Rangers sign Jonathan Meloan

Per Matt Eddy of Baseball America, the Rangers have signed righthanded pitcher Jonathan Meloan to a minor league deal.

This is an interesting pickup...Meloan is just 27 years old, and at one time was a well-regarded prospect in the Dodgers' organization, throwing hard, striking out a lot of hitters, and walking a fair number of guys.

He was sent by the Dodgers to the Indians as part of the Casey Blake trade that resulted in Carlos Santana ending up in Cleveland, and then was moved the following year to Tampa. Meloan was then the subject of a game of waiver tag, as he was waived by Tampa, claimed by the Pirates, waived less than a month later by the Pirates, and claimed by the Oakland A's.

Meloan missed all of the 2010 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, then struggled in his return from surgery last season while pitching for Midland, the A's AA affiliate.

This is the type of guy you often see the Rangers take a flier on -- a hard thrower who is coming back from injury issues (see, e.g., Ryan Tucker, Ryan Wing, Mason Tobin). Its unlikely he'll contribute anything, but if he does end up coming all the way back from the 2010 T-J surgery, he could potentially have some value as a reliever.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB
2005	20	LAD-min	Rk	0	2	.000	3.69	16	6	5	0	0	1	39.0	30	16	16	4	18	54	0.9	4.2	12.5	3.00
2006	21	LAD-min	A,A+,AA	3	1	.750	1.90	21	3	7	0	0	1	52.0	27	13	11	5	16	91	0.9	2.8	15.8	5.69
2007	22	LAD-min	AA,AAA	7	2	.778	2.02	49	0	37	0	0	20	66.2	36	18	15	5	27	91	0.7	3.6	12.3	3.37
2007	22	LAD	NL	0	0		11.05	5	0	3	0	0	0	7.1	8	9	9	1	8	7	1.2	9.8	8.6	0.88
2008	23	LAD-CLE-min	AAA	5	11	.313	4.89	33	20	2	0	0	0	119.2	131	80	65	8	69	111	0.6	5.2	8.3	1.61
2008	23	CLE	AL	0	0		0.00	2	0	1	0	0	0	2.0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0.0	4.5	9.0	2.00
2009	24	CLE-TBD-PIT-OAK-min	AAA	0	0		4.37	44	2	11	0	0	0	68.0	68	33	33	9	30	61	1.2	4.0	8.1	2.03
2009	24	OAK	AL	0	0		0.00	6	0	2	0	0	0	8.1	3	1	0	0	2	11	0.0	2.2	11.9	5.50
2011	26	OAK-min	AA	1	3	.250	4.67	25	0	16	0	0	5	27.0	28	21	14	2	20	25	0.7	6.7	8.3	1.25
3 Yrs				0	0		4.58	13	0	6	0	0	0	17.2	11	10	9	1	11	20	0.5	5.6	10.2	1.82
162 Game Avg.				0	0		4.58	68	0	31	0	0	0	93	58	52	47	5	58	105	0.5	5.6	10.2	1.82

OAK (1 yr)				0	0		0.00	6	0	2	0	0	0	8.1	3	1	0	0	2	11	0.0	2.2	11.9	5.50
LAD (1 yr)				0	0		11.05	5	0	3	0	0	0	7.1	8	9	9	1	8	7	1.2	9.8	8.6	0.88
CLE (1 yr)				0	0		0.00	2	0	1	0	0	0	2.0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0.0	4.5	9.0	2.00

AL (2 yrs)				0	0		0.00	8	0	3	0	0	0	10.1	3	1	0	0	3	13	0.0	2.6	11.3	4.33
NL (1 yr)				0	0		11.05	5	0	3	0	0	0	7.1	8	9	9	1	8	7	1.2	9.8	8.6	0.88