Salty Not Getting Promoted Anytime Soon

Jarrod Saltalamacchia isn't coming back to the Rangers' big league club anytime soon according to Evan Grant...

Jim asks ... Any update on Salty?

Evan Grant: Still at Triple-A. Not coming up anytime soon. As I mentioned before, Rangers are quite happy with catching situation right now. If you bring Salty back up, he's going to think he should be the starter. And the Rangers aren't ready for him to be the starter right now. The way Treanor and Max Ramirez are splitting up the job has created an egoless environment. The Rangers aren't going to mess with that until they have to.

Salty was crushing the ball at Triple A but he went all Rube Baker and forgot how to throw the ball back to the pitcher. Which I covered in one of my last posts at Monkeys Throwing Darts. Didn't catch it? Here you go...

Some of you may remember Jarrod Saltalamacchia for having the longest last name in Major League Baseball, others may remember the switch hitting catcher as one of the top prospects the Braves dumped* in the Mark Teixeira trade of '07. Well now, Salty is raking in Triple A but can't seem to make it back to the bigs due to his inability to throw the ball 60 feet and 6 inches back to the mound. Surely it can't be that bad, right? From MiLB.com...

In Salty's last game, Tuesday night at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark, 12 of his throws back to the pitcher landed either short of the mound or in center field. He had five errant throws in the first inning alone.

"He's just got to keep playing until he gets it right," RedHawks manager Bobby Jones said. "I don't know what else to do. It's a shame. It's definitely what's keeping him here. He's blocking the ball well and swinging the bat well. He's just got to figure it out. It's a shame."

He missed the pitcher 12 times? That's worse control than I displayed after my ninth margarita on Cinco de Mayo and I tried to fight a bar stool. People want to blame his shoulder surgery or his back problems but this is just an obvious case of the yips. Now the yips are a tricky thing. They can mentally ruin you. I blame most of this blog on the yips. Fortunately for Salty, if he keeps hitting .359/.417/.578, nobody will care how he gets the ball to the mound (I suggest an air cannon t-shirt launcher). Unfortunately for Salty, he tattooed "Salty" on his arm.

*The Braves also traded Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus to the Rangers for Mark Teixeira. Imagine if they still had those kids to go with Tommy Hanson and Jason Heyward.

Salty went to a sports psychologist for his yips. I don't know if it helped or not but his slash line has tumbled to .244/.309/.437 so there is no real point in promoting him right now. But yes, this was just an excuse to say Rube Baker and repost something from MTD. You're welcome.