Mitch Moreland’s name in consideration for the Texas Rangers – MLB News
The Texas Rangers are exploring ways to not only charge the defence, but also their offence. The fact that the club has signed a contract with Joe Nathan is but a sign of the importance they attached to the pitching and now the team wants to take serious
consideration in hitter Mitch Moreland.
After Chris Davis departure from the Texas Rangers to the Baltimore Orioles and Justin Smoak signing a contract with the Seattle Mariners, will the Rangers look for ways to have Mitch Moreland part of the team or let him go?
It is not clear yet. Having had a .259 average in the World Series with 16 homers to his credit, Moreland could not retain his performance in 2011 whereby he was unable to charge the Rangers offence the way it was expected of him.
Having remained 464 at-bats in the 134 games that he appeared, he had 120 hits to his credit scoring a total of 60 runs with .320 OBP and .414 SLG.
It is worth to remember, importantly, that Moreland remained the best hitter for the Texas Rangers in the 2010 World Series.
"He found out what a grind is in a 162-game season," Rangers’ manager Ron Washington said. "I certainly intimated that to him, to go home and get healthy, come into spring training and just apply what you learned from the grind of the 2011 season and we
will see improvement."
Washington, however, stated that Moreland did a good job of fighting. There is indeed a lot of chances to get better in the coming days.
"I thought he did a good job of fighting, and all he can do from this point is get better," Washington said. "I certainly let him know that."
However, what is unclear is that the Rangers decided to enthusiastically hire Joe Nathan with a $14 million deal for two years leaving open the question of retaining Moreland in the team.
This might be due to the increasing number of options that the Rangers have. From Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals to Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers who are free-agents, the Rangers might be thinking of considering of these power-house players
for next season.
But for now, the important issue is the re-signing of C. J. Wilson. This is something that the Rangers do not want to delay given the electrifying zeal other teams have demonstrated to sign a contract with the pitcher. With Moreland’s deal apparently hanging
in the balance for now, it will be interesting to see what the Rangers finally decide as they do not want let a key dynamic player go somewhere else.
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