Rangers change plans and open checkbook

The Texas Rangers they spent and hired more talent than can be remembered including the organization’s best times between 2010 and 2011 or combined in the entire team during the last five losing seasons.

Rangers agreed to shortstop contract Corey seager, for 10 seasons and $ 325 million; second base Marcus semien, seven years and 175 million dollars; the gardener Kole Calhoun, four seasons and $ 5.2 million, and the pitcher Jon gray, for four years and $ 56 million.

And it is still likely that the account will continue to rise. Manager Chris Woodward has repeatedly stated publicly that they are doing everything they can to make the three-time Cy Young Trophy winner and “prodigal son” of Dallas-Fort Worth, Clayton kershaw, agree to play for the team you grew up idolizing, the Rangers.

The proprietary group that bought the Rangers a decade ago seems to have finally convinced themselves that the supposed farm-based rebuilding project, which has gone up and down every year for at least six years, has been a complete failure.

For the past three years, manager Woodward has had to deal with players who are far from MLB ready or veterans who no longer have anything else to offer at baseball’s highest level.

The owners, led by Davis, are going to spend this offseason more than the 593 million dollars they paid for the franchise in 2010, in order to stop the free fall that this team has experienced and that bottomed out in 2021 with 102 losses, the most in remembrance since moving to Arlington, Texas, in 1971.

Perhaps it is the pressure of a hobby that got used to winning between 2008 and 2015. But it is more likely that it is also caused by the demand to retaliate a new, spectacular ball park, with maximum technology and above all, very expensive, which it has been paid in part by the voters of the region through their taxes.

It has been a shame the way the Rangers have played baseball and the results in the first two seasons of their Globe Life Field history and where the only ones who have been crowned there are Los angeles dodgersIn 2020, when Corey Seager was the MVP of the World Series and Championship Series, and where Kershaw, who lives less than 30 miles away, could well have been.

The $ 325 million on Seager’s contract represents the most the Rangers have ever spent on a player, up from the $ 252 million on Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year contract between 2000 and 2001, which at the time caused hysteria.

It is the sixth most expensive contract in Major League history for any team, which added to Semien’s contract results in $ 500 million, the highest number in history between shortstop and second base, and that could convert to the middle of the Rangers cadre in the best defense and offense in all of baseball.

The foundations are in place, but Texas needs more than those four players and to make decisions with some that it had committed to in recent years, in the absence of high-profile players, such as the Golden Glove infielder, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who is unlikely to have a place in ownership. Rangers top prospect Josh Jung plays third base.

Also lacking in speed and hitting in the outfield, despite Calhoun’s recent signing, and pitching in the rotation and bullpen, regardless of whether or not Kershaw decides on the Rangers.

It’s obvious that a team that finished 35 games behind its division leader needs just about everything. But one step at a time …

The main motivation for his very skeptical fans must be that Chris Young in his second offseason as general manager, it seems that he is finally taking control and credibility with the owners that it seems that Jon Daniels, president of baseball operations, has lost completely.