The Rangers were one of the biggest surprises of the year. While the club was bounced from the playoffs in disappointing fashion, it nevertheless accomplished much more than expected and raised expectations heading into 2016.
Here’s the latest from Texas:
- Rangers hitting coach Dave Magadan and bullpen coach Andy Hawkins will not be back, as MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan reports. The rest of the club’s staff has been invited to return to work under manager Jeff Banister. Magadan is looking to remain closer to his home in Florida, per the report, while Hawkins is aiming to move to another organization.
- In other after-season business, also via Sullivan, the Rangers announced that righty Colby Lewis had a procedure to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. The soon-to-be free agent pitched through it for much of the year. It remains to be seen whether veteran third bagger Adrian Beltre will need surgery for a torn ligament in his thumb, an injury that he (rather remarkably) played with for some time.
- Texas has interest in bringing back first baseman Mike Napoli, GM Jon Daniels said. The 33-year-old hit a blistering .295/.396/.513 down the stretch for Texas, and would make sense as a right-handed-hitting complement to the club’s left-heavy lineup. But it appears that Napoli may prefer to seek a more expansive role on the open market.
- As expected, the Rangers intend to make a qualifying offer to righty Yovani Gallardo. If he doesn’t take the $15.8MM offer, Gallardo will hit the market heading into his age-30 season after throwing 376 2/3 innings of 3.46 ERA pitching over the last two campaigns. The draft compensation would create some drag, but his record of durability and effectiveness makes him an obvious target for clubs in need of reliable innings.
- It’s back to business already for Daniels, who says that he believes the team “did a lot of our heavy lifting in July,” as Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. That’s a reference to the club’s acquisition of Cole Hamels and Jake Diekman, of course, both of whom were added with the future in mind. That being said, Daniels made clear that Texas will be active. “There are some areas that I would expect that we’ll look to upgrade,” Daniels said. “I think we’ll have a lot of conversations with other clubs and kind of see where the market is. I don’t feel like there are any glaring holes if we are healthy.”
- Regarding starting pitching, Daniels said that the organization will “look to add some stability” over the winter. That could mean a return of Lewis or (perhaps less likely) Gallardo, but it seems quite possible that Texas will be on the market for a new addition.
Speculation with some Rangers beat writers has been Jason Giambi as the new hitting coach.
Also, I expect the Rangers to have their eyes on Lucroy as their big offseason target.
They don’t need more bats they need pitching and bullpen help.
Their pen is solid now. Starting pitching, yes. But it helps that they get back Yu. I would expect them to pursue the mid-level arms in FA if they are going to add starters. The Rangers have been looking for a long-term solution at the catching position and have been in talks with the Brewers about Lucroy before, so that is why I ventured down that avenue.
The Brewers don’t have that many tradable assets, that will bring back quality, which is why Lucroy is being talked about at all. However, he didn’t have a healthy or productive season. They may think that waiting for him to show his health might allow them to get a better return, and wait for July, or even next off-season.
Realistically, I think the Rangers need to upgrade at catcher, but not necessarily the starter. Chirinos is quite underrated defensively and very athletic, not to mention decent RH pop. Doubt Gimenez can repeat his decent year as backup C, but would probably take him over Corporan if I had to choose. Could use some platoon partners for 1B/DH and LF(or just an every day LF; Hamilton can be quite frustrating health/production-wise), like a Napoli and Ruggiano type. I’d like for them to decide to keep one of Gallardo or Lewis(wouldn’t complain if it was Greinke though ha), and let Holland/Gonzalez/Martinez etc take two spots until Yu returns. Could see a bullpen acquisition, nothing big, but maybe a veteran type, depending on how they feel about guys like Faulkner(L), Freeman(L), Patton(R), Klein(R), etc. Also, still dreaming that by 2017 Jurickson Profar will somehow force Texas to trade away Elvis Andrus and millions of dollars, ha.
Elvis has been a disappointment the past three years I think if the put some trades he will be gone in two years with his 75 mill hopefully we will get a decent player back