Texas Rangers interested in extending Joey Gallo. A spring deal, though, is unlikely.
The spring season for the Texas Rangers is underway, which typically means that it’s also extension season for them.
The offseason heavy lifting is done, such that it was. The Rangers were among the busier teams, though they skipped a leg day or two.
The biggest financial commitment they made in the offseason, excluding the Elvis Andrus ($15 million)-for-Khris Davis ($16.75 million) salary swap, was to right-hander Kohei Arihara.
He bagged a two-year, $6.2 million contract, and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters scored a $1.4 million posting fee.
Joey Gallo received the largest one-year, non-Davis commitment of $6.2 million in his second year of salary arbitration. Gallo also ranks as the Rangers’ top candidate for an extension, with only one more year of arbitration before he hits free agency.
Gallo wants to stay with the Rangers for the long haul. The Rangers don’t want to see him go.
While a lot of things seem to add up for an extension, including that he has hit a home run in each of his first two Cactus League games, a lot of things indicate that a deal won’t be happening this spring.
There have been no extension talks with Gallo or any candidate so far this spring.
“We have not raised that,” general manager Chris Young said. “It’s something that we will just continue to evaluate.
“Certainly there’s a financial component with any decision that’s made in terms of extending somebody. But at this point we evaluate from a personnel standpoint, really looking toward this year and beyond, and evaluating our club, what our needs will be and what our timeline will be for us to build a championship team.”
Mutual interest is a good starting point, but the Rangers and Gallo haven’t talked about an extension for two years.
Gallo wants to re-establish his value after batting only .181 with 10 homers and a .679 OPS in the shortened 2020 season. The Rangers want to see if he can rebound, too, to take out some of the risk involved with a substantial commitment.
The Rangers would like to buy low, but don’t believe agent Scott Boras has Gallo on the discount rack.
Boras almost never skips leg days.
He also has a reputation of taking his clients to free agency, though the Rangers sense that they could avoid that if Gallo were to find a deal with them that he likes.
If they thought a shorter-term deal was possible, they would have already pursued it.
Even though the Rangers did not have ticket revenue from last season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is money for contract extensions.
Gallo isn’t the only candidate.
The Rangers would be open to working out team-friendly extension with top prospects such as Josh Jung, who has never played above Low A but is showing so far this spring that he isn’t far away from the majors.
He is expected to start the season in the minors, but many with the Rangers believe the latest he arrives in the majors is the July 31 trade deadline.
The Rangers had a chance to deal Gallo at last year’s deadline as well as during the offseason, but held onto him. They aren’t going to give him away for relatively little in return.
They value him. They want him to stay with the team indefinitely. Though they haven’t pursued an extension with him and seem unlikely to do so this spring, the idea is on the table.
“We haven’t ruled anything out,” Young said. “But we also don’t have anything in progress.”
