Rangers Sign Eli Whiteside, Brandon Snyder

This changes everything, you guys:

Rangers have claimed C Eli Whiteside on waivers from Toronto Blue Jays. Club also re-signed INF Brandon Snyder to minor league contract.

— John Blake (@RangerBlake) December 12, 2012

Snyder is the known quantity here, the former first-round pick whom the Rangers brought in last winter and ultimately slotted into their Opening Day roster as a four-corners bench player with some utility as a lefty-masher ... however, Snyder amassed only 69 major league PA on the season, and he was ultimately supplanted by Mike Olt down the stretch, with Snyder likely not figuring into the 2013 big league picture in any meaningful way. You could do worse in a pinch, though.

Whiteside, however, is better known for being handed off from the Giants to the Yankees to the Blue Jays (and now to the Rangers) in the span of a few short months, and as you might expect, there's a good reason for that -- he's a catcher who can't hit even a little bit:

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2005	25	BAL	AL	9	12	0	0	2	.250	.250	.250	.500	35
2009	29	SFG	NL	49	134	2	4	30	.228	.269	.339	.607	58
2010	30	SFG	NL	56	141	4	8	35	.238	.299	.397	.696	89
2011	31	SFG	NL	82	236	4	18	59	.197	.264	.310	.574	63
2012	32	SFG	NL	12	14	0	1	4	.091	.214	.182	.396	16
5 Yrs				208	537	10	31	130	.215	.273	.335	.608	67

Bob Nightengale said on Twitter that the Rangers "found their backup catcher" in Whiteside, but I have a very difficult time believing that the Rangers are going to be okay with going into the season with Geovany Soto and Eli Whiteside as their one-two catching tandem ... this, I think, is your generic "let's enhance the catching depth a little bit in case everything else completely goes to hell" kind of move, with Whiteside joining Soto, Konrad Schmidt, and Luis Martinez to become the fourth catcher on the Rangers' 40-man roster. Soto may be the last man standing from that group three months from now.