TUESDAY: The Rangers have announced Arencibia's deal via press release, making it official.
FRIDAY, 1:44pm: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports that Arencibia will earn $1.8MM in 2014 and has an additional $300K worth of incentives in his deal (Twitter link).
12:44pm: Arencibia will receive roughly $2MM on a one-year deal, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.
11:26am: The Rangers have reached an agreement with free agent catcher J.P. Arencibia, according to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (Sulia link). Reports last night indicated that the Rangers were nearing a deal with the CAA Sports client.
Arencibia will presumably back up Geovany Soto in Texas. Arencibia hit just .194/.227/.365 in 2013 and is unlikely to ever hit for much of an average, but with his power, he can be effective if he bats above .215 or so, as he did in 2011 and 2012. He has 62 home runs in the past three seasons, and hitting in Arlington should help him maintain that level of power. Though he has his warts, Arencibia was one of the game's top pitch-framing catchers in 2013 — an undervalued element of catchers' skill sets.
Charlie Wilmoth contributed to this post.
