A closer look.
If you were hunting for the category under which to file November 20, 2013’s trade of Ian Kinsler to Detroit for Prince Fielder and $30 million, you could probably stick it in the “High Profile” stack.
Hours before Texas and Detroit pulled that deal off, the Rangers made player personnel news that instead probably belonged in the category “Etc.”
November 20 is the date most years when clubs have to add draft-eligible minor league players to their 40-man rosters in order to make sure they’re not lost in December via Rule 5. Earlier that day in 2013, before trading Kinsler for Fielder, the Rangers added Luis Sardinas, Lisalverto Bonilla, and Ben Rowen to the roster, and outrighted Edwar Cabrera to clear more space.
But they also added a player that the Dodgers had designated for assignment earlier that week, apparently to make room on their own roster for minor league pitchers Yimi Garcia, Pedro Baez, and Jarret Martin.
Because of the way off-season claim priority works, the Astros had the first shot to claim 25-year-old righthander Shawn Tolleson when the Dodgers ran him onto the waiver wire. But they didn’t.
The Marlins could have claimed Tolleson, who’d logged 37.2 big league innings before missing most of the 2013 season due to back surgery. But they didn’t.
The White Sox could have claimed Tolleson, who still had two options, but didn’t.
The Cubs and the Twins and the Mariners and the Phillies and the Rockies and the Blue Jays and the Brewers and the Mets and the Giants and the Padres and the Angels and the Diamondbacks and the Yankees and the Orioles and the Royals and the Nationals and the Reds could have put in a claim on Shawn Tolleson, but none of them did.
Texas, which won 91 games in 2012 and had to wait behind 20 teams in the waiver line, claimed the Allen High School and Baylor University product, whom the Dodgers had decided a few days earlier to try and sneak through waivers to make sure, for instance, that they could roster Martin — whom they’d designate for assignment one year later without so much as a big league appearance.
We’ve passed the quarter mark of the 2015 season, and though Jeff Banister hasn’t named a closer since Neftali Feliz ceded the role, Tolleson has as many saves (two) as unintentional walks, and he’s punched out 26 hitters in 19.2 frames.
Tolleson has struck out 32.9 percent of the hitters he’s faced. Feliz: 17.9 percent.
Outs on the ground: 1.29 for every out in the air. Feliz: 0.54.
You can argue about which team Fielder (.340/.397/.488, five home runs, signed through 2020) and Kinsler (.309/.383/.400, zero home runs, signed through 2017) tilt the scales in favor of at this point, with Texas paying $19.7 million per year and Detroit $23 million per year for the duration of its new player’s deal, but it’s pretty clear that Fielder is one of the Rangers’ most important and most productive players right now.
As is Shawn Tolleson, who may not have made the Rangers’ biggest headline on November 20, 2013, but whose acquisition was clearly a pretty big deal.