The Texas Rangers sprang from the failed expansion Washington Senators, and now they’re being run like the first years of the Washington Nationals:

I bring that up because I found out Wednesday that those who had enough faith in the team to buy playoff tickets have been told via e-mail that those refunds won’t be coming until sometime in November, possibly not even early November because “the money is tied up with MLB.”

Give the employees an “A” for honesty in admitting that this club is run by the league office for now, soon to be the banks if Hicks fails to sell the team.

That doesn’t give the team much of a chance of improving by making a splash in the free-agent market this winter. With the Dodgers divorce and Texas out of money, two of the normally bigger spending teams may be out of the free agent market this winter. That might depress prices a bit. With attendance down this season, this might be a truly bad year to test the market.