This opening day is as good a time as any to remember that pre-trash can era, the Rangers dominated the American League. Not only did we make a mockery of the disastros in head to heads, but we cranked out division titles year after year as well as a bunch of 1 seeds and a couple pennants.

One strike away from a dynasty, twice, and then things fell apart over the course of seven whole years. Dynasty watch is always on the horizon in Texas though because Jon Daniels is still manning the helm. He was smart enough to rebuild the team while the competition was cheating, and now we come out the other side on a level playing field with a chance to make some serious noise this season.

If it isn’t clear enough by now – Rangers +9000 is the lottery ticket of the century. Keep in mind that through 60 games last year, we had a 32-28 record, good enough for second behind only the cheating disastros in the division and in the final wild card spot. That was without the expanded playoffs. Bet on the Rangers.

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The most exciting prospect of the new look Rangers is our 2nd year manager. Jon Daniels has an interesting yet very successful history of hiring managers… Ron Washington was the coolest cokehead ever, but ended up banging a Japanese reporter and had to resign. Banny Rooster led some heroic runs for us, but his offense analytics and John Wayne attitude quickly grew stale.

Currently with Chris Woodward, it seems we’ve found the sweet spot. He’s (almost) as charismatic as Washington, and his analytical background from the Dodgers is much smarter than anything Banny brought to us. It became clear last year that our rebuild would be accelerated under him, and our roster has only gotten better.

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Our rotation is no joke the greatest in Rangers history. Granted, that bar is very low. One single ace has made an above average Rangers rotation and that includes playoff years. This year, we have three in Kluber, Minor, and Lynn. THREE whole aces!

Our offense is always good and I have no doubt that will continue this season. Gallo was an MVP candidate before getting hurt midseason, and we have a rookie in Nick Solak who hit .293 in two months last year. He’s nasty and so is our offense with these two anchors.

The biggest question mark is the bullpen. It’s not very deep and we’re relying heavily on Jose Leclerc to give us something as closer. He’s got wicked stuff and was awesome in his first few seasons, but he was shaky last year after getting a big contract and a closer title. Hopefully he figures it out.

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Here’s a total list of my preseason futures bets:

• Rangers World Series +9000
• Rangers AL pennant +3300
• Gallo AL MVP +5500
• Gallo Most HRs +1500
• Kluber AL Cy Young +1250
• Darvish NL Cy Young +2500

Looking forward to not having to work next year