The Rangers face three contractual options after the season:
- Reliever Darren Oliver has a $3.25MM club option with a $500K buyout. The salary becomes guaranteed with 59 appearances; Oliver is on track with ten so far.
- Rich Harden and Vladimir Guerrero have mutual options, at $11MM and $9MM respectively. These don't have much purpose, aside from pushing $2MM worth of buyouts to the offseason. Vlad's $1MM buyout disappears if he declines the option.
The Rangers have a pair of free agents in Frank Francisco and Matt Treanor. If they both leave, it'll free up around $4MM. They'll also clear $6.75MM in buyouts and obligations paid to Kevin Millwood, Frank Catalanotto, and Vicente Padilla. The Rangers will free up $12MM paid to Harden and Guerrero, less the $2MM in buyouts. All told, they have roughly $20MM coming off the books if everyone but Oliver leaves.
Increases to players under contract total $5.225MM, with Ian Kinsler, Scott Feldman, and Colby Lewis getting small bumps. First-time arbitration eligibles include Nelson Cruz, David Murphy, Darren O'Day, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Josh Hamilton, Dustin Nippert, and Ryan Garko are in the second-time group, while C.J. Wilson, Brandon McCarthy, and Chris Ray are eligible for a third time. There will be some decent raises in that mix, especially Cruz, Hamilton, and Wilson. Still, it appears the Rangers will have millions to spend even before raising payroll.
Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contracts for the info.
If Vlad keeps it up, I could actually see that being one of the few mutual options that’s exercised. He’s proving to be very valuable to Texas, and yet I’m not sure anyone else would be willing to give that kind of money to a DH…
Vlad’s option is a tricky one. I could see it being exercised because IS so valuable to Texas, his slash line is good…but I think most of his value comes from the fact that he is hitting 900 OPS for Texas, and not against Texas
Agree with TwinsVet in that if Vlad hit close to his career averages (which I think he’ll do) than his option will be exercised IMO. I think Harden will be dumped unless he somehow emerges as the ace they hoped he could be.
I also think that Greenburg (assuming he has control of the team by 2011, lol) will want to make a big name sign if at all possible, assuming he hasn’t already gotten a big name at the deadline if the Rangers are in contention. Nonetheless, I expect the Rangers to spend some pretty good cash this winter outside of the raises due to a few current Rangers.