This evening it was announced that the Rangers have signed Mark DeRosa & Brian Shouse to one year contracts for the 2006 season. Both were eligible for arbitration, so this brings the number of players now eligible for arbitration for the 2006 season to seven. They are: Rod Barajas, Joaquin Benoit, Gary Matthews Jr., Kevin Mench, Vicente Padilla, Mark Teixeira and Brad Wilkerson.
The $ amounts are not out yet, but I’ll have that as soon as I find out. Here’s the story from the Rangers site about it.
Both are good signings. Yeah, they were arbitration eligible, and would have likely been here anyway. But I still like it from a baseball move. DeRosa ddn’t play much at all most of 2005 until the back end of the season,when he was pretty reliable in several different positions. He could be our regular 2B if Kinsler doesn’t work out, or management decides he’s truly not ready yet. And Shouse has been pretty good out of the pen, too. Plus he’s a left handed reliever, you want to keep them. :)
UPDATE @ 12:15AM Tue: I’ve since found out the value of the two contracts. DeRosa got $675,000 and Shouse got $725,000 plus $50k in incentives. Shouse will get $25,000 if he appears in 60 games, and another $25k if he appears in 70.
UPDATE 2 @ 2PM Tue: I also found out that DeRosa gets contract incentives, too. He gets $25,000 each if he makes 350, 400, & 450 plate appearances.