Every person has their demons. It is a simple fact of existence. Some are able to keep theirs under wraps, perhaps because they are not in the public eye. There have been countless tales in the history of sport of athletes who let the worst of themselves get the best of them. It is a risk that many teams have taken with hopes that the reward outweighs the risk. Sometimes those calculations go awry and the need to cut bait becomes necessary. The Angels went about this process all wrong with Josh Hamilton this spring, but don’t delude yourself to thinking that this isn’t Hamilton’s last chance.
Hamilton spent half a decade in Arlington, following a tumultuous minor league run in Tampa Bay and a brief reintroduction to the baseball world in Cincinnati. Everyone remembers his seemingly effortless swings that would send the ball 1000 feet if those pesky stands weren’t in the way. He could make a throw on a rope from the outfield that baserunners would hear going by their head like sniper bullets. He was an All-Star every year and an MVP in 2010. Yankee Stadium attendees still get goosebumps when they recall the show he put on in the Home Run Derby in 2008, a show so incredible that nobody even remembers he lost that Derby in the end. After all that fanfare, he got his chance at free agency. It was clear he didn’t want to leave the cocoon the Rangers had enveloped around him, but Angels owner Arte Moreno made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Moreno knew the risks of splashing a $125 million contract on an addict in an environment like Southern California. The precipitous erosion of Hamilton’s skills were, pardon the pun, out of left field, but a relapse couldn’t have been far from the realm of possibility. The Angels shook up Hamilton’s support system in what seems like an ill-timed effort to jolt one last bit of life into their fleeting investment. Instead, it backfired and the subsequent fallout didn’t do anybody any favors. With injuries mounting and old habits refusing to die hard, Hamilton needed the Angels to treat him like a person instead of property. They instead tried their damnedest to get Major League Baseball to get them out of a pickle.
To go through all the semantics of why new commissioner Rob Manfred couldn’t suspend Hamilton would just be redundant. In the end, it became clear that the only option left for the Angels was to choke down the remainder of Hamilton’s mega-deal and find him a new place to “work it out.” Only one team made a true inquiry.
The Twittersphere erupted this past week when the rumblings of a deal being in place between Los Angeles and Texas. It would be a fitting end to his exile from the Angels to return to the only place that he ever thrived. The Angels will absorb the vast majority of his remaining contract. Hamilton gets his last chance. The Rangers are already reassembling the support structure that the Angels imploded in 2014. It is clear that though this is his final opportunity in baseball, the Rangers are going to give him the fairest shake possible to take advantage of it.
The move back to Arlington is a familiar change of scenery that Josh Hamilton needed. In the end it is up to him how this story ends. 2015 is a lost season for both Hamilton and the Rangers. Organizationally, there is nowhere to go but up. For Hamilton though, there is wiggle room in either direction. He may never regain his form of the past going forward, but he can still contribute and rekindle some good memories in a place where he made the most of them. 2015 may be lost, but it would be a pity if a lost year turned into a lost career and eventually a lost life.