Rangers Won’t Rule Out Kyle Lohse

Kyle Lohse may not have found a team yet despite the calendar having flipped to March, but he may be eligible for the most potential suitors award of the offseason nonetheless. Count the Rangers as yet another team that, despite not having signed him, want to go on record as saying that they aren’t exactly ruling him out, either.

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There isn’t a team among 30 that wouldn’t benefit from Lohse’s services, but the problems with the right-hander are significant: he’s 34, potentially overpriced due to coming off of a career year not everyone believes he can repeat this far past his prime, and may well cost the team that signs him its first round draft pick.

After being worth a career high 3.6 WAR per FanGraphs a season ago, it once seemed like a slam dunk that Lohse would cash in as a free agent and net a very lucrative deal despite his age, but it hasn’t ended up working out that way. At this point, his asking price will probably have to drop considerably from what he once expected, and the team who signs him will need to have recently determined the starting rotation isn’t as sound as once believed. It’s a tough pill to swallow for Lohse, a player who historically would have been a very wealthy man by this point — well, even more so than he already is.

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