Torii Hunter Gets 2 Years, $26 Million From Tigers

Per lots of people on Twitter. There was some talk of the Rangers being interested in Hunter and possibly envisioning him as one of their starting COFs, but there was also some conflicting talk about the Rangers not considering Hunter much of a priority (which, I think, mostly emanated from a Ken Rosenthal appearance on the MLB Network in the last day or two), and it's not clear whether Hunter ever even met with the Rangers before negotiations between his camp and the Tigers intensified. 

Hunter hit .313/.365/.451 (130 wRC+, which is a career best, and 5.3 fWAR, which is also a career best) with 16 home runs in 2012, and his recent track record shows consistent production between 2.5-4 wins ... Detroit, however, is paying $26 million for his age 37-38 seasons, which stands out as the obvious reason for the subdued length/AAV of this deal. I also don't think Hunter is an especially great bet to replicate his .389 BABIP from 2012, considering that his lifetime BABIP is .307.

I ran some preliminary 2013 Opening Day payroll projections yesterday, and found that the Rangers, minus any of their free agents and including their arb cases (with Geovany Soto included at $3 million, since I assume Texas will try to hammer something out with Soto independent of the arbitration process) and $500K league-minimum guys to plug in any holes, come out a tick above $110 million.

They'll still need an outfielder, a starting pitcher, a catcher, and a reliever or two, and I'll be curious to see if they can work within their internal budget constraints while still filling their roster holes to the satisfaction of the fan base (and themselves) ... in any event, Texas signing Hunter at $13 million per year would have taken their total 2013 obligation north of $123 million before addressing the SP/RP/C situation, and I have my doubts that the Rangers were especially keen on committing a $13 million AAV to a player who's on the back end of his 30s, and whose career-best season was so heavily driven by a monster BABIP.