Gone from the Texas Rangers’ 2018 payroll are the salaries of Adrian Beltre, Cole Hamels, Matt Moore, Martin Perez, Doug Fister, Robinson Chirinos, Jake Diekman and others.
Simple arithmetic, which isn’t so simple for some of us, says that those contracts were worth around $70 million and so far the Rangers have invested $14 million of that on Drew Smyly, Jesse Chavez and Jeff Mathis.
Arbitration-eligible players are going to get raises, but the Rangers have plenty of money to cover those and to make a significant invest or two or three this off-season.