12/13/12: D-FW sports chat with columnist Tim Cowlishaw

As is the case with breaking news such as this, with Josh Hamilton leaving www.dallasnews.com our chat will be slightly delayed. Thanks for your patience.

Wow. Guessing baseball will match football interest today. Crazy, let's go.

That is a sound, fairly logical approach but I don't know if the Rangers can sell it. The idea of replacing Hamilton, Napoli, Young with Profar, Olt and I guess Soto -- it's going to be difficult to feel they can match up with the Angels doing that. But I think patience with the opportunity to spend and do what's needed later might be the way to go. Overreacting now could make things worse. Still a bad day for Rangers fans no matter what.

I don't think this has anything to do with wanting to be an Angel. It's about waiting for someone to give him what I would call a fair offer. The Angels struck. They won.

If you're going to pay someone $25 million a year for five seasons, aren't you probably going to try to do the best you can to support him? I sure the Angels will put things in place for him. I honestly couldn't tell you how much he needs at this point. I think that can get overstated at times, and that's not to suggest he isn't a risk. But not sure he needs hand-holding as it's sometimes described.

Swisher. Adam LaRoche. Those are the options. Not a lot out there. None of them will replace Hamilton's power. I thnk Swisher could be productive enough as a switch-hitter to help, however.

I think Michael Bourn represents more of a need in the outfield now than Lohse does as a pitcher. I think and I've said repeatedly the Rangers have enough starting pitching. But I'm not sure that's how they see it because of the manner in which they seem determined to diminish Ogando's value.

I think it was four years, it certainly wasn't five. And it wasn't enough.

I understand what you are saying but I wouldn't say his body is ravaged by drug abuse. He wouldn't have hit 43 home runs in less than 150 games last year with a body ravaged by drug abuse. It's a risk, sure, but all these long-term deals for older players and for any pitcher represent considerable risk.

I think I have to be more willing to do that deal at this point. If you can project Profar to replace Andrus offensively, then it's like you are getting Upton for free. Or looking at it another way Upton for Hamilton in a trade. That's not so bad. But you're becoming a really right-handed team at that point.