Offseason Simulation: Third Base Difficult to Fill for Texas Rangers

Pursuit of Top Tier Free Agents

Plan A for our mock offseason was to go after one of the two biggest names on the free agent market to ‘play’ third base for Texas next season. We opted to chase Anthony Rendon first considering his signing period would end first and he was the top option available. Having set our budget at $155 million, we had plenty of cash to throw the Texas natives way but wanted to be mindful of leaving space for other moves. In the end, we got into a bidding war with the Nationals for the MVP finalists signature and lost out. Rendon signed in our sim with Washington for seven years, $238 million. To beat that number, we would have had to offer at least $250 million over seven years, a number we just weren’t confident in offering up.

With Rendon out of the picture, we jumped to Josh Donaldson, an older, yet more than competent alternate. Donaldson had a resurgent year with the Braves on a one-year contract in 2019 and while he wouldn’t be a long-term fit like Rendon, he would lock up third for a few years. Like Rendon though, we lost a bidding war against Donaldson’s previous team, Atlanta, and were left empty handed. The price for Donaldson soared and we were willing to open the check book offering a three-year, $78 million deal to the former MVP. The Braves outbid us though upping the length of their offer to four years and $25 million per year. While the salary was reasonable enough, offering four years at that high AAV wasn’t justifiable to us for a 34-year old third baseman, so we waived our right to make the final offer.