He isn't going anywhere, this year anyway. We had to pay to get rid of Aroid, but he was tradeable..MY isn't. Sit on your stack o cash MY, and hit the ball where they ain't, and as the Rock might say "Know you're role!"...PLAYBALL finally
Here's the deal boys: CJ, CL, NF..and we'll be fine. The boys in red are gonna have a prolific offense this year. Kins is going to have to huge year and MY won't suck while he's not wearing that gangly piece of horsehide..Andrus steps up and hits 8-14 hrs and Beltre is both a vacuum and a 30/120 guys..Hambone replicates MVP with 40/145 and Moreland impersonates a 33 yo Will Clark with Borbon and Torrealba and Murph doing work regularly ..and the Nap crushes the lefties from the Bay/Sea/shithole w is Anaheim..I have it all figured out boys, dig in til the trade deadline..and expect a bigtime acquisition then..no slam dunks in baseball, just hope springs eternal. Stay Hard Rangers!
Davey has to be 175 or so..radio was still pretty cutting edge back then..and he can speak however he damn well wants. Just glad he's following the N Texas ballclubs.
*cough* neftali *cough* Is he really not going to beat out Kirkman or Hunter? Holland is a breakout candidate I think people may be underrating.
ah yes Davy, good to see you're learning proper English now, and how to turn on a radio.
Evan Grant (I think) this morning predicted a rotation of Wilson, Lewis, Hunter, Kirkman and Holland. With or without Webb, that's enough to doubt a repeat trip to the World Series.
If Brandon Webb pitches more than 50 innings and has an ERA under 4.00, he will have done better than I expect. I'm surprised at how many people are talking seriously about Webb being productive, but maybe they just simply know something that I don't know. Which wouldn't be a first, of course. I'm also conflicted about what to think of MIchael Young's situation. I know from his perspective he has to be insulted that someone as productive as he is can be asked to be a glorified reserve. But his defense was so bad that the Rangers in the aggregate would have probably won two or three more games during the regular season without his glove out there. He wasn't Vladimir Guerrero trying to get off his Kardashian butt to field a ball bad, but he was close at times.