The Rangers have signed Ian Kinsler, Derek Holland, Nelson Cruz and Elvis Andrus to multiyear contracts in recent months, but Josh Hamilton — possibly the Rangers’ best player — is still on track to hit free agency after the regular season. The Rangers recently met with Hamilton’s agent, so there’s a chance they’ll keep him off of the open market.
Even if Hamilton does reach free agency, the Rangers could re-sign him. They know he’s one of the best players in the game when he’s healthy. But they also know he’s had trouble staying on the field and that he’s dealing with serious off-field issues. And Hamilton has suggested he won’t be offering any hometown discounts.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I owe the Rangers,” he said in February. “I don’t feel I owe the Rangers.”
Hamilton’s chance for a massive free agent contract is approaching. Now the Rangers have to decide whether to commit to the 30-year-old long-term or let him leave as a free agent.
Dodgers
Will enjoy watching Hamilton re-sign with the Rangers? Agreed.
Not according to the poll. If the Rangers had any intention of signing Hamilton they would have already done so instead of playing hardball and alienating him.
They’re not alienating him. It’s called negotiating. It happens frequently in sports.
Yes, it does happen frequently but I would be careful if I were the Rangers. Plenty of teams will be interested in Hamilton and they wouldn’t want to lose him would they?
Just depends on what he wants. No one wants to lose their best hitter.
Yep, the Cards “negotiated” Pujols right out of St Louis and now the Rangers are “negotiating” Hamilton right out of Texas… and probably Napoli too.
Napoli had one good year. All of his previous seasons were average at best. You’re really dogging them for not giving Napoli an extension after 1 great season?
And okay, that was Pujols, this is Hamilton.
napoli had a great year…. he had over a 1 ops
Napoli had one good half. He was mediocre in the first half and balls out locked in during the second half.
Would be a HUGE mistake to let him go.
Three things are keeping this extension from happening.
1) The Rangers know Hamilton’s injury/substance abuse history better than anybody else in baseball. For everything the public knows, I can’t imagine the stuff the Rangers know of privately that are making them hesitant over a multi-year commitment.
2) Knowing that information and seeing what’s blatantly amiss in public- the DL stints and lost playing time and subpar performance when playing injured would be reason enough to be wary.
3) Hamilton wants to be paid full time what he’s worth part time. He wants a 5+ year deal at $20MM+ a season when he’s only worth that kind of money maybe 60%-70% of the time and is always a risk to completely fall apart mentally or physically.
Hamilton should take a hint from Lincecum and do short deals that pay him exorbitantly in 2 year chunks and hope he can continue fulfilling his contracts as they come and go.
If the Rangers offered him a 2 year/$40MM extension he should take it and do his best to earn a 2 year/$45MM extension after that and so on.
Yea I would not give that financial advice if you ever became an agent. If he was the player he is and didn’t have injury/substance abuse history issues, he would basically be Albert Pujols and would command $200 million.
The reason he’s gonna get a huge contract is because he does a lot of baseball things well, and those are going to overcome the things he doesn’t do well. Think of it like buying a house. You’re complaining that a $400k house in LA isn’t on the beach, but it’s a nice house. And if that house was on the beach, it would be $1.3 million. Doesn’t mean its not a great house to buy.
Also Lincecum isn’t a free-agent, he’s forced to negotiate with only the Giants. I guarantee you that once he’s a free agent he’s looking for 7 years and $150 million plus.
The house/beach thing doesn’t compute. I understand the value of location, view, etc. in real estate, but the house’s structure isn’t going to underperform at some point just because it’s not located on the beach. Hamilton has an injury history and substance abuse history. The Rangers are one of the less frugal teams in the sport, so if they’re having complications in locking Hamilton into a contract both sides are satisfied with, I can’t imagine which team would be okay with it. Maybe the Red Sox? They’ve been handing out bloated contracts lately.
I’m pretty sure the Rays know the most about his drug abuse
they know about the beginning, not the recovery and relapses.
Nationals will go after him. They’re willing to spend BIG money on guys
They only like spending big money on terrible players though.
They spent big money on 1 terrible player.
I doubt the Nats would have much interest. They seem to be quietly emphasizing high character, drama-free guys.
Good luck to Josh in securing a happy landing place for next year and beyond.
What? how can you say Josh Hamilton is not high character? and it is silly to say that a particular team only signs high character players.
Mets might go after him. With Bay just not producing anything there’s a possibility they might just release him. It will open up some money. Plus they still have a lot to spend now that Reyes is gone. They might also get rid of Johan and Wright. If that does happen, I say mets should make a serious run for him.
The mets are poor and bad. They need to just rebuild not buy a high priced free agent.
Hamels should be a consideration then. His price should go down with his decrease of performance. The mets should think about him as well
You do realize even if his performance goes down a little, he’s still going to make Matt Cain-esque money, right?
Nah, you don’t owe the Rangers, they just pay you millions of dollars to play a game after all. I am not a Rangers fan but I get tired of players saying that they don’t owe the team that pays their bills and keeps food on the table and still provides millions more than anyone else in the country has.
In addition to that they put up with all his idiotic off the field problems. The guy is 30 probably start time for him to grow up and be a man.
So you must do your job without getting paid, right?
I don’t do my job without getting paid. If you had actually read my post you would see that I wasn’t suggesting that he play for free. What I said was that he owes the team something for getting paid big bucks to play a game. He should keep his salary demands in that perspective.
He doesn’t owe the Rangers anything. He was paid (whether we think it is stupid money or not) to perform and has done so while here. After his commitment is done with the Rangers, he owes them zilch. Just like you have probably taken other jobs and you owe your former employers nothing.
Hamilton is a great player and all but he has a lot of baggage and sincerely i CANT help but think that he will not be succesfull in a big market team. He will be better off signing with the Rangers for a good but not Record setting contract.
i really hope he doesn’t end up on the Dodgers. i’d rather extend Ethier and go with a cheaper option for the third OF. better to spend money on pitching and corner infielders.
Unfortunately the infield market is going to be terrible. Not a whole lot of upgrades for the Dodgers there beyond Napoli or Pena for 1B (they should’ve signed Pena this off-season, only $700k more than Loney).
I’m thinking they should resign Ethier, sign Upton for LF, and then go after someone like Montero to catch, Pena for 1B or Reynolds for 3B. Castellanos is playing 3B in AAA, too, and may be ready next year.
Another option would be moving Ethier to 1B and bringing in two OFers.
He’s signing with the Braves.
uh huh…sounds like a “wren” special
Hamilton isn’t coming back to the Rangers. Look at Jon Daniels’ comments about retaining the core of the team. Who gets signed first? Andrus, Holland, and Kinsler. If you listen to the common, uneducated fan they will say Hamilton has been the best player the team has had over the past three years. What ESPN(since they parrot the same line and I’m guessing these ill-informed fans get their “hard hitting analysis” from them) neglects to mention that Hamilton has averaged less games per season than both of the position players. Also, Kinsler and Andrus aren’t deal with drug relapse issues, infidelity questions, and aren’t at positions that have been grossly overpaid by teams like the Dodgers and Nationals. If you want to hand a long term, mega million like deal to a 30+ old outfielder with a history of on field injuries and off field issues by all means make that mistake but don’t expect people with a brain to back you up. Hamilton isn’t coming back because it’s not financially sound, which judging by the three contracts handed out already they are looking to extend within logic. Nothing about the power hitting outfield market is logical.