As noted by Evan Grant on his D-Magazine blog, the Texas Rangers recently pulled a 180 and have now indicated that they may keep Andruw Jones on the 25-man roster as a right-handed designated-hitter.
The ramifications of this move:
Jones will DH against left-handed pitchers...
Byrd will get at-bats only as a 4th OFer against LH starters...
Blalock will log more time at 1st base against left-handed starters...
Chris Davis will sit on the bench against certain LH starters...
Catalanotto will either be traded or cut.
(The loss of Catalanotto obviously means very little)
In other words, this move will mean less at-bats for Byrd, a guy that has simply posted an .828 OPS since arriving in Texas. This move will mean less at-bats for Chris Davis, a guy that only produced an .880 OPS during his first 80 ML games...as a 22-year-old last year.
Texas is willing to make these changes for a guy (Jones) that has posted an OPS of .724 and .505 over the last two years?
I just don't get it. Every time I believe that the Rangers' front-office has finally figured it out, they do something like this. In their defense, the domino effect has not officially began - so I should probably give it time to develop - but right now, I don't see much value in keeping Jones around.
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