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SAN DIEGO – After three days and nearly a billion dollars-worth of spending, the winter meetings ended Thursday morning with the annual mad scramble for the airport.
The Rangers packed a couple of trinkets – a left-handed reliever coming back from Japan and a minor league center fielder with a fabulous name - but they missed out on pulling one of the prized trophy fish from the Big Boras Sea.
And general manager Jon Daniels reaction was, well, blunt in the aftermath of losing out on Anthony Rendon to the Los Angeles Angels.
“It’s the same as everybody associated with the team, with our fans and our players and all of us,” Daniels said. “We’re disappointed. We made a big offer, but at the end of the day, but he got a better offer and went somewhere he preferred to be. I respect that. But, I’m not going to sugarcoat it: It sucks. That was our preferred path.”
Ultimately, Rendon got seven years and $245 million from the Angels. It was the exact same contract that Stephen Strasburg, also repped by Boras, got from Washington to kick off the meetings. Perhaps Strasburg’s deal should have been a signal to other teams about what it would take to get Rendon. If so, the Rangers didn’t heed it.
According to three sources, the club never moved off six guaranteed years in their offer to Rendon. One source said the Rangers did discuss a vesting option for a seventh year, but Rendon had reportedly already received a guaranteed seven-year deal from Washington to kick off the offseason. That seemed to be the most realistic starting line. The Rangers, it seems, were either betting on the lure of coming “home” to Texas, that dollars go farther in Texas or some combination of both.
It led me to asking Daniels this, then: Did the Rangers misread the market on Rendon?
“No,” said Daniels, who preemptively added that he would not discuss any specifics of the Rangers offer to Rendon. “He’s a star player who was heavily pursued by some clubs with means to make big offers and he did very well in a place he wanted to be.”
And now for the next big question: Where do the Rangers go from here?
There are many paths.
Daniels said that a tectonic shift in thinking – and trading off assets – is not really on the board. The Rangers still intend to push forward with trying to get significantly better for 2020. How they do that, though, is where the shift will occur.
Third base is still a need. It is no longer, however, the priority. So, while the Rangers have been in contact with Dan Lozano, the agent for Josh Donaldson, it would be wrong to assume that he’s absolutely the next choice. Donaldson, according to a source, already has a three-year offer on the table from a club. To advance those talks, the Rangers would likely have to be willing to go to four years, which is a risky proposition.
The Rangers, according to two sources, have also spoken with Boras about slugging right-handed hitting outfielder Nicholas Castellanos. Castellanos has played third but is not a third baseman. He is, however, willing to consider playing first base, according to two sources. And the Rangers could use some offensive help at first base. Daniels acknowledged as much on Wednesday, even before the Rendon news broke.
There is a lot to like about this possible alternative for the Rangers. Castellanos turns 28 in March, so he’s younger than the other free agents they have discussed. He’d likely only require a four-year deal, which means there is a good chance he’d be productive throughout the duration and perhaps with his best seasons still to come. Unlike any of the other high-profile bats the Rangers have discussed, he wouldn’t force them to forfeit a draft pick. That’s not a huge consideration, but it still has value. And he’s projected to earn about $60-65 million for his deal, somewhere between $15-16 million per year.
Signing him would still give the Rangers some flexibility to add other pieces to address the multitude of needs they still have: Third base, catcher, perhaps center field. That could come via free agency or the nascent trade market.
“We will address third base,” Daniels said. “I wouldn’t assume that we view the options exactly as they have been portrayed publicly. There is still a lot of time left in the offseason and we’re going to look to continue to improve the offense.
“The trade market hasn’t really picked up yet,” Daniels added. “There are some trade options [that] would have quite frankly made more sense in our mind if we had landed the free agents at the top of our list. I don’t love the idea of half measures. I don’t love the idea of taking a chunk out of the system if it doesn’t really make sense. Trading for somebody with a year or two of control if the club is a little more filled out.”
In other words, it would have made a little more sense if the Rangers had gained momentum at these winter meetings. Needing to take a major step forward for 2020, they have instead made only relatively minor tweaks to a roster in need of significant upgrades.
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December 13, 2019 at 02:45AM
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While others hauled off big trophies, Rangers once again left the winter meetings with trinkets - The Dallas Morning News
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