By MIKE PIELLUCCI
FOXSportsSouthwest.com
Texas Rangers president Nolan Ryan was a little less specific in projecting the team's number of wins for 2011 than he was last season, but he's still pretty optimistic.
"Well, I'm not going to be as specific as I was last year," Ryan cautioned to fans and media Saturday at the Rangers Fan Fest. "I really haven't sat down and thought about it and looked at our ball club. But I think we're going to win somewhere between 90 and 95 games."
Last season, Ryan famously predicted that the club would win 92 games. They wound up with 90, but more than made up for it with a storied run to the World Series after never before winning a playoff series.
Of course, one of the biggest factors in last year's success was ace Cliff Lee, who has since returned to Philadelphia as a free agent.
While the bulk of the burden to replace him likely will fall on the shoulders of last year's second and third starters, C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis, the club brought in former Cy Young winner Brandon Webb as another potential solution.
Ryan, for his part, believes Webb has the potential to be a difference maker in the rotation, provided he recovers from the shoulder injury that kept him out for all of last season.
"We feel like there's a lot of upside there. It's just a matter of how he responds to the rehab and the surgery," Ryan said. "And that's the unknown. But we felt like it was a gamble worth taking. And if he comes and pitches 100-150 innings for us this year, it's going to be a real plus.
"We're cautiously guarded there about how he'll progress, but we think that if he comes back the way pitchers are coming back from surgery now, we'll feel like the upside could be tremendous."
Another proposed, yet widely debated solution is moving flame-throwing closer Neftali Feliz to the rotation. Ryan confirmed that the idea is being mulled over, but he would not commit to Feliz's role one way or the other.
"We're looking at that," Ryan said. "Do I think it will happen this year? I don't know if it will or it won't. But it's something that we're going to look at. We think with his body type and the way he throws, as free and easy as he does, that he has the potential to be a very good major league starter. I can't tell you if it's going to happen this year."
