By Kevin Sherrington/The Dallas Morning News


The Rangers were a last-place team the last time Jon Daniels took a chance on Josh Hamilton, and it cost them one of their best pitching prospects.
Only the price has changed, unless you consider Hamilton’s prospects.
Let me offer some advice: Don’t expect much and give it a shot.
Because what has this team got to lose?
Texas fans would quickly forgive Hamilton’s sins — the relapses, the give-up swing, the “football town” comments — if he even remotely resembled the five-time All-Star and MVP who led the Rangers to the World Series. But it’s not in the cards this time. Even if he stays clean, he’ll be 34 next month, and it’s not a young 34. Baseball and substance abuse have made him old before his time.
But with the Angels reportedly prepared to eat all but $15 million of his contract, it means paying Hamilton $5 million a year for the next three, a fairly reasonable cost for the potential production. And it’s not like he’d take up space from someone with a brilliant future.
Jeff Banister fields one of baseball’s least impressive outfields every night, the source of Daniels’ most grievous errors this year. Other than Leonys Martin, who only recently has started to produce, there’s the amalgamation of unimpressive parts in left field and the disaster of Shin-Soo Choo in right.
Putting Hamilton in left field and writing his name in the lineup fifth or sixth certainly won’t stunt the development of anyone you’ll miss.
Of course, Hamilton isn’t ready to play just yet as he recovers from shoulder surgery. But that’s not why the Angels have kept him at arm’s length. This was a money decision. Arte Moreno was tired of paying down on that $125 million deal for a part-time player only one bad night from calling it a season. The Angels might have been inclined to put up with Hamilton at the rate the Rangers will pay.
You ask: Even if the price is right, what makes anyone think Hamilton can stay clean?
The odds don’t seem so good at this point. Best I can offer is that this is where Hamilton finally realized his immense potential.
And it isn’t L.A.
The Rangers put in place a safety blanket that seemed to keep Hamilton at peace, and they have the people familiar to him to do it again. Yes, he had relapses even here. He was also happy for the most part, and the Rangers had much to do with it. As much as anyone can understand Hamilton’s demons and fragile psyche, management and players here did, and in a time when they were otherwise competing for championships, no less.
The stakes are more modest now, which is what makes this such a low-risk move. Ever since Yu Darvish went out for the season and Derek Holland was lost until mid-summer, any hopes of competing for a wild card have disappeared.
If the Rangers were close, this isn’t the kind of move I’d endorse. A good result this year would be keeping just three teams in front of them in the West.
The players who were Hamilton’s teammates last time - Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus - have expressed a willingness to give this a shot. If it’s true they couldn’t really say otherwise, there’s always the option of “no comment” That wasn’t going to happen.
Even in Los Angeles, where he never came close to the player he was here, Hamilton wasn’t a pariah. Angels expressed their support as recently as last week.
Frankly, I find it difficult to dislike the guy. He’s a little immature, a lot goofy, charming, affable, candid to a fault, which is how he got himself into trouble with fans in Texas in the first place. Calling the home of the Rangers a “football town” was an accurate assessment, if not a politically-correct one. A guy who finished the 2012 season like he did should have left it up to someone else to define the local culture.
But if Hamilton was at fault for making too much noise, so were fans. They were too quick to boo, forgetting what he brought this football town. There were no World Series trips without him. He was an All-Star every year as a Ranger.
Those halcyon days are a fond, fuzzy memory now. But if his shoulder is sound and head straight as he battles marital issues, too, it’s not unreasonable to think he could deliver the 21 homers and 79 RBIs he put up for the Angels two years ago.
Let me put it this way: His chances are as good as any other outfielder on the roster.
If you still don’t think it’s worth it, I get it. The prospects aren’t what they were the first time. Then again, who saw all that coming?


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