Nearly two months have passed since the Rangers lost longtime primary first baseman Mitch Moreland, who signed a cheap deal with the Red Sox in early December. Moreland was never particularly spectacular as a member of the Rangers, with whom he batted .254/.315/.438 in 2,762 plate appearances from 2010-16, but the three-time 20-home run hitter’s departure has left the club without an established option at first.
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Led by general manager Jon Daniels, the Rangers have been on the hunt for a first base/designated hitter type to help replace Moreland and Carlos Beltran, who signed with AL West rival Houston one day before Moreland went to Boston. Texas hasn’t reeled in anyone yet, though, largely because it hasn’t been willing to make multiyear commitments in free agency. The Rangers have signed three players – Tyson Ross, Andrew Cashner and Carlos Gomez – to major league deals this offseason, and all received one-year contracts.
Texas, which would like to at least partially fix its first base/DH issues by signing yet another player to a single-year pact, has targeted two-time Ranger Mike Napoli. Having hit .239/.335/.465 with 34 home runs as an Indian last season, Napoli would be a capable replacement for Moreland. The 35-year-old has not been amenable to the Rangers’ one-year offer, however, and they don’t seem open to locking him up through 2018.
Fellow free agent slugger Chris Carter has also drawn the Rangers’ attention after co-leading the National League with 41 home runs in 2016. Carter’s blend of power and patience is enticing, but his low-contact, high-strikeout ways and negative defensive and baserunning value led the Brewers to non-tender him in December. Those flaws have also prevented him from landing anywhere else since. As is the case with Napoli, the Rangers are open to adding Carter, but only for one year (on an incentive-laden accord, no less).
With Brandon Moss now off the market, Pedro Alvarez is arguably the second- or third-best free agent first baseman/DH remaining (depending on your opinion of Carter). To this point, though, the Rangers haven’t been connected to him or other unsigned options like Mark Reynolds, Adam Lind, Logan Morrison or Ryan Howard.
If Texas doesn’t pick up a free agent to potentially slide in at first/DH, they could let in-house options sink or swim to at least begin the season. The Rangers have added multiple brand names – first baseman James Loney and former superstar outfielder Josh Hamilton – on minor league deals this month. The contact-oriented Loney didn’t hit with either the Rays or Mets during the past two seasons, which led to a dismal minus-1.5 fWAR over 744 plate appearances. Hamilton has no first base experience, meanwhile, and has played in only 50 games since 2015 (none last season) while dealing with major injury issues. Thus, the Rangers would be hard pressed to expect much from him or Loney in 2017. The same applies to Ryan Rua, a lifetime .255/.308/.404 hitter across 464 PAs.
Other than those three, the Rangers possess a pair of 23-year-olds, Jurickson Profar and Joey Gallo, who used to be elite prospects and who could play significant roles during the upcoming season. The switch-hitting Profar is the front-runner to start the campaign at first for the Rangers, but his production (.235/.311/.341 in 648 PAs) hasn’t come close to matching the hype he garnered in his prospect days. The lefty-swinging Gallo could begin in the minors, and even if he doesn’t, his prodigious power comes with worrisome swing-and-miss tendencies. Gallo has struck out in just under 50 percent of his 153 trips to the plate in the majors, which would be less alarming if not for the lofty strikeout rates he has also posted in the minors.
As evidenced above, the Rangers have a high quantity of choices to fill two lineup spots, but there isn’t a single one who’s a good bet to succeed at the big league level in 2017. On the other hand, the track records of Napoli and Carter suggest they’ll fare well offensively next season, but will one of them (or another free agent) end up in Texas? Or will the reigning American League West champions go forward with what they have and perhaps reevaluate during the season?
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Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
They’re kinda screwed. They need to give at bats for both Profar and Gallo but if they want to contend for a WS, they needed some like EE.
Texas should have dealt Gallo when his prospect shine was high. Maybe scouting reports behind scene was opposite of what baseball America had rating Gallo last year? Either way a team like Yanks maybe could have offered Gardner for Gallo at third and Gardner could have played cf in Texas rather then sign Carlos Gomez.
Just a though.
Most Texas fans think they could get more in sure and most Yankee fans would rather trade Gardner for someone who dies t strikeout half his at bats.
im sure yankees fans would love gallo for gardner
Nobody knows if any of the NY prospects will shine either that have been hyped up by the media, since none have had many AB’s, or even appeared at the show yet, other than Sanchez..
Hindsight can be nice to look at and that particular yankee fan who made the post here is all about hyping.
On another note.. Would be interesting to see how many HR’s Carter could hit at Arlington wouldn’t it? Anyone think he’d reach 50?
Miller Park had the 3rd highest HR rate in the league. .15 Hr per game more than Texas and .17 per game more by right handed hitters. Why would him leaving Miller Park (and a division that also includes Great American and Wrigley) mean a 10 HR jump?
I don’t think the understanding of Gallo was different at all. Texas knew his potential and wasn’t going to give that up, even if they knew he could become useless.
No, they didn’t. The Rangers aren’t in the mode now to hand out any fat contracts and EE wasn’t in the budget.
Can you guys make one for the pirates and who the fourth outfielder should be?
I can see them offering Ryan Howard an incentive-based 1 year contract with a low minimum guarantee.
What’s the difference between giving joey Gallo a shot instead signing a guy like Ryan Howard and Chris carter..they both strike out a ton and have power. like let him play for most of the season, let him grow and learn plus he’s cheaper and still similar to those guys I mention.
Could be off here, but it seems like the Tex FO has been very cautious to give Gallo too much MLB exposure and I think that is in part because they have very little faith in his ability to hit MLB pitching and don’t want to cause his value to totally plummet
I don’t think you can go wrong with adding Napoli. His good on-base skills will prevent his batting numbers from falling off a cliff. That may be even more true for Chris Carter, who (contact issues and all) has never posted an OPS+ below 102 over a full season. At this point, I think they will both sign for deals that will look fairly team-friendly given their production.
However, even if the Rangers passed on those guys, I am a little bit intrigued by some mix of Hamilton, Gallo, Rua, etc. at the 1B/DH role. I’d be interested to see what kind of production they could coax out of those guys if they shuffled them around appropriately.
The Rangers need to fish or cut bait with Gallo at this point. 2017 is his last option year.
The Rangers should not acquire another player that will take away ABs while they develop, rehab or evaluate Jurickson Profar, Joey Gallo, Delino DeShields, Shin-Soo Choo, Josh Hamilton while giving the occasional DH ABs to Jonathan Lucroy and Adrian Beltre.
Trade Profar to KC for Hosmer. Tex gets its one-year 1B and KC gets a potential 2B upgrade.
actually a good idea the more you think about it similar to the Soler for Davis trade upside play on an unproven guy with 3-4 years of control
trade Gallo for Jose abreu package
I’m sure they’ll go the napoli route.
I wish people would stop with the talk about Gallo and Profar. The Rangers aren’t going to sell low on either nor give up on either. Don’t like it? Too bad, it’s not your team. JD will do what is best for the team within the budgetary limits set by the ownership. Enough already.
Ya they’d be dumb to sell low on either. The only counter argument I could maybe see is that it’d be better to get something rather than nothing at all if/when they bust
They sat too long on Gallo though. Milwaukee would have taken him in place of Brinson in the Lucroy deal last year and they probably will come to regret that.
It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last time a Rangers GM made a mistake. Look at what we got back for Sammy Sosa…
not a team in baseball that hasn’t made a bad trade or FA signing. Remember the circumstances of the Sosa for Baines deal. The Rangers were a couple games out of first place and needed a DH and Baines was a proven run producer. But he just stopped producing in Texas. But keep in mind that Sosa didn’t do much for the White Sox. and they traded him to the north side of Chicago for a washed up George Bell. Sosa didn’t become a star for several years. The Cubs were bad and could afford to wait for Sammy to develop. The Rangers traded Sosa instead of Juan Gonzalez and you can’t argue with that decision.. Juan had a terrific career for the Rangers. I’d like to see Texas have patience with Gallo. Mike Schmidt hit under 200 his first season.. The Phils were happy they didn’t give up on him.
With the way this off-season has gone, Moreland looks very wise to accept 5.5 mil for 1 year.
I think it’s stupid what TEX has done with Gallo; as it was stupid for CHC to hold Bryant for 12 days in AAA, the same for Votto in CIN.
At some point Gallo has got to play, History is repeating itself with TEX, Chris Davis was the same, they dealt him, to BAL. Where he hit and then scored a $161m contract.
Either play him, or deal him. I don’t care what the scouts say, every team would love to give up middle range prospect for Gallo, because that’s what his market value has become = Thanks to the Rangers!
the Rangers were very patient with Moreland. good glove, decent power, streak hitter and often injured. He is who he is and I think we’ve seen his peak. the Rangers were not patient with Davis. In fairness, they got Koji Uehara in return who was a big help as a setup man in the Rangers making the playoffs two strait years so that wasn’t a terrible deal. Davis took a few more years to develop in Baltimore before finally becoming the slugger he is today. I agree with SFGiantsUK that the Rangers should give Gallo a decent shot. But he might be one of those guys it takes another 4-5 years to become a star like Sosa, Davis and Nelson Cruz and the Rangers window to win is right now. that’s a tough call for JD. Gallo could still be the guy Texas puts at 3b after this year since this is Beltre’s last year of a contract. He’s 38 years old and will go over 3k hits probably in early June.
Sad but true, Joey Gallo may go the way of former Ranger 1B Carlos Pena, Travis Hafner, Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Davis and become a starter elsewhere.
interesting how teams go thru streaks where they develop players of talent at one position. that’s the case of texas, where Pena, Hafner and Gonzales were good…but they had Rafael Palmiero and Mark Teixiera ahead of them on the depth charts at first base. the Rangers tried to trade from a position of strength to help out in other positions. All three deals were pretty much failures. Moreland and Davis came up around the same time a couple years later. It’s just too bad Davis didn’t do much in his trials with the Rangers and as I stated earlier in this thread, getting Uehara turned out to be a deal that helped the Rangers get to the playoffs two strait years. Texas traded for Prince Fielder thinking that would fill a hole but injuries limited him to one good season in his three years….his other two years he suffered with injures including the health problem that ended his career. Now, they’re hoping Gallo can turn things around or fill in that hole at first with a retread like Loney or Hamilton. Remember too, Texas swapped away another promising 1b, Justin Smoak (along with another #1 pick in Blake Beaven) for Cliff Lee. I thought Texas would really regret that deal. But, neither Beaven or Smoak proved themselves in MLB and although Lee wasn’t great during the regular season for texas, he was THE reason the Rangers made it to the world series in the playoffs, so it turned out positive for JD.