Feb. 23: The Rangers have announced the signing. Chavez does indeed go on the 40-man roster, taking the place of left-hander Joe Palumbo, who has been transferred to the 60-day DL in a corresponding move. Palumbo underwent Tommy John surgery last April and will not be ready for the start of the season.
Feb. 22: Chavez’s deal is a guaranteed, Major League contract at $1MM, tweets SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo. He’ll get a 40-man roster spot, it seems, and Chavez’s base salary will elevate to $1.5MM once he is placed on the 25-man roster. Cotillo notes that there’s a very strong chance that Chavez breaks camp on the Rangers’ roster.
Feb. 21: The Rangers are in agreement on a contract with veteran right-hander Jesse Chavez, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports (Twitter links). The Sosnick, Cobbe & Karon client seems to have signed a non-guaranteed deal, as Heyman notes that the pact calls for a $1MM base that’ll increase to $1.5MM if he makes the big league roster. Chavez’s contract has $500K worth of incentives based on relief appearances and $1MM based on starts, Heyman adds.
Now 34 years of age, Chavez will return to the organization that gave him his first professional opportunity. Texas selected Chavez in the 42nd round of the 2002 draft — a round that no longer even exists in modern drafts — and the righty spend parts of four seasons in their system before being traded to the Pirates in the 2006 Kip Wells swap.
Chavez went on to make his big league debut with the 2008 Pirates, and he’s spent time with six additional big league organizations since that time (primarily with Oakland). Chavez’s 2017 season was spent with the division-rival Angels, for whom he pitched to a disappointing 5.35 ERA in 138 innings. Chavez managed respectable marks of 7.8 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 41.1 percent ground-ball rate, but like so many other pitchers throughout MLB was plagued by the long ball; in those 138 frames, he surrendered 28 big flies — good for a career-worst 1.83 HR/9 mark.
Texas has been aggressively stockpiling veteran arms on which to rely over the course of the season, adding Doug Fister on a low-cost MLB deal while also picking up Chavez, Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese and Edinson Volquez on minor league contracts. (Volquez’s deal was a two-year minor league deal, as he’ll miss 2018 recovering from August Tommy John surgery.)
The Rangers currently project to have Cole Hamels, Fister, Matt Moore, Mike Minor and Matt Bush in their rotation. There’s plenty of talent in that bunch, to be sure, as each has had big league success at various points. However, it’s a fairly uncertain group at present.
Hamels is coming off a down season in which he logged significant time on the DL, and Moore, too, is in need of a rebound after a dreadful showing with the 2017 Giants. Minor, meanwhile, will be returning to a rotation role for the first time in four years, and Bush has never worked as a starter. Fister posted promising peripherals in a tough AL East last year, but he hasn’t had a full season with above-average run prevention numbers since 2014. Given the uncertainty among that group, it makes sense for GM Jon Daniels and his staff to create a fairly large supporting cast of experienced arms to serve as insurance.
Chavez has extensive experience both as a starter and reliever, so he’ll add to that depth and can support the group either as a rotation option in the upper minors or perhaps as a swingman at the big league level. He has a career 4.69 ERA in 742 2/3 Major League innings and enjoyed a solid run from 2013-16, during which time he sported a 3.94 ERA and 3.85 FIP in 427 1/3 frames.
Bartolo and Jesse Chavez.
Chavez went 7-11 with a 5.35 ERA
New profile picture looks nice.
Thanks. I was hoping it would help with the down-vote avalanche. I’ve made a lot of enemies here, and my intentions are never to troll :/
Someone made an account to attack me yesterday Lol
FWIW I don’t think you’re a troll lol. Might help that I’m on the app and don’t see any pictures, whatever it was
Thanks JD!! truly appreciate that.
I really didn’t make an account to “attack” you. I have read MLBTraderumors for years and just decided to start posting. And it just seemed you were boasting a lot about predicting a contract so i made a comment I thought was funny.. I have predicted quite a few correctly in my life but its not a big deal. DO not take internet message boards so seriously :-)
people on this site are putting way to much value into the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” votes. just go with it, they dont mean anything
But….but…I got a thumbs down for posting stats to support another posters observation…I’m devastated!!!! /s
I think it has more of an impact on those who have grown up with internet approval. I could really care less about ups or downs.
I have ignored the “down-vote avalanche” because it’s, IMO, to keep bringing it up I’m going to chime in here. There are people who will down vote because they can….it’s similar to a hacker mindset…the ones that create a virus just to damage random computers and nothing else.
There are others who have probably down voted because the “down-vote avalanche” is perceived as whining.
Others still, and I am in this group sans the down vote, likely thought the “I predicted this right (if Darvish reaches all of his incentives) as a bit over the top. I am not trying to be mean but I personally had a mental image of you jumping up and down yelling “WHOOPEE”., People predict all the time, some are posted some are not and they never say a word let alone bring up the down votes later.
If up votes and down votes are that important to you may have a long road ahead. Validation should never come from the internet.
Like the people who are worrying about being validated with that blue checkmark by their names! That’s really SAD!
I got a call and couldn’t edit this, so this looks like a troll post. While Chavez’s results in 2017 were terrible, I couldn’t add he had a 5.35 ERA over 21 starts, and 17 relief appearances.
He’s probably more effective in relief, but he’s versatile enough to be a swingman.
Actually for his career, he’s been worse out of the pen than he has out of the rotation. He’s a bad starter and a terrible reliever. Will fit right in on this Rangers staff.
Last year he did decent out of the pen.
He pitched his butt off for the Angels. He wasn’t really in the mix. Then the Angels lost their whole starting staff. Good job.
The Rangers are just collecting crappy pitchers. It’s like a freaking convention in Surprise.
Surprise shop muh boi cry awful
and this is how cubs fans get a bad rap….
Very good.
Kip Wells? There is a bust from the past.
It’s always nice to hear names you completely forgot of
Charlie Hough is a free agent
Dang you beat me to it but I was going to go with Nolan Ryan
That honestly made me laugh more than once. Are there even any knuckleballers left besides Phil Coke trying it out this spring?
Did Dickey retire?
Dickey is a FA but last I heard a few days ago he was considering retirement. He’s probably still good enough to get a minor league deal with a spring training invite if he wants it.
Dickey was pretty good last year, I think that he should get a major league deal. He was just as good as Vargas last year, but he won’t get multiple years.
Steven Wright
Haha
I had no idea their rotation was that brutal, wow. They better have a lot of long men because no way that staff holds up for the season, let alone a few months.
Pen isn’t much better.
He’s the one that threw at Fielder during the issues with the Blue Jays. Crazy.
The Cubs, Astros and Phillies tank for years. The PA and the agents say nothing.
3 of the 5 poorest teams (one in massive debt) retool and/or rebuild:
“Sacred bond between team and fans” “Economic Volcanoes” “Collusion” etc.
Meanwhile, relative to market size/revenues/etc. no team is dumpster diving this winter more than the Rangers and not a peep.
Seems like the PA and the agents have made a concerted effort to be quiet about the big market teams they need to sign absurd contracts in the future while trying to make public examples out of the teams that almost never drive free agency.
Excellent point!!
The rangers are bad and know they’re bad. Other than Minor (who may be a long term piece), everyone they picked up is innings eaters/flippable parts…..which is what bad teams do. If they were a darvish away, they would have been spending. they’re not and playing it smart.
You nailed it.
They’re not playing it smart. They’re playing their fans for fools. If they want to rebuild, have the courage to do it and take the monetary losses that come with it. Instead, they’re playing this half-in, half-out game in an effort to squeeze whatever they can out of the handful of fans they can bilk into believing this is a competitive roster.
It’s a page right out of the 2017 Atlanta Braves playbook. And it’s a shameful end to a run of competitive baseball that won’t likely be repeated anytime soon at this rate.
when the trade deadline approaches, Texas might need some bench depth. That’s when the pirates trade josh Harrison to Texas for Chavez and 2 cowboy hats
problem i noticed with him was that he often did well the first time through lineup then struggle.
Very astute. The numbers (in 2017) back you up.
1st time as SP
21G 189PA Slash against .240/.312/.427
2nd time as SP
21G 187PA Slash against .265/.321.535
3rd time as SP
20G 105PA Slash against .354/.410/.573
Texas is going to have a long rebuild. Maxed out money wise and a bottom tier farm system.
what great ignorance this comment shows.
AMEN mtex!! It’s obvious this person has no clue about our farm system, only knows what they see on major league roster! Try doing a little research all the way down to A level Steven before you post comments that lack any knowledge about our system!
Spending lots of money to finish last. Most is just wasted.
I think you may misunderstand how baseball operations work.
Local reports say it’s a non-guaranteed deal – twitter.com/JeffWilson_FWST/status/967050378243072…