4:21pm: The Rangers have now formally announced the addition of McAllister on a one-year deal. Their 40-man roster is now full, meaning they’ll need to make a corresponding move once Asdrubal Cabrera’s reported one-year agreement becomes official.
3:55pm: The Rangers are in agreement on a one-year, Major League contract with veteran right-handed reliever Zach McAllister, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Excel Sports client will earn a $1MM salary in 2019, and Fancred’s Jon Heyman tweets that he can boost his earnings via an incentives package.
McAllister, 31, struggled through an awful 2018 campaign with the Indians and Tigers, posting a combined 6.20 ERA in 45 innings of relief between the two clubs. He did turn in a quality 39-to-10 K/BB ratio in that time, though, and McAllister’s 95.3 mph average fastball velocity was as strong as ever. Additionally, he actually made some gains in swinging-strike rate and particularly on his opponents’ chase rate on out-of-zone pitches.
It’s also worth noting that McAllister was a quality reliever for Cleveland from 2015-17, during which time he turned in a 2.99 ERA with 10.0 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9 through 183 1/3 innings of work. Texas has plenty of open spots in its relief corps behind closer Jose Leclerc and the re-signed Jesse Chavez, so it’s not all that surprising to see the organization add an affordable veteran arm. If McAllister can successfully rebound to his 2015-17 form, he’d presumably become a trade asset for the Rangers this summer.
The Rangers organization has yet to announce the move, but Texas did announce a trio of minor league signees today — right-handers Taylor Guerrieri and Michael Tonkin, as well as catcher Tony Sanchez. Each will be invited to Major League Spring Training. Tonkin’s addition was already covered here at MLBTR earlier this month.
Guerrieri, 26, made his MLB with the Blue Jays this past season but only appeared in nine games, totaling 9 2/3 innings with a 4.66 ERA (five runs allowed). A former first-round pick and top prospect with the Rays, Guerrieri’s career has been slowed by injury — most notably including Tommy John surgery in 2013. He’s also served a 50-game suspension in the minor leagues (for a “drug of abuse” as opposed to a performance-enhancing substance). Guerrieri has pitched to a 3.31 ERA in parts of two Double-A seasons (182 innings) but has not yet found much in the way of success in Triple-A or the Majors.
Sanchez, now 30 years of age, was a first-rounder himself back in ’09 but has appeared in just 52 big league games with a .257/.301/.375 slash to his name through 156 plate appearances. He’s a career .253/.340/.403 hitter in nearly 2000 Triple-A plate appearances, though, and he’ll give Texas some depth behind 40-man options that include Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Jeff Mathis and Jose Trevino. Jett Bandy, too, will be in camp with the Rangers as a non-roster invitee.
Big bounce back candidate! So far, my favorite fit a deadline flip! Rangers make a good one! We like, a lot?
Really? He’ll be in the IR with a stiff neck from watching balls launched…
He was great for 3 years prior to 1 terrible season. I don’t think a bounce back is out of the question.
Even at his best, I still thought he was overrated and his numbers weren’t fully indicative of the type of pitcher he was.
I haven’t looked at any stats to prove or disprove this, but he seemed like the least clutch pitcher in the Indians’ bullpen. He was fine in middle relief or garbage time, but it always seemed like if he came on in a key moment he’d give up a run or two.
He is making 1 million plus incentives… as a collective group, I believe is Ranger fans know we didn’t just sign Kimbrel. The 8th, 7th, 6th,5th, and heck even the 4th inning matter too. Not every signing has the be a star.
Bingo!
No, he wasn’t. As soon as he had to go into situations with pressure, he was exposed. He can’t locate his fastball and he doesn’t have very good secondary pitches. Francona never used him in leverage situations for a reason.
You shut up right now Modified_6. These kind of low risk signings are only to be met with scorn around here. If you did not excel in the most recent season then you are “garbage”. I actually think that teams should release all players that don’t make the allstar team in July. We don’t want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy who aint won no games lately
Well, there is a lot to be said for releasing McCalister during a year where the Indians had one of the worst bullpens in the AL, not to mention several injuries within their pen.
Hehehehe. Yeppers!
Maybe if there was an IR in baseball.
Ahhh, the 2018-19 off-season refrain…….
“They’ll flip ’em at the deadline!”
So that makes 82 guys to be flipped, and ST is still 3 weeks away.
By the way, who’s going to trade for all these guys?
Well, I could use some help cleaning my garage …
I agree! I don’t like them all for a flip job, but, in my opinion, McAllister is the real deal top flip job candidate.
Knock on him? Poor under pressure, great mop up inning guy. In Texas, mash bash all homer team tells me they’ll either be way behind or way ahead many games. A lot? Yes, McAllister could grip it and rip it to fancy stats that attract contender consideration. Net Texas maybe a promising single A stud or two.
Rangers all about that bounce back.
Classic rangers move
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Jon Daniels built a pair of pennant winning teams in 2010 and 2011 with exactly these types of acquisitions.
No one expected that 2010 Rangers team to compete for a World Series. They did so with a roster that wasn’t all that dissimilar from the one they’ll field this year. They just hung around in the race until the deadline when they could bolster their roster with a big trade.
I’m actually really glad Daniels is back to making the types of high-upside, low-risk moves he’s best at. It was when he departed from that sustainable winning philosophy with the Prince Fielder trade and Shin-Soo Choo signing that the trajectory of the organization changed.
I’m thrilled to see JD making “classic rangers moves” again.
This is a win win move. He plays well, flip him. He sucks you only lost a million.
If only he could throw a curveball…..
Zach has two pitches: hard and harder.
I really like what the Texas Rangers have done. They know they’re not gonna contend this year so they’ve taken on signing a bunch of guys that if they perform well they can be big trade deadline chips. Good strategy.
When CLE released Joba (who never appeared for another MLB team in the regular season) it should’ve been this guy. Joba had a 2.25 ERA, yet CLE (still) released him, Zach had worse stats than Joba, but kept cuz he was young. I blame this guy for Joba’s early retirement lol. Joba> Zach even today
Yankees, remember?
And Tigers
@steveadams “drug of abuse” is for using illegal drugs, i.e. marijuana, from what i understand.
The Rangers are being quite serious about following the rules and fielding (technically) a major league caliber team: Zach’s arm is still attached, he can throw the ball 60′ 6″ and he’s too good for AAA, so he qualifies.