OUR FANHOUSE TOOLBAR INTEGRATES THE LATEST SPORTS NEWS INTO YOUR WEB BROWSER AND INSTALLS IN SECONDS.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE TOOLBAR HERE.

FanHouse C.j. Wilson

Latest C.j. Wilson Stories

Saturday Spotlight (Audio): C.J. Wilson

Saturday Spotlight is a weekly look inside the backgrounds and personalities of major leaguers.

Rangers lefty C.J. Wilson is one of the more web-savvy big leaguers. When he's not pitching the ninth inning, as he's done while Frank Francisco has been hurt, Wilson is blogging or tweeting or even on MySpace. In this interview he discusses his affinity for the web, as well as why he never drinks alcohol and who the best Halo player in the majors is.

After the jump to hear the full interview ...

Fantasy Baseball Preview: The Rangers

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

Meet the...
Best offense in the league. The Rangers are going to score more runs than any other team, and they don't have an over-abundance of star-power. This means their position players are a veritable fantasy goldmine. On the flip-side, though, their pitching staff is atrocious, especially the starters. Needless to say, if you are picking a Texas Ranger on draft day, he'd probably better be on the offensive side of the board.

Eddie Guardado Is the New Rangers Closer

As you just saw in the previous post from Eazy E, Texas Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson found himself in a bit of hot water with his manager Ron Washington after tossing the ball to him after giving up a grand slam instead of handing it to him. Little did C.J. realize at the time, but it could be the last time he tosses the ball in frustration to his manager after giving up a homer as the closer for the Rangers.

That's because Wilson was placed on the disabled list with bone spurs in his elbow yesterday, and now Eddie Guardado will be taking over the role.
"Now, being in the ninth inning, there's pressure," Guardado said. "In the eighth, you know there's someone behind you who can pick you up if you do fall. Now, in the ninth, there's nobody behind you, so you have to shut the door."

Guardado, 37, is a closer for the first time since 2006, when he was traded to Cincinnati. He had 36 saves for Seattle in 2005 and compiled 86 for Minnesota in 2002 and 2003.
While right now the plan is for Guardado to only fill in for Wilson while he's on the disabled list, there are some people in Texas who would like this move to be permanent. Wilson has blown four of his 28 save opportunities this season, but more alarming than that are the 35 runs and eight homers he's allowed in 46 1/3 innings of work this season.

C.J. Wilson Expresses Emotion; Ron Washington Has None of It



Forgive me if this is baseball heresy, but I'm not sure I see the problem with this: After giving up a grand slam to Richie Sexson two nights ago, Rangers closer C.J. Wilson does what you'll see above -- he tosses the ball into manager Ron Washington's hands in a quick little petulant fit of anger. Oh well, right?

Ah, but Ronny has none of that. He makes Wilson step back on the mound and hand him the ball like a big boy, simultaneously burnishing his image as Someone Who Respects the Game and embarrassing Wilson. All in day's work.

But like I said above, I'm not sure I find that much wrong with Wilson tossing the ball at Washington. OK, he probably shouldn't act like a jerk on the mound. Fine. But he did just give up a grand slam, which means he was mad at himself for letting his teammates down -- I'm not sure that's the sort of thing you're looking to punish in plain sight. Oh no! He's being emotive! Quick, squash it with stuffy baseball tradition!

(HT: Big League Stew)

Ozzie Guillen Gets His Revenge

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has made many an enemy during his tenure in Chicago. Whether it's former players like Magglio Ordonez, opposing managers like Buck Showalter, or local columnists like Jay Mariotti, Ozzie has never been shy when discussing his feelings for others.

Ozzie's latest foe was Texas Rangers closer C.J. Wilson, whom credited Guillen with helping him pick up a save against the Sox a week and a half ago after using Ozzie's taunts from the dugout as motivation. Ozzie didn't much appreciate Wilson's theatrics on the mound while striking out Jim Thome and Paul Konerko, and he let C.J. know about it afterward.

"You can be cocky, be yourself or have your own showtime," Guillen said after the game. "But when you don't respect the opposition and do what he did, that's not professional. That's the reason I was screaming to him. When you're nobody and show people up like that. ... Wait till you're somebody in baseball, and then do whatever you want to do."

Well that nobody showed up again yesterday during the 8th inning of the Sox-Rangers game with two outs, two runners on, and the Rangers clinging to an 8-7 lead. Then the first pitch fastball he threw quickly turned into the American League-leading 26th home run of the season for Carlos Quentin, and the White Sox completed their comeback and won 10-8.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to see Ozzie do his own celebrating as he'd already been ejected from the game the inning before for arguing balls and strikes. The White Sox dugout did look to be a bit more rambunctious in their celebration afterwards, though, as Quentin gave the home crowd a curtain call.

Ozzie Guillen Has a New Target

In my last post about Jose Contreras' trip to the disabled list, I marveled at the fact White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was able to string together 75 consecutive words without swearing. I'm pretty sure that's a career high for the Sox skipper. Though it also worries me because that's not the Ozzie Guillen we've all come to know and love.

Thankfully, even though Ozzie's cleaned up his language a bit, he has yet to stop holding grudges. Particularly against Texas Rangers, as Rangers closer C.J. Wilson joins a group that includes Buck Showalter and Vicente Padilla before him as somebody who just ticks Ozzie off.

A week ago today, in the last game before the All-Star break, Wilson came on to close a game in which the Rangers had a four-run lead. Well, after allowing three-runs to score, Wilson finally got the third out of the inning with the bases loaded and proceeded to celebrate as though he'd just won the World Series. Ozzie didn't like it and said something then, and now a week later with the Rangers set to come to Chicago, Ozzie would like C.J. to know he still hasn't forgotten it.
"You can be cocky, be yourself or have your own showtime," Guillen told Chicago reporters Friday. "But when you don't respect the opposition and do what he did, that's not professional. That's the reason I was screaming to him. When you're nobody and show people up like that. ... Wait till you're somebody in baseball, and then do whatever you want to do.

Always Be Closing: Arlington Road

Over the past seven days, a ridiculous 24 major league pitchers have blown a save opp. Now, all of these guys aren't closers, they just happened to land in save situations and cough up some runs. However, a few of them are.

One of those guys is C.J. Wilson. Wilson blew his first save of the season on Sunday afternoon, walking three, allowing two hits and giving up two earned runs to take the loss and the BS.

C.J.'s not going to lose his job immediately by any means, and he's been a very nice, cheap source of saves. But how good does he look for the future? Well, the stats (2.25 ERA, 1.12 WHIP) look very nice. The peripherals look a little less friendly. His BABIP is sub .200 and he's seen a spike in fly ball percentage, in terms of what balls are doing after they leave bats after they leave his hands. Yet he hasn't allowed a single home run this year.

Now, you can take all of that and say, "So what, brah? Sample size." And I'll say, "Yeah, man, cool. Keep using him. I'm not offended if you don't listen." So we take this little formula: (low BABIP + high FB% + 0% HR/FB + horrible home park for pitching = lots of luck). Oh yeah, and he's only struck out two batters all season. So there's that.

Folks, Wilson is a nice lower end option at closer. And I think he has a strong future as a reliever, because he should, in theory, strike people out, and absolutely dominate left handed hitters. But all the junk above, even though it's early, make me a little skeptical.

Why not wait pair him with a decent starter and go right after C.C. Sabathia? Sure, Wilson just blew a save, but most of C.C.'s owners are scrambling to dump the hefty lefty and there is always someone looking for a guy that looks like a lock to save 25 games.

The Return of the Gyroball

A year ago, people couldn't stop talking about Dice-K and his infamous (yet elusive) "gyroball," which he may or may not have actually ever had in his repertoire. So is the mysterious pitch just a myth? C.J. WIlson doesn't think so.

Another Day, Another Injury to a Rangers Pitcher

No matter how good a baseball team is on paper, there's always one factor completely out of a team's control that can derail an entire season: injuries. Already this spring, the injury bug has bitten a lot of teams. It could be argued that it's better to get the injuries out of the way now in the spring while the games don't mean anything, but still, when you're losing a pitcher a day, that can't be a sign of good things to come this season.

Which is exactly what's happening to the Texas Rangers right now, as on Wednesday Eddie Guardado had to leave a game with a bad knee.
Wednesday, it was Eddie Guardado who limped off the mound with soreness in the band of ligaments on the outside of his left knee after facing four hitters in the Rangers' 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs.
Guardado's injury isn't likely to be serious, but he's still another Rangers pitcher who's battling through pain right now. On Tuesday it was Vicente Padilla who had to leave a start against the White Sox after pulling an ass muscle (which is better than ass fissures, I guess), and the Rangers found out they'll be without Brandon McCarthy for up to a month the other day. Throw those injuries on the pile along with Kevin Millwood's (Millwood injured!? I'm shocked!) sore hammy, Joaquin Benoit's tired arm, and C.J. Wilson's biceps tendinitis and you have one very large and mediocre pile.

On the bright side, the Rangers don't exactly have a strong pitching staff to begin with, so maybe not having those guys around will only help the team.

C.J. Wilson Has Opinions His Teammates Don't Like

Athletes these days are usually rather bland in interviews. One cannot blame them; a semi-controversial comment usually gets blown out of proportion or heavily scrutinized. Better to keep it even steven and draw less attention to yourself.

But not if you blog, man. It's the Wild Wild West out here, anything goes! Just ask Curt Schilling. Or maybe ask C.J. Wilson of the Texas Rangers. You see, according to the Dallas Morning News, in a recent ESPN.com article Wilson made some remarks about other ballplayers apparent political apathy as well as penning some entires on Lonestarball.com about it.

This irked some of his teammates including Brandon McCarthy, who fired back on Lone Star Ball. To which Wilson responded:
In response to McCarthy's post, Wilson offered praise for the commentary, but added: "Come on man you have to admit the median or average guy in a baseball clubhouse does drive an SUV, drinks beer, golfs, likes college sports, chews or dips tobacco and is relatively a [expletive]."
See, I told you it was a bad thing when athletes spoke out. Teammates get angry. Grrr. (All Wilson's posts have now been taken off the site if you were looking for them.)

In any event, blogs rule. Welcome to the fun, C.J.!

Via Ballhype.

Featured Writers

Featured Voices