Rangers Notes: Cactus League Wrap-Up

Former TCU Horned Frog Bryan Holaday will join the Rangers in Arlington this weekend for their exhibition games against Cleveland.

Amid the usual flurry of in-house roster moves that accompanies the end of spring training, Texas dealt catcher Bobby Wilson and right-handed pitcher Myles Jaye to Detroit on Tuesday in exchange for 28-year-old backstop Bryan Holaday.

A Dallas native who attended W.T. White High School before playing for TCU, Holaday is expected to be on the club’s Opening Day roster as the primary backup to Robinson Chirinos. Chris Gimenez had been penciled into the backup role all spring, but an ankle infection has put his status in jeopardy.

Holaday was facing an uphill battle for playing time as a member of the Tigers, with starting catcher Brian McCann and free-agent signee Jarrod Saltalamacchia both ahead of him on the depth chart.

Since he was out of minor-league options, Holaday would have needed to clear waivers if Detroit wanted to outright him to Triple-A – a scenario that was unlikely after he batted an impressive .438 with four home runs and 12 runs batted in across just 16 Grapefruit League games this spring.

The Rangers were reported to have explored trades for Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy as well as San Diego’s Derek Norris during the offseason, but nothing ever came to fruition with those teams.

Left-handed reliever Sam Freeman was designated for assignment in order to clear a spot for Holaday on the 40-man roster.

A.J. Griffin (who has not pitched in a major-league game since 2013) appears to have won the competition for the fifth spot in the Texas rotation, although the ballclub has not made any official announcement to that end.

In-house contenders Chi Chi Gonzalez and Nick Tepesch were sent to the minors last Friday, and non-roster invitee Jeremy Guthrie was granted his release on Monday after learning he would not be in the rotation to start the season.

Right-hander Nick Martinez was then optioned to Triple-A Round Rock on Tuesday afternoon, leaving Griffin as the last man standing in a race that saw no candidate emerge as a clear front-runner.

Also Tuesday, infielder Pedro Ciriaco was re-assigned to the team’s minor-league camp, a sign that offseason favorite Hanser Alberto has indeed won the utility bench role for Texas.

The Rangers completed the Cactus League portion of spring training with a 17-13 record (plus one tie), and they will host Cleveland for two exhibition games this weekend at Globe Life Park before opening the season Monday versus Seattle.

Stubbs Released, Signed by Atlanta

Outfielder Drew Stubbs was given his release on Tuesday after opting out of his minor-league contract with Texas, and he was signed to a similar deal with the Atlanta Braves the next very day.

Stubbs – who appeared in 31 games for Texas down the stretch and into the playoffs last year – became a free agent following the World Series, and he tested the open market before eventually returning to the Rangers on a minor-league pact in late February.

In another roster move, 27-year-old outfielder James Jones was re-assigned to minor-league camp on Saturday, leaving right-handed batters Ryan Rua and Justin Ruggiano as the remaining options to fill the team’s backup outfield role.

Grieve, Jones Tabbed for First Pitch

Longtime Rangers broadcaster Tom Grieve and coach Bobby Jones will throw out the ceremonial first pitch(es) before Monday’s regular season opener at Globe Life Park.

Grieve and Jones both began their playing careers in the Washington Senators organization before the franchise moved to Texas, and each is celebrating his 50th year in professional baseball.

Left-hander Cole Hamels (13-8 record/2.46 ERA/215 strikeouts in 2015) is slated to take the hill Monday against Mariners ace Felix Hernandez (18-9/3.53/191) at 3:05 p.m.

Rangers Notes: Innings-Eater Gallardo Acquired from Brewers

Starter Yovani Gallardo has surpassed 180 innings pitched in each of the last six seasons.

Texas bolstered its starting rotation on Monday when it traded a trio of prospects and cash to the Brewers in exchange for right-hander Yovani Gallardo.

Infielder Luis Sardinas and right-hander Corey Knebel were sent to Milwaukee as part of the deal, in which the Rangers also included minor-league pitcher Marcos Diplan and $4 million.

The 28-year-old Gallardo – who grew up in Fort Worth – was a 2004 draft pick of the Brewers and had spent his entire career up to now with Milwaukee. Texas is hopeful that he can be a solid mid-rotation piece behind Yu Darvish and Derek Holland.

There is also hope that his local ties will carry some weight toward a long-term extension with Gallardo, who will be a free agent at the end of this season.

“We’ve got to let it play out, at least for right now,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said regarding a possible extension. “We haven’t had any discussions with Yovani.”

For the time being, Gallardo is looking forward to donning the uniform of his hometown team and bringing consistency to a staff depleted by injuries in 2014.

“I’m just very excited for the opportunity to start a new chapter with the Texas Rangers,” he said. “In my career, I have been doing … well enough to go out every fifth day. I’m ready to take the ball every fifth day, be prepared and give the team a chance to win some ballgames.”

While with the Brewers, Gallardo compiled a career record of 89-64 with a 3.69 earned run average across parts of eight seasons. Last September he moved past Ben Sheets and became Milwaukee’s franchise leader in strikeouts (1,226) with a whiff of Marlins catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

Gallardo has also been remarkably durable in recent years, averaging better than 31 starts in each season since 2009 and ranking fifth among all National League hurlers in innings pitched (1,155) over that span.

Two days after trading for Gallardo, the Rangers made another deal in which they acquired 31-year-old catcher Carlos Corporan from Houston in exchange for right-handed pitcher Akeem Bostick.

The switch-hitting Corporan had been designated for assignment by the Astros on Tuesday in order to create a roster spot for outfielder Colby Rasmus, and he could be used as a backup to (or in tandem with) Robinson Chirinos behind the plate for Texas.

Reliever Germen Obtained, then DFA’d

Right-hander Gonzalez Germen was picked up from the New York Yankees in exchange for cash on Tuesday, then was designated for assignment Wednesday to clear a roster spot for Carlos Corporan.

Germen, 27, had spent his entire career with the New York Mets before the Yankees acquired him in mid-December for cash considerations.

Last month’s trade of Germen marked the first deal between the Mets and Yankees since Dec. 3, 2004, when the two teams exchanged pitchers Felix Heredia and Mike Stanton.

Detwiler, Feliz Avoid Arbitration

The Rangers agreed to terms with left-hander Ross Detwiler and right-hander Neftali Feliz on one-year deals on Friday, avoiding arbitration with both pitchers and leaving first baseman Mitch Moreland as the club’s only remaining case.

Detwiler, 28, was acquired by Texas in a December trade with the Washington Nationals, and he could help to fill out the back end of the Rangers’ starting rotation this spring.

As for the 26-year-old Feliz, he moved back into the closer’s role late last season following the trade of Joakim Soria to the Detroit Tigers.

Detwiler’s contract is worth $3.45 million while Feliz will earn $4.125 million this season.

Rangers Notes: Feliz an Early Favorite to Fill Closer’s Role

Neftali Feliz collected 72 saves across his two seasons as the Texas closer and was named American League Rookie of the Year in 2010.

While the Rangers have revamped the top of their lineup with the additions of Shin-Soo Choo and Prince Fielder this offseason, they’ve also been forced to part ways with one of the game’s most reliable closers in the form of veteran right-hander Joe Nathan.

The 39-year-old Nathan agreed to a $20 million deal with the Detroit Tigers in early December, leaving Texas without a clear-cut option for ninth-inning save situations heading into spring training.

The good news is that the Rangers’ bullpen is already stacked with potential candidates to replace Nathan as closer, including former All-Stars Neftali Feliz and Joakim Soria as well as hard-throwing righty Tanner Scheppers, who led the club with 76 appearances last season.

Scheppers has indicated a desire to shift out of the setup role in which he thrived last year, stating that a promotion to closer “would be a dream come true,” but T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reported last week that Feliz seems to be the current front-runner for the vacancy.

“Feliz appears to be healthy again, which puts him in position to be the Rangers’ closer coming out of spring training,” Sullivan writes. “Right now the job is Feliz’s to lose.”

Recent history is on his side as well, as Texas made its only two World Series appearances in Feliz’s two years at closer (2010 and 2011). Over that span, the 25-year-old furnished a 2.73 earned run average while ranking third in the A.L. in saves (72) behind Jose Valverde and Mariano Rivera.

Feliz tried to make the conversion to starter in 2012 and won his first bit-league start, but his effectiveness seemed to desert him after throwing a career-high eight innings in an April doubleheader versus Detroit.

Issuing a total of 15 walks over his next four starts, Feliz was placed on the disabled list with a sprained throwing elbow following a mid-May loss at Houston, and by August he was forced to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

With his days as a starter behind him for the moment, Feliz is still considered a valuable asset out of the bullpen and may be the best bet to fill the void left by Nathan’s departure.

“It is very important to me,” Feliz said of the ninth-inning role. “I have been a closer already. Nobody will take it away from me … because I want to go back to a World Series and win it. I think this is our year to do it.”

Japanese Star Tanaka Posted by Club

Right-hander Masahiro Tanaka became the top pitcher on the market when he was posted last Wednesday by his current team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Pacific League.

Tanaka, 25, put up staggering numbers last season as a member of the Golden Eagles, going a perfect 24-0 with an ERA of 1.27 and 183 strikeouts while completing all but one of his 28 starts.

Rakuten had originally said it would not post Tanaka following a change in the bidding process (in which the fee paid by Major League Baseball clubs for the right to sign a player is now capped at $20 million), but reversed its decision in an announcement last week.

The new posting rules means that more MLB teams are likely to make a run a Tanaka, with the Rangers expected to be active suitors despite sizeable 2014 financial commitments to Choo, Fielder and Adrian Beltre.

McGuiness DFA’d, then Sent to Pirates

First baseman Chris McGuiness was designated for assignment by Texas last Friday in order to make room on the 40-man roster for Shin-Soo Choo, and he was subsequently traded to Pittsburgh on Monday for right-hander Miles Mikolas.

The 25-year-old McGuiness had been one of the players the Rangers acquired from Boston at the 2010 trade deadline in exchange for catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

After being taken by Cleveland in the 2012 Rule 5 Draft, McGuiness was returned to Texas less than four months later, and he made his big-league debut in a Rangers uniform last June.

The Rangers were forced to clear another 40-man roster spot for Mikolas, so outfielder Rafael Ortega (who had just been picked up from Colorado in November) was designated for assignment.

Rangers Notes: Texas Adds Arencibia to Catching Corps

Catcher J.P. Arencibia, a first-round pick in 2007, will likely be the backup to Geovany Soto behind the plate for the Rangers next season.

The Rangers appear to have settled on their big-league catching tandem for 2014 after it was reported they would sign free-agent backstop J.P. Arencibia to a one-year deal late last week, a move that was made official on Tuesday at the annual MLB winter meetings in Florida.

Arencibia, 27, had been a trade target for some time while he was with the Blue Jays, and Texas was quick to pick him up when Toronto declined to tender a contract offer to him on Dec. 2.

The former first-round draft selection has spent his entire career to this point in a Blue Jays uniform, but he’s looking forward to a change of scenery and the chance to play for a perennial contender.

“From playing against the Rangers, I like the way they go about their business on the field,” Arencibia said Tuesday. “They’ve had a winning team for quite some time, [and] that’s a big deal for me.”

The addition of Arencibia gives Texas another major-league-ready backstop to share duties with Geovany Soto in 2014, and it came at a good time as free-agent catchers continued to fly off the market last week.

A.J. Pierzynski, who was the Rangers’ regular catcher this season, was signed to a one-year contract by the World Series champion Red Sox last Wednesday, and Boston also re-signed Mike Napoli while Jarrod Saltalamacchia agreed to a deal with Miami.

In a career-high 138 games for Toronto this season, Arencibia batted just .194 and led the club with 148 strikeouts against only 18 walks, but he still showed the potential to be a reliable source of power by surpassing 20 homers for the second time in three years.

His best campaign came in 2011, when Arencibia collected 20 doubles, 23 home runs and 78 runs batted in while drawing 36 free passes for the Blue Jays.

“Whatever it takes to win,” he said, “my goal is to go out there and work with Geo [Soto] every day, and put the best team on the field and help our pitchers get through the game.”

Nadel wins Ford C. Frick Award

On Wednesday, longtime Rangers radio voice Eric Nadel was announced as this year’s winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, given annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame to recognize excellence in broadcasting.

Nadel, in his fourth consecutive year on the ballot, received the highest point total out of the 10 broadcasters who had been nominated. He will be honored during next summer’s Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at Cooperstown in his home state of New York.

“I’m so excited,” Nadel said. “I’m happy, tremendously flattered. It’s an amazing thrill for a kid from Brooklyn, who grew up as a radio junkie. I’m still a radio junkie, I guess.”

After joining the Rangers in 1979 as a radio and television announcer, Nadel paired up with Mark Holtz on the radio side from 1982 through 1994, and he has been the club’s primary over-the-air voice ever since then.

Contreras, Adcock among Spring Invitees

The ballclub announced last Thursday that it had signed three players to minor-league deals which include invitations to big-league camp in Surprise, Ariz., among them 42-year-old right-handed pitcher Jose Contreras.

Right-hander Nate Adcock and outfielder Bryan Petersen were also signed to minor-league contracts by Texas.

Over parts of 11 seasons in the majors, Contreras has compiled a lifetime record of 78-67 while seeing action with the Yankees, White Sox, Rockies, Phillies and Pirates. In 2005, he helped Chicago win its first A.L. pennant since 1959 and its first World Series since 1917.

Adcock, meanwhile, was originally drafted by Seattle but has seen all of his big-league service time with the Royals, and Petersen has spent the entirety of his career in the Marlins organization.

Rangers Notes: Gentry, Lindblom Traded to Athletics

Craig Gentry was considered a superior defender and base runner with limited offensive tools.

Outfielder Craig Gentry and right-handed pitcher Josh Lindblom were dealt to Oakland on Tuesday in exchange for minor-league second baseman Chris Bostick and outfielder Michael Choice.

Gentry, who turned 30 last week, had been expected to compete for the Rangers’ vacancy in left field next spring, with Leonys Martin in center and Alex Rios in right.

It appears that opportunity will now go to the 24-year-old Choice, a North Texas native who holds the career home run record at the University of Texas-Arlington.

“Growing up here, I’ve been to a ton of Rangers games,” he said Tuesday. “Me and my dad would go to the Ballpark all the time. To be able to say that I’m going to play in front of this home crowd is an awesome feeling.”

Choice, who made his big-league debut and collected his first hit in September against Texas, had spent much of the season at Triple-A Sacramento in the Athletics’ organization, where set personal highs with a .302 batting average, 29 doubles and 90 runs scored.

Though the Rangers could still make a run at free agents like Carlos Beltran, Shin-Soo Choo or Kendrys Morales, their left-field candidates currently include Choice, Jim Adduci, Engel Beltre and even Mitch Moreland, displaced from his usual spot at first base by the addition of Prince Fielder.

“If today was Mar. 31, we’re comfortable we can put together a quality outfield,” Texas general manager Jon Daniels said. “But it is Dec. 3. We still have time to see what’s out there. We could add somebody else to the mix, or we may go with what we’ve got.”

The Rangers are also seeking a veteran presence to complement Geovany Soto behind the plate, although an already thin free-agent market for catchers got even thinner this week when Dioner Navarro, Wil Nieves and Jarrod Saltalamacchia all signed with new clubs.

Some have mentioned former Oakland and Washington catcher Kurt Suzuki as a possible fit for Texas, and with the recent flurry of backstop signings, some kind of move could be made at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings next week in Orlando, Florida.

“We’re looking for the best all-around fit,” Daniels said. “We place a high value on durability. If [Soto] went down, we would want somebody who could step in and be an everyday guy.”

Nathan, Pierzynski Shift to A.L. Central

In addition to the Gentry trade, Texas saw a bit more roster fluctuation Tuesday when closer Joe Nathan and catcher A.J. Pierzynski were signed by the Tigers and Red Sox, respectively.

An American League All-Star in each of his two years with the Rangers, Nathan compiled 80 saves and posted an earned run average of 2.09 across 129 innings of work.

Pierzynski, meanwhile, hit about 10 points below his career batting average during his lone season in Texas, but he still delivered 17 home runs and provided the Rangers with 15 years’ worth of big-league experience at backstop.

Texas will most likely look to fill Nathan’s role internally, with late-inning relievers Joakim Soria, Tanner Scheppers and Neftali Feliz appearing to be the leading candidates at this point.

Outfielder Ortega Claimed from Rockies

The Rangers acquired outfielder Rafael Ortega on a waiver claim from the Colorado Rockies last Wednesday and added him to their 40-man roster.

The 22-year-old Ortega spent last season at Double-A Tulsa in the Colorado farm system, hitting .228 with nine stolen bases. The extent of his big-league service time consists of two games with the Rockies in 2012.

Across parts of six seasons in the minors, Ortega has already racked up 156 stolen bases while compiling a .298 lifetime batting average.