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Rangers Mailbag? Rangers Mailbag (Including Cole Hamels Beard Talk?)

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I haven’t ever done a mailbag before, mostly because of my own sense of inadequacy. Imposter syndrome is real, and every day that I cover the Rangers, I’m acutely aware that I’m the guy in the (clubhouse, manager’s office, Winter Meetings) who knows the least about baseball. Spending a decade as a musician before you take the job will put you at a bit of a deficit. But I just spent a week talking baseball with some very smart people, including a half-hour a day or so when we got to pepper Jon Daniels with questions. So perhaps it’s time. Let’s do a mailbag?

A month ago, I would have—with no hesitation—said Delino DeShields. The Rangers needed so much pitching that it didn’t seem like they would have the ability to add anything to the offense. But after the Rangers picked up Minor / Fister / Moore for relatively cheap, they do have the option to at least consider adding a position player. It all comes down to where they want to play Joey Gallo. Texas could acquire a first baseman, put Gallo in left field, and let Willie Calhoun start the season in AAA. Or they could get a left fielder, keep Gallo at first, and keep Calhoun in AAA. Or they could get a plus-plus defensive center fielder, move DeShields to left, keep Gallo at first, and keep Calhoun in AAA -OR- they could do any of the above, trade Shin-Soo Choo, and put Willie at DH full-time. As you can see, there are still a lot of moving parts.

Daniels did stress that one thing the Rangers wanted to emphasize in any position-player additions is defense, which leads me to believe that DeShields might eventually still find himself in left, rather than center—he has improved enough to be a good left fielder. Carlos Tocci is a plus defensive center fielder, but his ability to hit at the big-league level is a complete unknown. Lorenzo Cain will cost too much, and while the “plus-defensive center fielder” trade market is topped by three notables—Billy Hamilton, Ender Enciarte, and Kevin Kiermaier—all three are left-handed hitters. Adam Engel can defend, but probably won’t hit much better than Tocci. Kevin Pillar might be a good fit, but his on-base percentage is woefully low, and anyway I’m not sure Rangers fans are ready to forgive this just yet:

That’s a lot of words to say: I still think it’s Delino DeShields.

If the Rangers don’t make any more changes, I think it goes like this:
CF – Delino DeShields
DH – Shin-Soo Choo
3B – Adrian Beltre
1B – Joey Gallo
2B – Rougned Odor
SS – Elvis Andrus
RF – Nomar Mazara
LF – Willie Calhoun
C – Robinson Chirinos

But I put these questions in this order for a reason, so let’s quickly move on to the next one:

That lineup up there goes: R, L, R, L, L, R, L, L, R. Five lefties and four righties. The Rangers are a little too left-handed, but it’s easy to overlook the right-handed bats because three of them—Beltre, Andrus, and Chirinos—aren’t part of any off-season questions. We know that (barring injuries) Andrus and Beltre are the left side of the infield, and Chirinos is the catcher.

The bench probably looks something like Brett Nicholas(L)-or-Juan Centeno(L) / Carlos Tocci (R) / Jurickson Profar (S), with Drew Robinson (L) and Ryan Rua (R) doing their best to change that.

In short, the Rangers lean left-handed, but it’s not as desperate as it feels when you focus only on the uncertainties of the lineup.

I don’t think the Rangers rush a move. If they can grab J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins for something commensurate to the robbery that the Cardinals committed in getting Ozuna, that would be a nice upgrade, but it wouldn’t flip a position from left-handed to right-handed. Rougned Odor’s trade value is in the basement right now. Choo could go, but if he does, I suspect it will be for pitching.

If you’re looking at a straight flip trade scenario, one I could maybe see working is Nomar Mazara (and then some) for Avisail Garcia. Garcia—who, like Odor, Chirinos, Martin Perez, and Tocci, is from Venezuela—is 26, also plays right field, and isn’t making a ton of money. Mazara is younger and cheaper, but I still think it would take some significant throw-in to land Garcia, who is coming off a season in which he hit .330 and was an All-Star.

I don’t mean to be short, but the questions are piling up, so: Stubbs is 33 and hit .091 at the big-league level last season for about twice the league minimum in salary.

They have been frugal enough that they could probably afford something, but I tend to think that the price on the top-tier starters right now is richer than they feel comfortable spending on. I think it’s more likely that they use their budget flexibility to work out a trade for a top-tier starter, as they were reportedly trying to do with Zack Greinke.

They already signed one of them! Yenci Peña, the 17 year old Dominican shortstop. The Rangers have also signed two 16-year-old kids from Jamaica, SS Keithron Moss and OF D’Vaughn Knowles. I know they have done their due diligence on Julio Pablo Martinez, as well. Martinez is a 21-year-old CF from Cuba, and as we all know, Texas has a pretty hefty amount of money to spend, if they should so choose.

The Rangers (like most clubs) are notoriously tight-lipped about this process, so it’s all conjecture until they sign. I will say that Texas was not as high on Kevin Maitan as other clubs (including the Angels, who signed him), so they didn’t feel too terrible about missing out on him.


It all depends on how optimistic you are. I do think the Rangers need (and will get) one more top of the rotation starter. If they do, I think anything from 90 losses to 95 wins would not shock me. Honestly, that’s kind of exciting. If you know the team is going to be terrible, booooooo. If you know the team is going to be good, it’s not as exciting when they are, and even worse when they stumble. But this? This is a choose-your-own-adventure book!

YEP. 


If you read Dave Raymond’s Writer’s Room article and didn’t at least get choked up, I think that would be a much bigger indictment.

Trick question: we would all be dead by the time it ended. So, too, would our ancestors. The unfinished books we would begin to write about it would crumble in limbo, their papers and hard drives long since fallen into the dust of empires forged and razed.

I wish I knew. I know I haven’t seen him at any of the promotional events this off-season, and he was at nearly all of them last off-season. But perhaps that’s more to do with him having a new baby to help take care of. I do think Profar is tired of not being a full-time player and in the big leagues, but he’s out of options now, so it’s time. If the team needed him to actually play, I think he’d be happy just to finally be playing.

These are questions for White Elephant day.

Feels like this needs a whole article, but my short answer is that people are afraid of change.

1. Close Cole. Okay, that’s too close.

We haven’t seen this one much since he got to Texas. As a fellow mid-30s thin-build guy, however, I can confidently say that this is not our best look. We look older and more gaunt.

2. Classic Cole. And we’re off.

This is all the shorter it needs to go, Cole. Plus, with this look, you will never again suffer the wrath of razor-burn. Also, Hamels is incredibly smart (he scored a 1510 on his SAT) and the stubble helps hide the inner nerd. Slap some cool on that face, man. You’re good to go.

3. Cool Hand Cole. Please do not look him in the eye

Peak beard. Once it gets to this length, Hamels might as well be wearing a duster and spurs, sauntering in from a dust-ridden street and making the townsfolk nervous as he communicates only in knowing nods from across the saloon.

4. Cole Miner

Whoa, there, Cole– you’ve  flown too close to the sun. A little beard? Good! A little more beard? Great! A little mooooorrrre beard and now that old west drifter has drifted into the rust belt. Just below the frame in the above picture is a sawed-off shotgun as Hamels stares down the horde of post-apocalyptic zombies encroaching on his West Virginia trailer park. The guy in photo 3 is the star of the movie and survives this scene. The guy in photo 4 comes back three scenes later, twitching and asking for braaaaaaains.

 

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