The Rangers and outfielder Travis Snider have agreed to a minor league contract, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Snider’s deal will pay him a base salary of $1MM if he makes the big league roster in Texas.
Snider, a CAA Sports client, spent the 2016 season with Kansas City’s Triple-A affiliate and batted a disappointing .245/.340/.350 in 322 plate appearances. The former first-round pick once rated among the game’s top 10 prospects, per both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, but that potential was never fulfilled. Snider debuted as a 20-year-old back in 2008 and held his own through parts of three seasons from ages 20-22, hitting .255/.318/.446 with 25 homers in 675 plate appearances.
While Snider’s production tailed off in the coming years, he did enjoy a very nice 2014 campaign in Pittsburgh, hitting .264/.338/.438 with 13 home runs in 359 plate appearances. But, a trade to the Orioles that offseason yielded more struggles, and Snider didn’t appear in the Majors at all last year.
For the Rangers, Snider provides a depth option with MLB experience that can compete for a bench job in Spring Training or head to Triple-A and wait in the wings in the event of an injury. At present, the Rangers project to utilize Nomar Mazara, Carlos Gomez and Shin-Soo Choo in the outfield, though the possibility of adding an outfielder and shifting Choo to the DH slot does exist. Texas is also likely to bring Josh Hamilton back on a minor league contract, so Snider will presumably be competing with him this spring as well.
He totally signed there for the BBQ.
Ha!
Next stop might be to play in Korea or Japan until he figures things out as a hitter.
Might not be a bad idea for Travis
Snider doesn’t get rave reviews in the OF
About the only place that he seemed to do well in was in Pittsburgh,. Liked Lunchbox when he was with the Bucs. A shame he never could get a full time gig and keep it.
The only place he did well was in the Jays farm system. Shame, he looked like a sure thing.
Another interesting trivia item for Travis is that the Pirates traded Brad Lincoln for him and eventually signed Lincoln back. They traded Travis to Baltimore for Brault and Tarpley and picked him back up the same season after Baltimore released him. Ironic that both deals involving Snider for the Pirates had Pittsburgh ending up with all the same players including Snider after the trades.
Man, Snider was a beast in my 2010 MLB The Show game Franchise Mode. I guess the game creators thought he was going to be a longtime stud. Unfortunately, his career has been extremely disappointing. Another example of just how hard this game is.
Hard to believe the Blue “promising young core” used to be Snider, JP Arencibia, and Brett Lawrie. Hope the scouting department has improved since then.
That they were well thought of prospects should be cautionary tale for prospect expectations. Lawrie did help land Donaldson, and I would say not capitalizing on their value at its appex was the miss by the FO.
Snider is a decent bench bat.
Pretty amazing that a team starved for both pitching and prospects dealt away Brault and Tarpley for him.
One of NH’s best moves.