The Rangers weren’t the only team to allow players to walk at the non-tender deadline Friday. Around the league, various front offices made their tough decisions and cut players loose, to varying levels of surprise by their fanbases.
With the Rangers’ 40-man roster now down to just 34 players, Texas has some wiggle room to pick up some free agents as the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas rapidly approach. Here’s a list of five players who might fit well in Texas.
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1. Shelby Miller, RHP
He has pitched in just nine big-league games in the last two seasons combined (and wasn’t particularly good in 2016, either), so the former Cardinal and Diamondback (and 2015 All-Star) might be a candidate for the sort of take-a-shot-and-see contract that brought the Rangers Doug Fister, Bartolo Colon, Edinson Volquez, and Mike Minor in 2018. Minor’s season was a success, Colon had a strong first half before fading late, Volquez rehabilitated from Tommy John surgery and expects to pitch in Texas in 2019, and Fister injured his hip and missed most of the season.
He’s not likely to match his 2015 production, but Miller is still just 28, so there’s reason to believe he has a comeback left in there somewhere. If he can be had for a bargain, he could be a low-risk gamble for the Rangers, who need more starting pitching.
2. Hunter Strickland, RHP
Let’s start here: Strickland cost himself a lot of time and money when he punched a wall in June. He wasn’t very good when he returned, posting a 6.59 ERA in 15 games in August and September. So why would the Rangers want to sign him? Because in the 2014-17 seasons, Strickland was a pretty salty closer, posting a 2.64 ERA in 180⅔ innings, striking out 174 and walking 58.
There are some mitigating factors, however. The first could be price: The Rangers aren’t in the market for another high-dollar relief pitcher, so if enough teams jump into the bidding, Texas would probably be out-priced in short order. The second is his demeanor: The wall punch wasn’t the first incident where Strickland’s temper got the best of him. In 2017, nearly three years after Bryce Harper hit two home runs off Strickland in the NLDS, the reliever plunked Harper with a 98 mph fastball, setting off a benches-clearing brawl (which ended Michael Morse’s career due to a concussion). It’s possible the Rangers — who are cultivating a crop of young relief pitchers — might see Strickland’s influence as a concern.
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3. Kendall Graveman, RHP
If it seems like you’re detecting a trend, you’re right. Graveman is another right-handed pitcher returning from injury. Graveman’s is a bit more recent: He underwent Tommy John surgery in July and is expected to miss most of the 2019 season. But — as Texas has seen first-hand on a number of occasions — Graveman can be nasty when he’s healthy. If the price is right, Texas might continue the recent trend of preemptively signing TJ-recovering pitchers (as they did with Volquez before the 2018 season) and allowing them to rehab for the first year under the team’s medical staff.
Graveman’s success against the Rangers (2.57 ERA in 10 career starts) could be the reason he’s so high on this list; truth be told, the righty has a career record of 23-29 with a 4.38 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP, so it’s not like he has Volquez’s track record, and Texas might not want to invest a year’s worth of dead salary just to see what he has in 2020. But with the 40-man at just 34 players, they currently have the wiggle room to do it, should the price be reasonable.
4. Cory Gearrin, RHP
Gearrin had success in his brief stint with the Rangers in 2018. He came over with Jason Bahr in the unconventional Austin Jackson trade in early July, then was shipped to the A’s on Aug. 31 for two Panamanian minor-league pitchers. In between, he pitched well in high-leverage situations for the Rangers. It’s not inconceivable that he might become the second pitcher who was traded away from Texas in 2018 to return as a free agent in 2019 (Jesse Chavez, who signed for two years and $8m, was the first).
5. Billy Hamilton, CF
Yes, his on-base percentage has been below .300 for four of his five big-league seasons. Yes, the Rangers already have a speed-first outfielder in Delino DeShields. And yes, Hamilton is 28, so his speed is only going to keep him in the league for so much longer. But if you’re hoping to improve your outfield defense, it’s hard to imagine you’ll find anyone quite so tantalizing as Hamilton (though there’s no chance he would be as successful as the first Hamilton to come from Cincinnati and play CF for the Rangers). He’s probably a fourth outfielder at this point, and with DeShields already in the fold, there may not be a fit for the speedster in Arlington. But if Texas should trade one of their Shin-Soo Choo/Willie Calhoun/Nomar Mazara/Joey Gallo/Ronald Guzmán corner-lefty quintet, it might make sense to bring in Hamilton and let him patrol the late-inning outfield for the 2019 Rangers.
Those aren’t the only five names available, of course. With Robinson Chirinos gone and the 35-year-old Jeff Mathis unlikely to catch 120 games, it’s possible Texas might want to poke around and see what it would cost to bring in James McCann, Caleb Joseph, Juan Graterol, or Chris Herrmann, all set adrift by their teams this week. Of course, that probably depends on how the team feels about Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s ability to catch on a more regular basis, or Jose Trevino’s healthy (non-throwing) shoulder and bat (or all of the above).
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Likewise, maybe Texas dips a little deeper into the pitching market and ponies up for Mike Fiers or Luis Avilán. It’s not hard to imagine they might take a flier on former Angels Blake Parker or Matt Shoemaker, either. And remember: these names don’t represent the entirety of the free-agent market; these are just guys who became free agents as a result of being non-tendered by their teams on Friday. And Texas could still drastically change their roster via trade.
However it happens, December is shaping up to be an interesting month for the Texas Rangers as their 2019 roster begins to take shape.
(Photo of Shelby Miller: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
