No Significant Progress on Deal for C.J. Wilson and Texas Rangers

C.J. Wilson, the Opening Day starter for the Texas Rangers, will be a free agent after the 2011 MLB season. His agent, Bob Garber, and the Rangers have been in talks about a deal since the conclusion of last season; however, no significant progress has been made thus far. I think Wilson was ultimately hoping a deal could get done before the end of Spring Training camp, but it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen.

The left-handed starting pitcher was victorious for a team high of 15 games last year, which was his very first season in the Major Leagues as a starting pitcher. The Rangers avoided an arbitration hearing with Wilson by agreeing to a $7 million salary for 2011.

Wilson was on the Ben and Skin Show (103.3 ESPN) Friday and talked a little bit about contract negotiations. This is what he had to say:

“It’s a very complicated situation. It’s not easy because I’m not the only guy on the team. There are a lot of different guys that they have to make big personnel decisions with. We’re all related in that way. They’ve been trying, they’ve been coming to the table, but it really hasn’t progressed that far.”

He remains completely focused on the upcoming season rather than the issues surrounding his contract and free agency.

“I don’t really want to detract from anything. I don’t want guys on my team getting questions about it. I want to talk about beating everybody else and winning the West. That’s what I focused on last year — just pitching.”

C.J. has made it very clear that he wants to stay in Texas and the Rangers have to want him.

My thoughts are that if Wilson proves to be as successful this year as he did last year, the Rangers won’t waste any more time getting a multi-year big dollar contract together for him. They may just be waiting to see if he can continue his success. However, they don’t need to wait too long into the season to get that deal going because if they allow him to enter free agency, a number of teams are going to go after him and it’s very possible he’ll end up somewhere besides Arlington. The Phillies might just snag yet another one of the Rangers’ Aces.