Sunday hops, 12-15-24.
A weekly compendium emptying the bench, with Rangers developments, rumors, and takes — and yes, a little TROT COFFEY.
Maybe the Astros will substantiate all these rumors and trade for Nolan Arenado, which strikes me as a potential Zeke Elliott move.
Meanwhile, the Rangers are playing an aggressive brand of what looks like a possible dominoes play aimed squarely at winning in 2025.
Front-office work during football season isn’t the ultimate measure of baseball success, obviously — but it sure can work toward maximizing the wins and losses that count the most. This is fun.
And let me self-indulgently say this.
We’re 10 months into this Substack thing, and I don’t think I left room for the possibility that it would be this much of a blast. Loved The Athletic, and (still) love D Magazine, but this back-to-the-old-days format has given me the space (and editorlessness) to send out TROT COFFEY’s multiple times a week (if not multiple times a day) if I feel like it . . . to put together long-form, months-spanning series like the current roster-building exercise . . . to invite you to dive in with me on arrogant excesses like a four-part series predicting trades, free-agent signings, and contract extensions through 2027 . . . to stage interactive trade-proposal bat-arounds . . . to look back and look ahead and get overly sappy . . . to get out to Surprise twice a year and, if I want, to write about it every day . . . to (only occasionally) venture onto other parts of the sports page . . . to drop Sunday columns like this one pulling together lots of Rangers odds and ends that maybe only I find interesting . . . really, to do whatever feels like a good idea (for better or worse) at the time.
Thank you all for helping build this community. I’m digging it. A lot.
No paywall today. Welcome to those of you who haven’t subscribed.
(But not gonna lie: It’d be a lot cooler if you did . . . )
This Week in Roster Reconstruction.
Some big moves and small, and the combination arguably tees some things up:
December 10: LHP Michael Plassmeyer signed to minor league contract
December 11: SS Echedry Vargas, SS Max Acosta, and LHP Brayan Mendoza traded to Marlins for 1B-3B Jake Burger
December 11: RHP Jacob Webb signed for one year and $1.25 million
December 12: RHP Nathan Eovaldi signed for three years and $75 million
December 12: RHP Roansy Contreras designated for assignment
December 14: C Tucker Barnhart (reportedly) signed to minor league contract with invite to major-league spring training
As I speculated yesterday — especially if the Rangers are truly in the mix for free-agent RHP Corbin Burnes (and/or RHP Roki Sasaki) but even if not — the current roster appears to be setting up so that the Rangers could move 2025 contracts like those belonging to pitchers Tyler Mahle ($16.5 million, though just an $11 million luxury tax hit), Jon Gray ($13 million, but $14 million luxury tax dollars), and Dane Dunning ($2.66 million), along with 1B Nathaniel Lowe (projected $10.7 million) and OF Leody Taveras (projected $5.2 million), facilitating other impact additions without creating gaping holes.
(For what it’s worth, MLB Trade Rumors has been projecting $4.3 million for Taveras, while Spotrac is at $5.2 million.)
The Barnhart addition gives the Rangers three established veteran catchers, his a deal that allows Texas to stash him in Triple-A (assuming it doesn’t include opt-outs in or just after camp), which is enviable depth. The presence of Jonah Heim, Kyle Higashioka, and Barnhart also further attenuates the lifeline that Sam Huff has had with the organization, and it seems increasingly likely that Huff’s 40-man roster spot will soon be swapped out for someone else, particularly as the effort to build out the bullpen continues.
Huff will be 27 in January, and is out of minor-league options.
Winter ball update.
Two weeks ago in Hops, I shared the really intriguing development that Ezequiel Duran had nearly as many walks as strikeouts in the Dominican Winter League, and while he’s continued to keep the strikeouts down, the earned free passes have slowed down as well. He’s at 12 walks and 19 strikeouts in 98 Aguilas plate appearances, still a strong walk rate and acceptable K/BB ratio.
But that includes only one walk in his last 36 trips.
Farm stuff.
The Rangers, generally speaking, fared well in Wednesday’s Rule 5 Draft, losing only 26-year-old organizational reliever Ricky DeVito in the minor-league phase to the Marlins. They lost nobody in the major-league phase (unlike the last two years, when they lost RHP Mason Englert [2022] and RHP Justin Slaten [2023]), and added no players in either phase.
The players whom I’d considered above the line when the Rangers were faced with 40-man decisions in November on their draft-eligible players were Acosta, LHP Bryan Magdaleno, RHP Dane Acker, RHP Josh Stephan, and 1B Abimelec Ortiz. (I also included RHP Aidan Curry, LHP Avery Weems, LHP Robby Ahlstrom, 1B Blaine Crim, 3B Cody Freeman, and IF Keyber Rodriguez in a second group of less likely draft candidates.) Aside from Acosta, who went to the Marlins in the Burger trade, all of the above players remain Rangers, and that’s a good thing. Developmentally, they all have major-league possibilities, if not some level of trade value.
A third Marlins note in this section: Miami made C Liam Hicks the second overall pick in the major-league phase of the draft. Texas had sent him to the Tigers, along with RHP Tyler Owens, in the July trade for C Carson Kelly. Detroit added Owens to its 40-man roster in November (as well as RHP Chase Lee, part of the trade involving LHP Andrew Chafin) but not Hicks (or RHP Joseph Montalvo, also from the Chafin trade) exposed, and has now lost Hicks to Miami, as long he makes that club’s Opening Day roster and stays there all season.
Gifts (including for yourself)!
One-stop shopping:
At the Newberg Report store, you can pick up the 2023 Bound Edition, a 190-page book on the Rangers’ World Series season — including forewords from Chris Young and others, and 85 pages of raw, emotional postgame thoughts after every one of the team’s 17 playoff games over those four glorious weeks. (A couple weeks ago, I posted excerpts of all 17 of those postseason write-ups from the Rays, Orioles, Astros, and Diamondbacks series, just to give you a taste of what’s in the book.)
You can also order “Zero Things” T-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts (in all adult and youth sizes), plus caps, coffee mugs, water bottles, tumblers, shot glasses, and tree ornaments at the same website.
Whether ordering books, or merch, or both, you get a 10 percent discount on orders of $75 or more.
As far as subscriptions to this Substack go, there are two opportunities to do something cool as a Rangers fan:
Or give a gift subscription to all the deserving someones on your holiday list — and the gift function allows you to postdate the gift to arrive on any date you choose. You can easily line your family’s and friends’ digital stockings with gift subs now — while setting them up to land on Christmas morning, or whenever.
TROT COFFEY!
We’ve had so much COFFEY this week — see the ICYMI stack below to check back in on any of those — that there’s not a ton to add this morning.
According to Bobby Nightengale (Minnesota Star Tribune), the Twins “have interest in a reunion with Carlos Santana . . . [while] Austin Hays, who played for new Twins hitting coach Matt Borgschulte in Baltimore, could be a fit in the outfield after he was released by the Philadelphia Phillies last month.”
Same. Same.
Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic) mentions LHP Andrew Heaney, as well as ex-Rangers RHP Lance Lynn and RHP Kyle Gibson, as candidates to join the A’s rotation.
When I fielded your trade ideas for a story, subscriber Trey Finley proposed a deal that would have sent 2B Justin Foscue and RHP Winston Santos to the Rays for LHP Jeffrey Springs, to which I concluded my assessment: “I’ve been high man around here on Santos for a year now, but I’m all over this one, if it’s available.” Hard to say whether Texas would have made that deal, or if it would have interested Tampa Bay. The Rays surely believe they can iron out RHP Joe Boyle’s command issues (and RHP prospect Jacob Watters’s as well), and the 1B prospect Will Simpson and the Competitive Balance draft pick after the first round are valuable as well. I’m guessing they would have had to put an extremely high grade on Santos to lean toward Trey’s deal.
Marlins LHP Jesus Luzardo, for whom I spitballed a trade early this year (RHP Emiliano Teodo, 3B Gleider Figuereo, RHP Jack Leiter, and RHP Leandro Lopez to Miami for Luzardo and LHP Andrew Nardi), is on the Cubs’ radar, according to Bob Nightengale (USA Today), who adds that Chicago is also working to move OF-1B Cody Bellinger and looking for help at third base.
Bruce Levine (670TheScore.com) suggests the Marlins “want [a] young controllable bat back” for Luzardo and that 2B James Triantos or OF Owen Caissie “would likely be in the deal.” So if I were to reformulate the above idea, Duran would probably be more useful than, say, Leiter.
Former Rangers 3B Patrick Wisdom signed with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization.
LHP Kyle Muller, a Dallas Jesuit product, signed a Nippon Professional Baseball deal with the Chunichi Dragons.
With all the Bellinger-to-the-Yankees rumors, I’m probably the only baseball nerd, at least locally, who thinks it would be cool since that’s where his father Clay spent most of his brief MLB career.
Building the 2025 Roster.
Speaking of all that COFFEY over the last week, I’d asked your forgiveness in advance on this series, postponing the rotation entry while the Winter Meetings were going on.
I’d debated whether to jump back in and do the rotation installment this week, or instead write a story on the man I consider the Rangers’ Most Intriguing Player. Gonna go with the rotation.
For now, if you want to get caught up, here are the installments we’ve dropped so far:
ICYMI.
Posts since last Sunday’s Hops:
Jamey, to your well-earned “self-indulgent”point, Substack has given me two opportunities as a Rangers fan that I only have because of your Substack - exchanging trade ideas with you and sharing pics of being at the last game in Oakland. That’s interaction I can’t get anywhere else. And yeah, it might have taken Rosario to get Tampa’s attention. Too much, IMO.
Freebies today - this subscription is the best Rangers $ I spend that doesn’t have a seat number attached. Click subscribe.
If you love baseball and haven’t subscribed to Jamey’s Substack, then you are missing out. I don’t think there’s any other place you could get the same information or the sheer volume of Ranger related articles anywhere. It’s money well spent.