Whitney Houston - How Will I Know (via whitneyhoustonVEVO)

With the ZiPS projections coming out for the Rangers last week, we are doing a series of polls asking folks to pick whether they think various players will go over or under the OPS that ZiPS projects.

ZiPS projects Mitch Moreland to have an OPS of 753 in 2012.

Do you think it will be over or under that figure? Cast your vote...

Multiple reports on twitter are indicating that the Rangers and A's may be close on a trade to send Koji Uehara to Oakland. Uehara had a rocky time with Texas after being acquired at the 2011 trade deadline and the likely transition of Alexi Ogando back to the bullpen creates a log jam of right handed relievers.

Koji blocked a previous attempt to trade him to the Toronto Blue Jays weeks ago with his limited no trade clause.

No word yet as to what the Rangers would receive in return.

We're only days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Surprise and Rangers news is quiet before the coming storm of Yu-mania and Josh Hamilton relapse questions.

Drew Davison of the Star-Telegram notes that Ron Washington and Jon Daniels are confident heading into spring training.

Dealing with distraction is nothing new for the Rangers and T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com talks about the flurry of upcoming distractions.

Richard Durrett's Positional Outlook series on ESPN.com concludes with a look at the front office.

And finally, Gerry Fraley of the DMN has a short blog post with some C.J. Wilson quotes about his possible reasons for his post season struggles last year.

yahoo story

RIP Kid.

Tim Kurkjian remembers the life and career of Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter. (This is a youtube video)

With the ZiPS projections coming out for the Rangers last week, we are doing a series of polls asking folks to pick whether they think various players will go over or under the OPS that ZiPS projects.

ZiPS projects David Murphy to have an OPS of 750 in 2012.

Do you think it will be over or under that figure? Cast your vote...

Jim Bowden, Keith Law and Buster Olney have been jointly running a feature attempting to measure the potential for each team in baseball over the next half decade. Using a formula for ranking each team in five different categories (Major league roster quality, minor league system quality, finances, management and mobility [the age and cost of players on roster]) the troika of writers have determined that the Rangers are "baseball's model franchise these days."

The article is behind the ESPN Insider wall, but I'll give you a little taste. Bowden's "Next Step" for the Rangers begins with:

The top five teams listed are Texas, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay, St. Louis, and Boston. As for the rest of the AL West, the Angels are ranked 7th, the Mariners are ranked 18th, the A's are ranked 23rd, and the future AL West Astros are ranked 29th.

Richard Durrett has a pretty lengthy piece on how the Rangers were able to transition from small market disaster to, as Olney writes, "a superpower."

It's a pretty good time to like Texas Rangers baseball.

At noon Law will be answering questions at ESPN here. You can go ask him questions about how awesome the Rangers are or about Leonys Martin's hit tool if you like.