Texas Rangers avoid arbitration with Smith, Jung, Duran, and Burger. Now 26 years in a row avoiding arbitration hearings

8 comments

1. Lee Stevens take a bow.

2. Yes Pookie my beloved 🙌🏻

3. Could we get a good Josh Jung this year? Maybe even elite?

4. I love that we do this every year.

   Every offseason, you see headline stories like what’s going on in Detroit where a team is just embarassing a star player with whatever they offer, and it inevitably ends up going to arbitration. Whether they win or lose, it always seems like such an easily avoidable friction point with a player, especially when the difference is sometimes as small as a couple hundred grand.

   Making sure these dudes feel appreciated and are able to focus on baseball and being an asset to the team makes sense, and I’m glad we don’t mess around with the cheap “we can save a few dollars” strategy.

5. Does anyone know who that last guy was the Rangers took to arbitration?

6. Pretty easy group of decisions here, but I have to think the pressure is on all four of them to do something meaningful this year because I doubt the team is going to want to negotiate with a bunch of sub .700 OPS guys again.

7. Kennedi’s write-up on this was good. I loved the last bit about Zeke where she included his four pitcher appearances. The man is a stud relief pitcher.

8. Good. I think this is the year Jung breaks out.