By all accounts, Michael Young has been the ideal soldier for the Texas Rangers for 10 years. He has been asked to play second base, right field, shortstop, third base, and now designated hitter/first base/utility player.
He has suffered through ownership misfortunes, last-place teams, the heat of Texas, being third fiddle to the Cowboys and Mavericks, and at times fighting the Stars for that third slot.
There are those that claim, in an era of insanely paid, undertalented narcissists, that it’s Michael Young that is being unreasonable here, and that the claims of him being such a good guy are highly overrated.
It has been asserted by some, that at the rate of $16 million a year, he should just shut up and play wherever he’s told. He’s being compensated very well for whatever inconvenience something as trivial as a position change would bring about.
His trade demands are being portrayed as an indicator that any accolades he may have received in the past were undeserved. That if he were really the man he’s purported to be, he would accept this situation without making waves and play wherever they asked him to play IF they asked him to play.
My question is…why would he choose now to demand a trade?
After all the turmoil he’s gone through, why wait until the Rangers win the American League pennant to demand a trade? Why wait until a week and a half before pitchers and catchers report?
This question is being asked across the baseball landscape today, and sports talk shows across the country have hosts speculating on why he’s doing it.
Perhaps it’s the Rangers’ flirtations with Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez or the signings of the offseason.
But why is nobody simply looking at what Michael Young SAYS is the reason? His comment: “I asked for a trade because I’ve been misled and manipulated and I’m sick of it.”
He wants out because the Rangers lied to him, and the inference is that it’s not the first time. Sounds much more likely to me.
So what did they lie ABOUT exactly? We can speculate that it had to do with playing time, plate appearances, frequency, full-time DH versus utility and so on.
So why is nobody focusing on the Rangers’ responsibility in this and whether or not Jon Daniels is lying again about Michael changing his mind.
Perhaps Michael Young was assured that certain conditions would be made. Perhaps he made it very clear that if those conditions were not met, he would like to be traded.
Perhaps he did nothing wrong, and the Rangers are setting him up to be the bad guy.
Sure wish somebody would at least look into it.
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