Hanser Alberto, Ryan Rua, and Justin Ruggiano will all make the Rangers’ roster, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News was among those to tweet. Ruggiano, 34 in April, inked a one-year, $1.65MM major league deal with the Rangers in December. Even though the late-February addition of Ian Desmond has made Ruggiano’s presence something of a luxury, it sounds like Texas will hang on to the veteran to start the year.
Here’s a rundown of some of the more important roster decisions to take place in the AL West today:
- Nick Martinez has been optioned by the Rangers, which will likely make A.J. Griffin the team’s fifth starter, as The Associated Press writes. Griffin, 28, has not pitched in a major league game since 2013 thanks to a Tommy John operation in the spring of 2014. In 47 starts between 2012 and 2013, Griffin pitched to a 3.60 ERA with 7.5 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9.
- Veteran righty Al Alburquerque has been optioned by the Angels, per a club announcement. That may line up Cam Bedrosian for the final pen spot. He’s rung up an impressive number of opposing hitters via strikeout this spring. Alburquerque had a rough year in 2015, but he chalked up his struggles to an offseason battle with the Chikungunya virus. Last year, the 29-year-old (30 in June) pitched to a 4.21 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 4.8 BB/9.
- The A’s have optioned Jesse Hahn, as MLB.com’s Jane Lee tweets. The move likely means that Felix Doubront will serve as Oakland’s fifth starter. The A’s acquired Doubront from the Blue Jays at last year’s trade deadline in exchange for cash. The left-hander went on to make eight starts and three relief appearances for Oakland and posted a 5.81 ERA.
Totally shocked Hahn didn’t make the rotation, especially with Doubront as the next best option
The A’s are facing a lot of LH-skewing teams in April (last year lefties had a .580 OPS vs Doubront), and the A’s have a much-improved offense and bullpen. Its a slight risk but the worst that will happen will be Doubront gives up 4 runs over 5 innings but then the solid bullpen takes over early and the bats outscore the pitching. It will only be for about a month anyway because Henderson Alvarez comes back soon. Not the worst thing for Hahn to iron out his control in the minors and come back near his ceiling, instead of getting smashed for a while and making that season ERA look bad and the A’s lose games.
But like I said, Doubront vs lefties is a good thing, and I applaud the A’s for going with hotter hands, knowing how perilous their playoff chances are. Last year too many games slipped by and it looks like they are preparing for that with moves like this. No Sogard and Fuld on the 25 man and Dull in the bullpen are also very good things for the A’s too. They’re a real sleeper team this year.
If you cannot make the Halos roster you must not be very good.
Angeks bullpen and team really isn’t that bad. In fact a pretty solid team
How do you figure? beyond Trout? No proven C or 2B. 3B is weak. LF is a mess. 1B injury prone and declining Puljos. Starters are a mess after Richards.
Okay , dont mention pujols as something thats wrong with the team. 40 bombs last year aint too shabby. Theyre overall a decent team, not great, but decent.
Actually Andrew Heaney is a stud. Hector Santiago isn’t a bad #3 after that were not that bad either with Tropeano and Weaver/Shoemaker and Skaggs on the way…Giavotella is a hitting machine. Yunel Escobar is better than Freese defensively and offensively. C position it’s CUZ you haven’t watch Carlos Perez play. Another thing Jett Bandy is an absolute stud waiting to take the starting position also Taylor Ward our # 1 draft pick from a year ago is next in line for Catcher. LF is the only position we don’t know what’s going to happen. If we get the at bats Nava/Gentry/Ortega gave us in spring training I will be ok with our LF situation
They still owe Pujols 6/150 so they can’t go fill holes with quality players, so yeah, Pujols and his .787 OPS (40 bombs who cares) is a big problem for the Angels.
That does not make them a bad team.
Forget the salary. Yes…it’s a bad contract but if you’re talking production, Albert still hit 40HR’s last year …. I suspect most teams in baseball would love to have that production at 1B.
I’m not talking production, I’m saying that you can’t “forget the salary” though because that salary is whats preventing them from making the necessary moves to contend, and instead they have AAAA dreck like Nava, Perez, Gentry & Choi on the 25 man whereas if they did not have Pujols and his 40 bombs and literally nothing else they’d have $165M to spend on 5 better quality players.
I don’t assume for a moment they would have been able to get FIVE “better quality” players for that money. Has Pujols produced the numbers for LA he did for STL? NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. But those numbers for the Cards were incredible! But he’s still hitting HR’s and driving in runs. It’s not like he HASN’T produced. There weren’t many 1B in MLB that were more productive than AP. And he provides protection for Trout. There wasn’t much behind Albert. As far as the money, there’s nothing preventing LA from spending more —- the owner has drawn an artificial line. You don’t see the other big market teams doing this! YES…it’s a terrible contract–one of many in MLB right now. It’s crazy money. But it’s not like Albert has been a total dud.
Everyone is picking the astros or rangers to win the west, angels are sitting there flying under the radar, yea they don’t have the stars behind trout and pujols but they are a solid team, should be better on defense this year. the rotation I think will be good enough. should be a good year in the al west.
Gimme a break. Albert’s contract does not prevent them from filling holes at all. There’s a little over $160 million left on the Angels payroll after Albert’s contract. Their big contracts are a poor argument when it comes to their ability to build a contending roster. No matter what the Angels do, they still have to fight for a playoff spot in that division. As long as the Astros, Rangers, and possibly the Mariners are stepping up, it’s going to be a battle. And don’t pretend like a contract like Albert’s shouldn’t exist. If it wasn’t the Angels, it would’ve been another team. Now the Tigers have Miguel Cabrera locked up until he’s 41. These are the biggest names in MLB over the past decade or so, and someone is going to pay them. In Albert’s case it just happens to be the Angels. And there is no reason they can’t continue to put a winning team on the field, especially with the amount of money coming off their books in the next two offseasons.
And still they were in the playoff race til the last game of last season. I’d bet they probably do better this season than last.
I’d bet you they wont with mariners and astros improved where will the wins come from?
Who says the Mariners are improved?
The A’s are vastly improved from last year too, I have the Angels and their zero depth for 90 losses and last place this year.
Define ‘zero depth’. They actually have quite a bit of depth and have much more versatility among their position players coming into this season than the past few years. The kind of versatility they had around 10 years ago.
After Trout, Simmons and Calhoun they are very close to average or below it.
You just basically described every team that contends or has a chance to contend. You take Albert off of those Cardinals teams he was on and you basically have a .500 team.
Albert left STL four years ago and the Redbirds have been in the playoffs all four years. How would they have done without AP in the past is something we can never know. He was incredible—one of the 5 greatest everyday players of all times. But the Cards find ways to succeed. Not many teams in MLB have equaled their success.
6 ERA last year, 6 ERA in Spring Training. Hey, at least Doubront’s consistent!
Hamels, Lewis, and Holland are going to have hold down the fort until May when Darvsh returns.
Theyre gonna go with doubront over hahn? Must have to do with hahns poor spring.. but thats just a mind boggling move to me.
It appears they are treating Hahn the same way they would a starter coming back from injury–have him make a couple starts in the minor leagues. He hasn’t pitched in a Major League game since June.
I think the deciding factor for the divisional race this year is the Mariners. If Walker progresses they have two legitimate ace pitchers on that rotation, better than Hamels + Darvish potentially. This is going to be a really fun year.