8:59pm: The contract contains an invite to the Rangers’ big league Spring Training camp, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets.
8:20pm: The Rangers will sign first baseman Ike Davis to a minor league contract, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). Reports earlier in the week suggested Davis was close to finding a new home, with the Yankees noted as one of the teams in the hunt for Davis’ services. The Brewers were also linked to Davis earlier this winter.
Davis, 28, has spent the last three seasons looking to recapture the form that saw him slug 32 homers for the Mets in 2012. Since that seeming breakout year, Davis has hit just .222/.328/.356 over 1043 plate appearances with the Mets, Pirates and Athletics, and his career-long struggles against southpaws has limited the left-handed hitting Davis to only part-time action against righty pitching. His rough 2015 season in Oakland came to an abrupt end after undergoing hip labrum surgery in August, and the A’s then non-tendered Davis rather than pay him a projected $3.8MM in arbitration.
From the Rangers’ perspective, Davis is a low-cost reclamation project who can be used as minor league depth at the very least. There isn’t a clear path to Major League playing time for Davis on the Texas roster, given that the Rangers’ other top first base/DH options (Prince Fielder, Mitch Moreland, Josh Hamilton) are all also left-handed hitters.
Doesn’t seem like a good fit with Moreland and Fielder on the roster.
Cashman failed!
Lol, have fun with him
A minor league deal. If he sticks past April 1 he becomes AAA backup WHEN Moreland goes on the DL.
True
Good sign. Getting somebody like Davis a great defender on Milb deal is great.
How is this a good sign? If he had anything left, he would have signed with the Yankees and been on a major league roster backing up Tex and hitting at Yankee stadium. In Texas, he has two players ahead of him. He will be in AAA for most of the year.
And he is not even a good defender anymore. The poor guy fell off a cliff as a player.
Wonder why he didn’t sign with NYY?
Maybe he still wants his beard
He sucks
The Yankees must have felt he was finished as a player.
Talk about Siberia for Davis he has no shot at making the loaded Texas roster unless everyone in front of him breaks down. And if that happens the Rangers are trading for a first baseman. Why? Because ever since he got sick with that Nile Valley disease he has never hit again. Obviously it affected him neurologically. Why no team has picked up on this is amazing. His talent is completely gone as are his reflexes. Very sad.