Texas Rangers: Top Five Offseason Priorities
Despite two straight division titles, the Rangers have plenty of offseason decisions to make in their quest to be competitive again next year.
The Texas Rangers have made the playoffs five times in the last seven years, including four AL West titles. At the beginning of this run, they went to back-to-back World Series, losing both. They’ve been less successful in the playoffs in the other three years, but they’ve had a good run.
To continue that run the Rangers have some big decisions to make this offseason. They have a core of players to build around in catcher Jonathan Lucroy, second baseman Rougned Odor, shortstop Elvis Andrus, third baseman Adrian Beltre, and outfielder Nomar Mazara. Lucroy has a team option for $5.25 million that is a no-brainer for the Rangers to pick up. Odor is still in pre-arbitration. Andrus is signed through 2022 and Beltre is signed through 2018. Mazara will be in just his second year in the big leagues in 2017. The other hitter the Rangers have control of is Shin Soo Choo, who is signed through 2020. He had an injury-marred season last year that saw him struggle for the second time in his three years with the Rangers.
Along with those players above who are expected to be regulars are a few position players the team still has control over who will likely get playing time in 2017—outfielders Delino DeShields and Ryan Rua, infielder/outfielder Jurickson Profar, and catcher Robinson Chirinos. Perpetual prospect Joey Gallo is learning to play first base in the off-season.
Then there are the team’s free agent position players, which includes the two Carloses (Beltran and Gomez), Mitch Moreland, and Ian Desmond. Decisions will have to be made regarding these players.
The starting rotation has Cole Hamels (signed through 2018) and Yu Darvish (signed through 2017) as the two aces who should be reliable front-end starters. Derek Holland (club options for 2017 and 2018) and Martin Perez (signed through 2017) can fill out the #3 and #4 spots in the rotation, but neither pitcher was particularly good last year. Holland’s club options are for $11 million in 2017 and $11.5 million in 2018. Perez will make $4.4 million in 2017, with a club option of $6 million in 2018. Longtime Ranger Colby Lewis is a free agent.
The bullpen is almost entirely made up of pitchers still under team control for bargain prices, including closer Sam Dyson, who won’t be eligible for arbitration until 2018. The Rangers bullpen was cheap but not particularly good in 2016. Lucas Harrell and the team’s closer in 2015, Shawn Tolleson, recently cleared waivers and were assigned to AAA. The team will have decisions to make on other relievers who really struggled in 2016.
With all that in mind, here are the Texas Rangers’ top five offseason priorities.
Starting Rotation
The Rangers starting rotation was a weak spot in 2016. The top of the rotation was good with Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish. Hamels pitched 200 innings for the seventh year in a row and Darvish came back from Tommy John surgery to strike out 11.8 batters per nine innings in 100 1/3 innings. Hamels and Darvish should once again form a good 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation.
The team has Martin Perez signed through 2017 for a dirt-cheap $4.4 million, so he’ll likely take one of the other three rotation spots. Derek Holland is a question mark, though. The team can pick up his $11 million club option for 2017 or buy out his contract for 2017 and 2018 for $2.5 million. Holland has had back-to-back season with an ERA near 5.00. He has a below-average strikeout rate (5.9 K/9) and trouble with the long ball. He had good seasons in 2011 and 2013, but hasn’t been very good recently. The Rangers will have to decide if keeping him is worth the $11 million it will cost for next year.
Colby Lewis had a 3.71 ERA with the Rangers last year, but his FIP was 4.81 and he also had a below-average strikeout rate. He’s a 37-year-old free agent that the Rangers will consider re-signing mainly because the free agent market for pitchers this year is mediocre.
A.J. Griffin is still under team control. He started 23 games last year, but with an ugly 5.07 ERA (5.74 FIP). It wouldn’t cost the team much to give him another shot in the spring now that he’s further along from the injury problems that cost him two seasons. Nick Martinez, Chi Chi Gonzalez, and Lucas Harrell are other cost-controlled options.
As mentioned above, the free agent market for pitchers is mediocre. There are no top-tier pitchers available, unless you have confidence that Rich Hill can stay healthy for the first time since ever. Hill has the best stuff of any free agent pitcher, but his health is always a concern. Shopping in the free agent aisle means the Rangers will be competing with plenty of other teams for the likes of Jeremy Hellickson, Doug Fister, Ivan Nova, Andrew Cashner, Jorge De La Rosa, and maybe Bartolo Colon, if he doesn’t re-sign with the Mets, where he’s had success recently. There are other names on the long list of mediocre or worse free agent pitchers, but they aren’t any better than the group listed above.
Another option for the Rangers is to look for starting pitching through the trade route. That’s always difficult because teams don’t generally have surplus pitching, but the Rangers do have attractive prospects to dangle.
Centerfield
The Rangers finished the year with two potential centerfielders who are now free agents. Ian Desmond was a terrific signing before the season. The Rangers got him for $8 million and he had a season worth 3.3 Wins Above Replacement, according to Fangraphs (fWAR). He’s set to cash in on the free agent market, but the Rangers have said they would like to bring him back. Desmond is one of the more attractive free agent outfielders, perhaps second only to Yoenis Cespedes, who is reportedly opting out of the final two years of his contract with the Mets. Jose Bautista is another top-tier outfielder who will be available, but he can’t play centerfield.
Carlos Gomez is another player the Rangers have said they would be interested in bringing back. Gomez has had an interesting last few seasons. He was very good in 2013 and 2014, then struggled a bit with the Brewers in the first half of the 2015 season. He was traded to the Astros and was terrible. He started this year with the Astros and was again terrible. In fact, he was so bad that they released him in mid-August. The Rangers signed him and he was revitalized. He hit .284/.362/.543 in 33 games with the Rangers after the trade. That 33-game sample will make him one of the more attractive free agent options among centerfielders.
If the Rangers don’t re-sign one or both of Desmond/Gomez, they could give Delino DeShields another shot or consider a free agent option. Among the potential more affordable options on the free agent market are Austin Jackson, Jon Jay, Rajai Davis, and Michael Bourn. The Rangers would likely be better off with Desmond and/or Gomez than any from that group. Or they could go big and try to sign Yoenis Cespedes.
Corner Outfielder
Like with centerfield, the Rangers have players from their 2016 team who could fill a corner outfield spot in 2017. Either Desmond or Gomez could play left field. If the Rangers re-sign them both, they would have centerfield and left field handled and can keep second-year player Nomar Mazara in right field, with Shin-Soo Choo moving to DH. If they re-sign one of either Desmond or Gomez, they would have an open spot for Carlos Beltran, another 2016 Ranger who is a free agent.
Nomar Mazara played the majority of his games in right field, but did start 33 games in left, so he’s flexible. As a 22-year-old second-year player, he should be a regular in the outfield in 2017. Shin-Soo Choo will also be in the lineup, either in right field or at DH. Choo is owed $82 million over the next four years, so the Rangers really have to keep him in the lineup and hope he rebounds after last season’s injury-shortened campaign. Designated hitter would be the better spot, as Choo is not an asset in the field.
Whether Choo is a full-time DH or splits his time between DH and right field will depend on the Rangers’ other roster decisions. If they re-sign Carlos Beltran, who will be 40 years old, they may want to keep the older veteran at DH regularly and put Choo in right field.
The free agent market will likely be topped by Yoenis Cespedes. He’ll be looking for a long-term, big-money deal. Cheaper options in left field include Michael Saunders, Colby Rasmus, Rajai Davis, Nori Aoki, Gregor Blanco, and others. The could even look at the right field options, with the thought of using Choo at DH and moving Mazara to left. The top right field name would be Jose Bautista, nemesis of Rougned Odor. That might be interesting.
First Base
Other than the injury-shortened 2014 season, Mitch Moreland has played 90 or more games at first base for the Rangers every year since 2011. He’s had three seasons with 20 or more home runs and one year with as many as 85 RBI. Overall, though, he hasn’t been that good. His career batting line is .254/.315/.438, with a 98 wRC+. That makes him 2% worse than league average as a hitter when league and ballpark effects are taken into account. In the field, he was the top-rated defensive first baseman last year according to Fangraphs’ UZR/150. That bat, though, makes it difficult for the Rangers to keep slogging along with Moreland at first base.
Moreland is a free agent, so the Rangers have to decide whether to attempt to re-sign him or look elsewhere. They have a younger, cheaper option on hand named Joey Gallo. Gallo has been in the Baseball America Top 10 in each of the last two off-seasons. He has only played one game at first base at the major league level, but he played 32 games at first in AAA last season. He’s also currently playing first base in the winter leagues in Venezuela.
Gallo has played 53 games in the major leagues and has hit .173/.281/.368. That’s quite bad. He’s also struck out 49.7% of the time. That’s brutal. At the same time he’s crushed minor league pitching, even at the Triple-A level, where he’s hit .224/.340/.501, with 39 homers and 98 RBI in 661 plate appearances. He’ll be 23 years old in 2017, so he’s still relatively young. The Rangers would love to see him hit well enough to play first base or DH, depending on the team’s needs, but he’ll have to cut down on that strikeout rate to make it happen.
The top free agent first base option is Edwin Encarnacion. The Blue Jays are expected to do whatever they can to re-sign Encarnacion, but it will be costly. Mike Napoli is an option a tier below Encarnacion. He’s already had two stints with the Rangers, so it wouldn’t be surprising for the Rangers to have interest in him. There’s a big drop-off after those two, although Carlos Santana could be available if Cleveland doesn’t pick up his $12 million club option.
Jurickson Profar
Jurickson Profar was the #7 overall prospect in baseball before the 2012 season and the #1 overall prospect prior to the 2013 season, according to Baseball America. He played in 85 games as a 20-year-old in 2013, then missed all of 2014 with a torn labrum. He chose the rest-and-rehab route, rather than having surgery. This proved to be a bad decision when he re-injured the shoulder in the spring of 2015 and missed most of that season as well. He came back this year to hit .239/.321/.338 in 90 games as a 23-year-old. He’s still young enough and talented enough to be a good trade chip if the Rangers can’t find a regular spot for him.
At this point, Profar is a man without a starting position available. Adrian Beltre is locked in at third base, Elvis Andrus is signed through 2022 to play shortstop, and Rougned Odor just hit 33 homers as the team’s second baseman. Profar was the team’s utility player last year. He started 11 or more games at first base, second base, shortstop, third base, and left field. It’s nice that he has that flexibility, but his bat would play best in the middle infield. The team could move Odor to first base and plug Profar in the lineup at second base, but Odor’s bat would be more valuable if he stays at second base.
Profar is not the highly-rated prospect he once was after missing almost two full seasons, but he should still have value on the trade market. Should the Rangers choose to trade Profar, they could use him to add starting pitching, which is their most significant need.