September 22, 2012; Bronx, NY, USA; New York Yankees pitcher Derek Lowe (34) throws a pitch during the fifth inning of a game against the Oakland Athletics at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Lowe, who is 39-years old, represents a cheap fallback option in the wake of Martín Pérez‘s injury. Also, this signifies an opinion that I shared with many others that the Rangers would not pursue free agent RHP Kyle Lohse, unless he came at the Rangers’ given price.

With the signing of Lowe, the Rangers give themselves a potential No. 5 starter who can hypothetically hold the spot until Colby Lewis and/or Martín Pérez return from their stints on the DL.

In terms of performance, I wouldn’t project Lowe to be anything more than a temporary innings-eater. With Lowe in the No. 5 slot in the rotation, it ensures that Justin Grimm will start the season in the minor leagues, which he evidently needs, given his performance in Spring Training thus far. Also, this signing more than likely ensures that LHP Robbie Ross will return to the bullpen in 2013.

Essentially, this low-risk signing will give the Rangers a well-needed fallback option that will also cause very little dominos to fall on the pitching side of things on the roster.

The bad news? We’re not sure what Nolan will be doing with the club (if anything) anymore. Sure Nolan is still the CEO. But what Nolan Ryan brought to the table can never be paid back. He entered the fray on behalf of the new owner’s group in what could easily be called the franchise’s darkest hour. Tom Hicks had no way out but for bankruptcy court. Even after that, Nolan saw a potential problem with part owner Chuck Greenberg. He led the way to the buyout of Greenberg. Nobody knows what really caused the falling out, but I have always suspected it was the “extra” visit that Greenberg paid to Cliff Lee just a day before Lee decided to sign with the Phillies, who weren’t even part of the bidding to that point. Nolan was a key buffer between the owner’s group and Daniels. He handles administrative duties as well as working with young pitcher in Surprise. He’s Nolan Ryan for cryin’ out loud. How could he not be a positive for the club. Nobody knows what these moves mean for Ryan. He did have a couple of health scares and we don’t know if any of this has to do with a real need to retire.

All of this just makes this a transition year both on the field and off. Supposedly the owners want JD to get his entire team to commit to a longer stay. This could mean that Jon Daniels becomes exclusively the president, while someone like Thad Levine steps into Daniels spot as GM. We have several guys on the baseball operations side who would make great GM’s elsewhere. Then there’s the whole issue of what becomes of Nolan. I sure would hate to see that seat between the dugout and home plate be filled with an unfamiliar face.

Odds and Ends….does anybody really like this whole WBC thing? I don’t. I think it is a major distraction. While it is good for spreading the love of baseball worldwide, it’s horrible in the continuity of spring training…..With the Martin Perez injury and Alexi Ogando struggling so far this spring, you have to think the need for Kyle Loshe wouldn’t be higher than right now…..Elvis, really? A tattoo? Let’s hope the name Boras isn’t in it anywhere….a lot of fans are screaming over our W-L for the spring thus far. That has never bothered me until the last week. I have always felt like everything should start coming together then.

Logically, the initial reaction to the Perez injury was “Does this mean the Rangers will be more inclined to make a legitimate offer to Kyle Lohse?”

The answer is mildly layered, but all directions tend to point to “No.”

The first issue with signing Kyle Lohse is the forfeiture of a first-round draft pick in June’s amateur draft. Now, if you ask me, I don’t find losing a draft pick to be as significant this year as a lot of people do, but only because we have two of them (the 2nd being from the Angels as compensation for signing Josh Hamilton). The Rangers, on the other hand, have seemed steadfast and committed to continue their plan of building the organization through the draft and through trades — which are each more efficient fiscal routes than free agency. To that end, they will most likely decide to pocket that 2nd pick.

The second issue — the trumping issue — is the years and dollars Lohse is set to make. Sure, if you are of the opinion that two years and $18 million would be pretty cheap and worth it, I might be on the same boat as you. He would be a cheap short-term fix who could easily be traded whenever he is no longer of any consequence. Under this scenario, however, I cannot get behind the idea that the Rangers would sacrifice a first round pick for someone they only need until Colby Lewis comes back from injury (which is supposed to be in May).

If you are of the opinion that it would be worth it to sign Kyle Lohse right now, here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself:

• How much better than Derek Holland or Alexi Ogando do you expect Kyle Lohse to be? Because if you sign Lohse and put Colby Lewis back in the rotation once he’s healthy, one of those guys would need to get bumped to the bullpen.
• Are you more on board with signing Lohse because you are high on him, or because you aren’t confident in the troika of Ross/Grimm/Wells (Randy) doing an amicable job maintaining the 5th spot?
• How much would you pay for Kyle Lohse? He supposedly went into the offseason expecting four years and $40 million, but that’s not happening. One can rationalize that the market dropped him to a place where he’d want less years (two, let’s say) and more money average annual value ($12 million, let’s say). Under those parameters, would you pay 2/24 for him?

Martin Perez going down isn’t exactly devastating news for the Rangers, because, again, we have the blanket of Colby Lewis to comfortably fall back on. As long as the 5th starter — who right now is presumably Justin Grimm — does a decent job, then we’ll be fine. We can’t afford the for the 5th starter to be an automatic loss for months on end, but with the potential of Colby Lewis coming back at some point in May (hopefully), we’re only asking for a month-plus of league average production.

Darvish, Harrison, Holland and Ogando can handle it the other four days.

For Perez as an individual, it’s a shame that he took a fluke line drive off his throwing arm. Although rare, these are the random incidents that can sometimes cost pitchers an entire year. Let’s hope Perez makes it back on schedule. In general, I always hate when players succumb to injuries, but for a guy like Perez — who appeared poised to start in a big league rotation on Opening Day, for the first time — it’s especially disappointing. We’ve heard great things since he was 17; we’ve read line-by-line from scouting reports on repeat the comparisons to Johan Santana; we just wanted to see something out of him.

From here, the Rangers meet one of the challenges they expected to experience: someone is going to have to step up. After all, this current run of Rangers’ success was not built on the arm of just one or two pitchers, or relied upon by only a couple bats in the middle of the lineup; it’s an entire system, model, paradigm — or whatever you want to call it — cultivated from within the very depths of the Rangers farm system all the way up to the end product in Arlington.

So while today is a loss for Martin Perez, the Rangers, and its fan base, we can be thankful it wasn’t an injury in his shoulder or elbow. He still has the same amount of service time as before, is still his same ripe age of only 22, and still seems like a pretty good bet to contribute valuable innings on the big league club in 2013.