The Rangers have decided not to pick up the options on Scott Feldman and Yoshi Tatyama. This comes as no big surprise to Rangers fans, but don’t think that this is the end of Feldman. They could still offer him a contract, and I believe that they probably will. I think he will decline it however, since he wants to be a starter and that opportunity will not present itself here in Texas.
Rangers have cut ties with Dave Barnett and wished him the best in the future. They will stick with Nadel/Hicks on the Radio side and Busby/Grieve on the T.V. side.
The Rangers are switching Gary Pettis and Dave Anderson. In 2013, Dave will be at first base and Gary will handle the third base duties. “”Our base running fell a little bit short this year and Gary has been our main guy,” Washington said. “Gary was a very daring baserunner as a player, he was a very instinctive baserunner, and I think he’ll help our guys trust their instincts. I trust his instincts on the base paths, and I know our players will trust him. I think we can use his base running instincts better on the other side.” (Texas Rangers website) Just an attempt by the Rangers to fix the base running woes that they had during the season.
Alexi Ogando moves back to the rotation where he has said multiple times that he wants to be. In my opinion this improves the Rangers rotation which will now includes Darvish, Harrison, Holland, Ogando and one more. Lewis will be back at some point during the season and so will Feliz, but I believe that Feliz will be back in the pen when comes back. Ogando will have all off-season to work and I think he will be ready.
The Rangers have made Josh Hamilton a qualifying offer of $13.3 million. When Napoli stepped up for his the Rangers said “not so fast”. Jon Daniels does want him back though, just not as the third highest paid catcher in the AL. “We’d like to have Mike back, but not at that predetermined figure…” Daniels said on Friday. Hamilton is not expected to take the offer and will test free agency. I do not believe that he will return to the Rangers. More later.
