he following big prospects were invited to spring training this year: Joaquin Arias, Ian Kinsler, John Danks, Thomas Diamond, & Mike Nickeas.
I wonder if that’s all our prospects that will be invited.

Four arbitration eligible players were offered contracts by the Rangers yesterday. They are: Alfonso Soriano, Gary Matthews Jr, Rod Barajas, & Carlos Almanzar.
More info is at the Rangers site here.

The Rangers today re-signed Jeff Zimmerman to a minor league contract, where he’ll continue his lengthy rehab assignment. In the news story about the signing, the words “he was loyal to the Rangers so we wanted to be loyal to him”. I thought Rusty Greer was loyal, too? Where’s the love for the Red Baron?

The Rangers finally signed someone who actually WANTED to play here; I felt it took too long to get this deal done. We signed David Dellucci to a 2 year contract. He’s not the sexiest name out there, but he did bring a good veteran leadership to this club last year. We could do a lot worse.
Story on mlb.com about this.

The Rangers also signed utility infielder Greg Colbrunn over the past week to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. I’m pretty indifferent towards this signing. He strikes me as much the same kind of player that Dellucci is. If he can prove he’s not hurt, he’ll probably stick, and basically have the role the Herbert Perry had the last few years (when he wasn’t hurt).
I don’t know much about Colbrunn, here’s his stats from baseball-reference.com.

The Rangers wasted no time with the opening of today’s Winter meetings to sign Richard Hidalgo to a 1 year contract. This is probably a good signging, provided he stays healthy, unlike last year’s import to play RF.

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The Rangers signed former White Sox catcher Sandy Alomar Jr to a 1 year contract today, and added him to the 40 man roster. I can’t say I’m terribly excited about this one. He’ll obviously be our backup. I would have rather us gone with Barajas / Laird as the major league catching combo. I have nothing personally against Alomar, it’s just I don’t know if bringing in a catcher at the back end of his career to be the backup is a great idea (unless Pudge wants to return at the tail end of his).

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The final list of arbitration players was posted last night. We offered arbitration to David Dellucci, and declined arbitration to these players: Rusty Greer, Jeff Zimmerman, Eric Young, Brian Jordan, Brad Fullmer, Jeff Nelson, Jay Powell, & Andy Fox. I also have what I believe to be a complete list of former Rangers who were and were not offered arbitration on my forums here.

Today is arbitration day. When the formal announcement is made, I’ll update again, but I’ve made changes to the roster page on some of the obvious players that are not coming back.

There was a disturbing headline in today’s DMN entitled “Greer Finished as a Ranger“. That’s really depressing. I think we all knew it was coming, but to see it in print is really sad. I hope he says “I’m done”, and takes the front office job, although I still think he’ll make a great hitting coach to someone. Hope Omar Minaya in New York doesn’t figure that out.