NEWSFLASH: Texas Rangers Sign Vladimir Guerrero
Joey Matschulat
Vladimir Guerrero mashes a run-scoring single against the Athletics on April 6th, 2009.It took several months and a whole lot of contradictory reporting to get to this point, but the good news is that we're finally there once and for all, as multiple sources -- including MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan -- are reporting that the Texas Rangers have reached an agreement with free agent designated hitter Vladimir Guerrero on a one-year, $5-6 million contract with a mutual option for the 2011 regular season.
Specific terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but the inclusion of the second-year mutual option essentially means that the contract can be voided at the discretion of either party after the 2010 regular season with no financial repercussions, other than the apparent $1 million buyout that must be paid if the Rangers decline to retain Guerrero's services into 2011; that buyout will not be paid if it is Guerrero who declines the option, so it's not guaranteed money, and a high-caliber performance in 2010 would almost certainly culminate in his re-testing of the open market.
[Couple of addendums: First, there are apparently some plate appearance-based incentives built into this contract that could elevate the total value of the deal by a mid-six-digit sum, so if Guerrero remains relatively healthy, the expectation should probably be that he'll attain some, if not all of those incentives. Second, Guerrero will "likely" bat cleanup behind Josh Hamilton, with Michael Young presumably nailing down the two-hole. No word yet on where the likes of Ian Kinsler, Julio Borbon and Nelson Cruz will bat yet.]
I don't think that there's much else that I can say about the Guerrero-to-Texas thing that I didn't already say here and/or here, but given these expected financial parameters, I will submit that this is a decent-to-good signing and assume the ever-popular "cautiously optimistic" position. Just to reiterate: Yes, Guerrero is a special offensive talent (even if that wasn't necessarily reflected in his 2008-2009 statistics and somebody that, if healthy (which is everybody's favorite qualifer), has a fairly attractive baseline projection with the potential for monster numbers.
This would, in fact, be a great/fantastic/insert-your-favorite-superlative signing if not for the age/health risk factors and the fact that he's defensively impaired; unfortunately, those are all very real limitations, so while this signing does improve the Rangers, it's a modest improvement with a few strings attached -- think one to two extra wins over a 162-game schedule, which is relatively significant in a tight-knit division like this one, but not over-the-top incredible.
The pertinent question to ask is whether the Rangers could have used their limited resources more efficiently and come out better by allocating that money differently; while the answer might actually be 'yes,' you won't find me complaining about this sequence of events. Just understand that while this is yet another step in the right direction (and one which does strengthen the off-season roster makeover undertaken by general manager Jon Daniels), it's not going to launch the Rangers vertically in the standings by a factor of three or four wins, or render Texas the "team to beat" in this division.
You have every reason to get excited. Just don't get carried away in the process.
Reader Comments (32)
Excitement in Arlington.
Nice!
Newberg flashing at 5mil + up to 600k in incentives with a 1mil buyout. Pricey in my opinion, but I won't presume to know the market.
Okkkkk,
So what is the batting order?
Borbon
Young
Hamilton
Guererro
Kinsler
Cruz
Davis
Salty
Andrus
Freakin' swweeeeeetttt!!!
Fantastic!
Borbon
Kinsler
Young
Hamilton
Guerrero
Cruz
Davis
Salty/Teagarden
Andrus
And throw in Khalil Greene for $750K as a utility guy and we can call it an offseason.
I think they are still going to get either Sheets or Garland, too.
If the Rangers get bounceback years from both Hamilton and Guererro, this is a very dangerous lineup.
If you're the Rangers, you got Guererro and a high draft pick for Byrd. Worth noting that on paper the Rangers will be pretty competitive this year and have four high picks in the amateur draft to keep the pipeline full. Arrow still pointing up in my view.
Another note - has another club even talked to Blalock about a major league roster spot? Hope he gets another shot with somebody.
Does he get Andruw Jones number?
I'm thinking this didnt put a smile on Seattle or Oakland's face, LAA? who knows, they probably figured we would get him..... but dont care..... we'll see.
I like Mike E.'s lineup..........and adding Greene as the utility infielder is a good move and affordable. Now if there is any money left to spend bringi8ng in Jon Garland as a second veteran presence in the rotation to go along with Harden would be great!!
Even a rich team would be excited about acquiring Vlad and Harden while losing Byrd and Millwood.
The Rangers have above-average Starting Pitching, a very good bullpen (probably 2nd or3rd best in baseball) and all they need to do to go somewhere is to score abut 850 runs. If Davis, Josh and Vlad are healthy, I see them scoring more than that.
Great signing. The Rangers have increased the potential of a break-out season among a pool of Hamilton, Davis, Smoak, MaxRam, and Guerrero. Khalil Greene is a nice substitue for Omar Vizquel. Here's hoping Jon Garland is added to the team!
btw, Joey: With the additions of Guerrero and Greene, which player is removed from the 40-man roster?
I understand the reluctance to get overy excited. However, a reasonable amount of excitement is in order. Vlad represents a huge upgrade over the likes of Andruw Jones. With the fact he will be expected to play nothing but DH and even in his most injured year of his career he was still productive with a .295 average and 15 homers that will most likely increase this year. The PLUS side of this is other teams don't like pitching to him which means that those around him get better pitches to hit. All in all, the best (of Vlad, Dye, Thome....) available, we found a way in this off-season of limited financial flexibility to make it happen. Kudos...........................Now on to Sheets on a similar one year, incentive laden proving ground contract.
by the way, refuting your earlier column, again you're clueless. guerrero will be in the lineup except when they give him a day off to rest his aching body. you mentioned he'd be on the bench and his big salary would be too. nope, you're wrong. vlady will play when he's able. period. he won't be sitting. take the pencil out of your pocket.
1-2 win difference? wow, you're a genius, eh.
by the way, DH's don't play defense so get off your high horse talking about his defensive liabilities. Their non-consequential. He's a DH! Geez.
don't listen to this dumb butt, people. the vlad signing, as long as he stays healthy, is a great signing and the best this team has had since ARod. if he's not healthy, they didn't spend all that much. $5-7 million for a potential middle of the order terror isn't a bad contract at all. vlad will bounce back this year. he had an injury plagued 2008 and still put up decent numbers, though far below his career averages.
this clown who writes this blog just doesn't know what he's talking about. if vlad stays healthy, he and michael young will be the 2 constants in the rangers lineup, guys you can pencil in game in and game out.
vlad can still rake. he'll make more than a 1-win difference for this team, no question.
FWSoccerDad
the use of "high horse" is curious considering the patronizing tone of your post. Seem to remember you from insidecorner and I don't recall the sarcasm. Could be just me but, still you might consider lightening up a bit. Joey does a terrific job and this is one of the very few places where discussion doesn't typically degenerate to inane arguments over who said/meant/cited/opined what. my mealsy .02
"This clown" you keep keep talking about is about the best writer in DFW. Why don't YOU shut the hell up?
FWSoccerDad
Lighten up Buckwheat, Joey has put forth a good and factual list of Vlad's positives and negatives. Go sign yourself up for an anger management class.
The AL West is going to be ridiculous this year... other than the A's all the teams have majorly upgraded
FWSoccerDad - I'm going to say this in the most polite manner I can. Those who participate on this blog pride themselves on being fair, on giving each other some slack to disagree, and on not calling each other names. If you want to call people rude names, I suggest you go over to the Rangers blog on the DMN, where you will fit in nicely. And if you persist in the kind of puerile, arrogant, and mean-spirited comments that you've posted on here, I think I can get a unanimous nod of agreement from everyone that you aren't welcome here.
Not to be the bearer of bad news but Vlad's splits were far more impressive against righties than lefties. Isn't he being brought in to mash against lefties and Murphy is supposed to be lefthanded hitting dh? This seems like a contradiction. Something tells me Vlad is being brought in to be full-time dh amd Murphy relegated to back-up outfielder. Just my opinion.
FWSoccerDad..... present a coherent argument (if you have one), not personal attacks.
Joey: I would prefer immature posts like FWSD's to be deleted from this blog.
Peace.
"this clown who writes this blog just doesn't know what he's talking about. if vlad stays healthy, he and michael young will be the 2 constants in the rangers lineup, guys you can pencil in game in and game out.
vlad can still rake. he'll make more than a 1-win difference for this team, no question."
I'm seeing a whole lot of hyperbole here and not much of anything as far as actual statistical evidence ... and, for that matter, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, you're calling me an idiot for thinking that this signing WON'T make Texas 3-4 wins better. Okay.
If the Rangers hadn't signed Vlad at all and hadn't made any further improvements to the lineup, what kind of numbers do you think the Murphy/Hamilton/Cruz/etc. DH rotation (and, for that matter, all the other players that the Rangers would run through the DH spot) would put up? The league-average DH hit .255/.337/.443 last year ... let's call that a fair number to use. Over 600 plate appearances, that's about five runs above league average.
If Vlad hits something like .291/.337/.489 in a similar 600 PA sample (which is, by the way, his 2010 CHONE projection), that's about 12-13 runs above league average. That's an improvement of less than one win over the in-house alternatives. If he hits .303/.365/.521 in that same sample (like he did in 2008), that's about 25-26 runs above league average. That would be a two-win improvement over the in-house alternatives, which aligns with my belief that this signing makes the Rangers around 1-2 wins better.
Now, does this signing make the Rangers 3-4 wins better if he hits like he did from 1998-2007 AND stays healthy? Without question. But is that realistic? Probably not as much as you'd apparently like to think. Sure, he could explode in 2010, but you appear to be operating off the assumption that his injuries in 2009 completely exonerate the lackluster numbers and that he's going to automatically revert to the same hitter he was at age 32. He's now 35. Can you not see why that's a risky assumption to make?
I don't think I understand why you're calling me an idiot for saying that this is a decent-to-good, but not downright amazing signing. I don't think you're going to find any other saber-friendly (and somewhat objective) writers slathering hyperbole all over this signing, so you might as well prepare to call all of them idiots as well. If you don't want to be objective about this signing, that's fine. I hope your optimism proves well-placed, because I'd certainly love to see Guerrero hit .320/.400/.500 next year or whatever. I hope you're right.
Furthermore, if my tapping of the brakes on Vlad completely invalidates my opinion on all Rangers-related matters in your eyes, that's fine as well. There are other sites where you can get your fill of Rangers homerism.
[To those who have been commenting on their appreciation of the civil tone on this blog in comparison to, say, the DMN Rangers blog, just know that I'm hearing you. I could care less if people fling personal attacks in my direction, and I've opted for a "wait-and-see" approach on profanity, but any comments that degenerate into personal attacks against other posters will be deleted on sight. I was hoping this would never become a problem, but that time has apparently come and gone.]
Nice response JM.
FWSD, balls in your court, hope you'll choose to contribute without demeaning, the more voices and opinions the better. I'm out on this now.
And by the way, one more thing while I'm thinking of it:
"by the way, DH's don't play defense so get off your high horse talking about his defensive liabilities. Their non-consequential. He's a DH! Geez."
Yeah, that's exactly the point -- his value to the Rangers would be greater if he had any defensive flexibility whatsoever, since you could give Cruz a night off from the field without losing either his bat or Guerrero's bat in the process; if both Hamilton and Cruz required a breather, but you particularly didn't want to lose Hamilton's bat, another thing you could do is push Guerrero to RF, Hamilton to DH, Murphy to LF and Cruz to the bench for one night, effectively killing two birds with one stone.
But you really can't do either of those things with Guerrero, or at least not comfortably. In a 10-run blowout, maybe. And then you'd still have to hold your breath and hope that he didn't mess up his knees or back or something.
Sure, Guerrero's lack of defensive utility isn't the biggest consideration in this signing, but it's one of the pieces of the player-valuing puzzle, and I think I'd be remiss in not acknowledging that it's a shortcoming where he's concerned -- the same way that I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that Lowell's defensive flexibility at 1B/3B worked in his favor, an attribute which the Rangers clearly valued.
I thought that I read (on this site) somewhere that Vlad was being compared to Hidalgo, Sosa, Nevin, Bradley and A. Jones in terms of the Rangers trying to fill the DH/middle of the order spot. That is a completely ridiculous comparison. Vlad is still a very good hitter that had 1 bad year, which was mostly due to injury. The other comps were players well beyond their prime years (with exception to Bradley)... this is not the case wih Vlad.
I bet that he is going to have a huge year... and as a result, so will Hamilton.
This was a very nice signing by JD and co... very nice indeed.
Would it be realistic to say that Vlad's addition both means a 2 game improvement for the Rangers as well as two game reduction in the Angel's wins? Could this be the 4 games we are looking for? I'm no stat genuis. Just a baseball guy. I'm just glad he is not on another American League West team as much of a Ranger killer as he is. I think its a good signing simply from the fact that he wont be an opponent and that he has playoff experience at a high level. I like it !
"I thought that I read (on this site) somewhere that Vlad was being compared to Hidalgo, Sosa, Nevin, Bradley and A. Jones in terms of the Rangers trying to fill the DH/middle of the order spot."
Think Adam Morris has made that loose comparison, but I think it was more in the context of the Rangers pursuing a "veteran bat" than Guerrero himself. Of course, I think Adam is even more bearish on Vlad than I am, so hopefully that's something that the people (person?) who are blasting me are able to keep in mind.
Jack: Not really. Anaheim went out and got Hideki Matsui for a reason.