Marlon Byrd News

Final bids from three men interested in buying the Rangers are due this month, but a transfer of ownership from Hicks Sports Group might not be competed until January.

The Rangers are going into baseball's free-agency period hoping to re-sign Marlon Byrd and could come out of it with Jermaine Dye instead.

Clint Hurdle might have been a man without a job, but he wasn't a man without options only six months removed from his job as manager of the Colorado Rockies.

The Texas Rangers preached situational offense when introducing new hitting coach Clint Hurdle on Thursday, but the team also is expressing a need for some thunder in its lineup.

Five Texas Rangers were among the crush of major leaguers who filed for free agency on the first day of the filing period.

Outfielder Marlon Byrd filed for free agency on Thursday, the first day of the filing period.

So much so, in fact, that it irritated Bobby Valentine. "What exactly did Fergie tell him," the Rangers ' manager asked, "that we didn't?" Maybe it wasn't what Jenkins told Witt, I remember thinking, as much as who he was and how he said it.

Sigh. After the lost season for the Cubs, I could have easily stayed away until the organizational meetings next month.

Also featured on Rotoprofessor.com ! The Texas Rangers had their best season since 2004 and ita TMs no shock that Ian Kinsler was a key component to their success.

Evan Grant has his grades for the outfielders up this morning, and Marlon Byrd gets an "A," while Nelson Cruz and David Murphy are both "B"s. It highlights the disconnect, I think, between what the team, and those that cover the team, perceive of Cruz's performance this year, and what those of us out in the interwebs think of Cruz .

As a unit, the Rangers outfield was beset by slumps and injuries . It would be easy to write it off as a subpar year for the club, but there were still some pretty solid contributions, like Marlon Byrd's career year, Cruz's 33 homers and late-season addition Julio Borbon's electrifying speed.

Rangers officials on Tuesday said the 2010 budget and payroll is expected to stay pretty close to what the team spent in 2009.

Perhaps the biggest news to come out of the Rangers press briefing to wrap up the 2009 season has to do with 2010.

Every day, before every game, Rudy Jaramillo takes his perch behind the batting cage at The Ballpark in Arlington, stepping up on the trailer tongue to get a better view.

By JEFF WILSON The past few off-seasons represented happier financial times for Tom Hicks, owner of the Texas Rangers, but it's not as if he allowed his baseball operations staff to go on any free-agent shopping binges.The Rangers' biggest acquisition the past two years was Milton Bradley, who ended up costing them just over $6 million.

Whatever the Texas Rangers look like in 2010, they will probably be doing it for around the same amount of money as they did it this season.

In hitting and contract negotiations, timing is everything. And for the first time in his 15-year tenure as the club's hitting instructor, Rudy Jaramillo's timing, just like his hitters, is off.

Marlon Byrd is expected to be back in the lineup on Friday night when the Rangers open a three-game series with the Mariners in Seattle.

Texas Rangers' Esteban German, left, is greeted by Rangers' Marlon Byrd after German scored to tie the game in the eight inning of a MLB baseball game, Friday, Oct.

The Texas Rangers' test-drive period for Julio Borbon in center field began Friday night against Seattle.