The Art of Moving On

I still remember the exact seat that she sat in. I was six, and I was both frustrated and impressed that a girl was the fastest kid in my kindergarten class. I couldn’t outrun her, and I was in awe of her. So one day after recess, heart beating fast from the latest footrace lost and from the bold move I was about to pull off, I walked to the center row, five seats back, and placed a single yellow dandelion on her desk as I passed.

Or at least that was the plan. She had beaten me to her seat—this should surprise no one who read the first paragraph—and saw me coming. The ill-fated token hardly had time to land on her desk before she swept it aside and met my eyes with a scowl. My shoulders slumped and I quietly sat down three seats further back.

But here I am, thirty-odd years later, and I can’t even remember her name. I remember the aisle, I remember the seat, and I remember the hot blood of embarrassment rushing into my face when the rejection came. But I don’t remember her name. The wound—while mortifying—was not mortal.

You’ve probably gathered by now that we’re talking about Shohei Ohtani. Or more specifically, the Rangers’ unrequited pursuit of the Japanese superstar who eventually chose the Angels—the Angels, how could he? Doesn’t he know how they swept Josh Hamilton aside and rebuffed Adrian Beltre? We would have been so good to him!

Fortunately for Ranger fans, Jon Daniels is not a forlorn kindergartner. In fact, he says that while the decision was disappointing, it hasn’t really set the Rangers back in their offseason plans. “It really hasn’t. We never counted on it, we never planned for– well, we planned how we would make a pitch, and we planned how—if it happened—we could work out some of the logistic and details with the club, but at no point could you realistically assume that you were going to get him, or plan anything around it. It was such a unique process with so little feedback that I don’t think any of the seven clubs—or the thirty before that—sat there and mapped out their offseasons around it; you’d be foolish to.”

So with that hopeful diversion now a path untaken, it’s time to get down to the business of moving on.

But Daniels isn’t keen to make a free-agent splash out of emotion or reaction (“If it fits our plan, great,” he said in our meeting. “(but) if it doesn’t, I think that’s the most dangerous thing you could try to do is make a move with headlines in mind.”). Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Rangers currently have just four starters: Cole Hamels, Martin Perez, Doug Fister, and Mike Minor. The question now is if the Rangers are going to add to the back of the rotation or the front. The answer to that doesn’t necessarily come down to price alone, Daniels says, but to how well the market price lines up with the value the team puts on a player. “Everybody would like to have their cake and eat it too,” Daniels mused when asked about adding a top-of-the-rotation starter. “Every club would like that. Great players with no medical risk and cheap contracts. Throw in good makeup. But the reality is, you just can’t fill out your roster at every spot that way. Sometimes when you think you have…” Daniels paused and shrugged a shrug that let out a Prince-Fielder-shaped-ghost “…you still haven’t. So we’re trying to evaluate everyone on their individual merits, on how we value them; we’re not trying to buy a label.”

Pressed on whether the team has the budget for a top-line starter, should the market and the team agree on value, Daniels put it this way “If there was a starter out that that we felt not just fits that (ace) description, but fits our club, short- and long- term, we wouldn’t rule it out. But we’re not sitting here saying we’re going to do everything possible to get a starter that carries that label.”

Daniels isn’t going to come right out and tell us who Plan B is, whether that’s via free agency or trade, but that’s why you have us! Here are six five possible rebound free agents (and one trade target) the Rangers might be considering as they march ever onward toward Spring Training:

1. Yu Darvish
It’s always the most obvious fit when you know what you’re getting and the player knows where he’s going. The questions are multitude, though: How much is Darvish going to cost? Did going to Los Angeles give him a new (and more critical) perspective on his time as a Ranger? Does he value playing close to the home he and his wife have made in North Texas? No one knows but Darvish, but if his price comes down near the $20m/year range, Daniels & co. might be tempted to pounce, especially given a fair amount of time to plan and become more amenable to the idea of a six-man rotation, an arrangement for which Darvish has publicly stated his preference.

2. Jake Arrieta
The TCU alum could be the third former Horned Frog to return to Tarrant County in as many years, after catcher Bryan Holaday in 2016 and Andrew Cashner last season. Holaday was a reasonable backup, and Cashner was a bigger success than most expected. Arrieta is perhaps the second-biggest name on the starting pitching market, but the soon-to-be-32-year-old’s numbers have declined in each of the last two seasons after winning the NL Cy Young award in 2015 with the Cubs. That’s not to say he was bad: 2016 saw him going 18-8 and leading the league for the second consecutive year in hits allowed per 9 innings. It’s easy to point to his strikeouts dropping from 236 in 2015 to 190 in 2016, then to 163 last season. But the more concerning number is that his K/9 stayed pretty consistent (9.3, 8.7, 8.7)—he just pitched fewer innings each season (229, 197⅓, 168⅓). The most concerning number? After allowing just 10 home runs in 2015, he allowed 16 in 2016 and 23 last season. Of the first four names listed here, Arrieta had the lowest WAR in 2017. Like Darvish, Arrieta is a big name that probably has enough red flags to avoid paying big-name money, but if you can get him at a bargain…

3. Alex Cobb
Cobb has spent his entire big-league career playing in the mysterious uncharted swamps of …Hmmm… I’ve heard of Tempe, but this isn’t spelled exactly the same way. Tam-pa? Anyway, no one has ever been there, and we only have charts to go by. In addition, Cobb missed all of the 2015 season and most of the 2016 season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was awful when he returned in 2016, exploding into an 8.59 ERA in five starts, but 2017 was a nice turnaround for the Florida native. He started 29 games, striking out 128 (against 44 walks) and ended the season with a 3.66 ERA and a 1.221 WHIP. Cobb isn’t Ohtani, and he’s not Darvish, but he might be—at least when 2018’s numbers are all added up—Arrieta, and at a presumably cheaper price.

4. Lance Lynn
The upside? Let’s start with his Baseball-Reference photo:

This is a man who has tasted hell in the midwest plains, glazed with the dust of a dozen harsh summers. The stare is a byproduct of a memory he can’t drink away—the sound of that wagon what sent four of his kin to meet their maker. He would know the feel of his .45 by the dust-driven pockmarks in the handle, even if there weren’t twelve notches from his bowie knife. He was a marshall once, in his younger days, before he lost hope in the inherent goodness of mankind. The outlaw Bill Boster saw to that. He looks down at the scar on his left arm where the bullet grazed him. A mercy of millimeters that wasn’t afforded to many that day. He steels what is left of his spirit and peers in. Fastball.

Downside: Lynn has a 2011 World Series ring. The last two times the Rangers tried that, it didn’t go so well.

Jokes aside, Lynn is a really good pitcher. He has a career ERA of 3.38 and 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings for his career (3.4 walks/9). Like Darvish and Arrieta, the question isn’t “can he contribute”, it’s “how much will it cost for him to contribute to the Rangers instead of some other team?”

5. Mike Fiers
The former Astro was non-tendered this offseason, and isn’t as flashy a name as the four above, but he’s a reasonable addition for a fifth (or sixth?) starter option, and his Ks/9 is actually just a notch above Lynn’s (8.6) even if his BB/9 is likewise a bit higher (3.6). The biggest difference between Fiers and Lynn is the hits per nine (8.8 for Fiers, 8.4 for Lynn) and home runs per nine (1.4 for Fiers, 0.8 for Lynn). But if the difference in price is substantial, you can probably squint until Fiers looks like a reasonable facsimile of Lynn (on the field, not in the old west). I missed it, you guys! Mike Fiers already signed with the Tigers. Thanks to Adam Morris at lonestarball for the heads-up.

6. Andrew Cashner
Hey, he was really good last year. His locker in Arlington still has all his stuff in it. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just come back and be that guy again?

7. Gerrit Cole
At one point, Cole was in the conversation with Madison Bumgarner as part of the next wave of elite NL pitchers. He finished 4th in NL Cy Young voting in 2015 when he went 19-8 and struck out 202 hitters in 208 innings. But he missed a month in 2016 and the Pirates eventually shut him down in early September. Last season, he was back up to 203 innings (and 196 strikeouts) but posted career-worsts in ERA, hits, runs, and home runs per nine innings. Cole made $3.75m in 2017 and is arbitration-eligible, but is under team control for three more seasons. The question is the cost: the Pirates are currently sporting a depth chart with Jordy Mercer at the top of the shortstop pile, so perhaps Jurickson Profar could be part of a deal, but his value has plummeted in the last few years. At this point, he would be an add-on to a much more painful deal. Would Profar, Nomar Mazara, and a lower-level prospect to dream on get the deal done?

Of course, there are a few dozen options, and this article is long enough already. Here’s my official guess: I’ll hit post on this article and then news will break that Texas has traded for Robbie Ray and the ghost of Jimmy Nelson’s anterior labrum.