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Should the Texas Rangers give Mitch Garver the qualifying offer this offseason?

Texas faces several tough decisions this offseason as they straddle the line between winning now and prioritizing development of their prospects. One of the big questions this offseason will be what to do with Mitch Garver?

By Michael Sanders |
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Mitch Garver has been one of the most important players on this Texas Rangers roster in the second half. He continued that with a solo home run on Wednesday that tied the game at 4 in a game Texas would go on to win 15-5. He stepped up and caught when Jonah Heim went down with an injury. He has been one of the best players on this team since the All-Star break. The 32-year-old catcher has a .274 batting average since the break with 14 home runs, 29 RBIs, and a .935 OPS.

There is one question that lingers over this team and that is will Texas bring Garver back in 2024? Right now that question is unknown and probably will stay that way until the days after the season ends. I posed this question on the website formerly known at Twitter last night and got mixed responses.

I got several comments in the hours since I posted that. $20.5 million would be a lot to commit even if it is for just one year. Texas has several options with the qualifying offer(QO) being one of them. I decided to quickly go through the three best options and then give my thoughts on what I think Texas should do.

Give Mitch Garver the Qualifying Offer

A report from MLB Trade Rumors showed that the 2024 qualifying offer will come in at around $20.5 million. Texas has several players that will become free agents: Martin Perez, Will Smith, Robbie Grossman, Travis Jankowski, Austin Hedges, Brad Miller, Ian Kennedy, and Mitch Garver. Garver is likely the only one who both qualifies for the offer and the Rangers would consider giving it.

Texas has to know that much like Martin Perez if they give the qualifying offer to Garver he is very likely to accept. Garver is making 3.9 million this season. If he is a free agent he is likely getting less than 20 million per season. I would guess he would be in the 12-15 million per season range considering his age and injury history. He would certainly accept a one-year and $20.5 million contract. If that happened Texas would be set at DH and be out of the Shohei Ohtani pursuit before it started.

Let Mitch Garver test free agency

The next option is decide against giving Garver the QO and let him test free agency. Texas could still resign him, but they would lose exclusive negotiating rights and would be competing with every team in the league for his services.

If Texas goes this route they are sending the message to Garver that they are fine if he leaves. They also are giving themselves time to see if a market develops and if bringing him back fits into their budget for 2024 with any other additions that are made.

Resign Garver prior to free agency

Chris Young in 2022 at the deadline made a point to say that they did not trade Martin Perez or Matt Moore because they wanted to use their exclusive negotiating window of two-plus months to try and resign both pitchers. Days and weeks went by and nothing got done with either pitcher. The QO was given to Perez and he accepted. Matt Moore waited until February and then signed with the Los Angeles Angels.

The experience of the Perez and Moore free agencies leads me to believe that Chris Young is not trying to resign Garver or likely any of the free agents prior to free agency. Two reasons for this decision. Garver is likely to set a higher price for a contract prior to the QO deadline knowing that he can hold out and see if Texas does give him the QO. Second, he is probably thinking that on the free agent market some team might come to him with a significant offer that would exceed the value of the QO.

How the Texas Rangers should handle Mitch Garver's free agency?

I do no think that Texas should give him the QO. He would most definitely accept a guaranteed $20 million contract for next season. I do not know if it can be said that the QO has worked out for Texas with Martin Perez. He pitched himself out of the rotation by August and is now getting paid more than any other starter except for Jacob deGrom to pitch out of the bullpen. Imagine if Texas had 19 million to spend on the bullpen last offseason how good this team would be.

Texas is going to be entering a very important offseason regardless of what happens over the next 10 days. 2024 is when fans are truly going to be expecting big things. The expectation is going to be winning the division and then making a deep run into October. If they want to do that they have to address the bullpen in a significant way. They have to really go out this offseason and try to sign some of the best bullpen arms on the market. They have to do that with a potentially smaller amount of money to spend on free agents.

The question becomes is it smart to invest $20 million into a player that will be your backup catcher? I do not think it is. I am completely fine with giving Sam Huff a shot at the job. They drafted Huff in 2016 out of high school and have had held onto him since then. He will enter 2024 completely out of options. They either need to trade him while his value is really low or play him in 2024. I think it is time to see if Huff can produce over a 162 game schedule. I believe if given a regular shot to play Huff will produce at a good enough level to help this team. Plus, he will not cost $20 million.

I think the $20 million can be better spent on bullpen arms or starting pitchers. One other thing to remember when the Rangers got off to their 40-20 start that was almost entirely without Mitch Garver. He was out for much of that run. Texas will likely have on-base machine Evan Carter up to start the season and rising superstar prospect Wyatt Langford could be an option if not Opening Day then definitely by Memorial Day.

The offense is not going to be short on talent. The team needs more pitching. I firmly believe that spending $20 million on Mitch Garver will hinder the Rangers' off-season pursuit of arms for the bullpen. The goal is to win big in 2024 and while Garver the player would help that, I think in the end his contract would hamstring the team for the entire offseason.

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