The Rangers have ramped up their interest on free agent center fielder Lorenzo Cain acording to mulitple sources. That makes perfect sense since the Rangers already have five outfielders and desperatly need pitching. The thirty-something year old Cain has been good, not great. He would be a nice right handed bat to add to the line up, but it just doesn’t make sense.
The Rangers continue telling us that Delino Deshields is on his way to being a premiere center fielder, then they continue to block him in center field. It may make more sense if Shin-Soo Choo was about to exit, but he still has years left on his contract. They have Deshields, Choo, Nomar Mazara, Ryan Rua, Joey Gallo and Willie Calhoun all in the outfield. That is already six guys for three spots. Joey could move to everyday first base, and Rua could back him up there, but that still leaves four guys.
Adrian Beltre is going into the last year of his contract. Elvis Andrus could opt out after the 2018 season. Cole Hamels is on the back side of his career, and so is Doug Fister. They don’t have a closer, or a great bullpen. This team has a plethora of needs, and I would not put center field anywhere near the top.
While I think Cain is a good player and would be a good addition under the right circumstances, I would much rather see the return of Yu Darvish and another pitcher or two to help in the rotation and bullpen than Cain. It makes little to no sense to be pursuing him at this time.
