The Rangers have released outfielder Will Smith. He had been playing for the Oklahoma Redhawks.
A couple of interesting things about this...the Rangers had a couple of fringey, kind-of-interesting outfield prospects in AAA to start the season, Rashad Eldridge and Will Smith, and both have now been released. Smith, like Eldridge, was 24 (they were actually born just a week apart in October of 1981) and I believe would have been a six year minor league free agent after the season, so I guess the organization figured they were best off cutting bait with both players early on, since they weren't going to be added to the 40 man roster this offseason.
Smith was apparently released because of the promotion of Anthony Webster, and I guess the Redhawks are going to go with an outfield of Webster, Laynce Nix, and Adam Hyzdu, at least until either Freddy Guzman is sent back down or Ruddy Yan gets healthy.
Personally, I'd rather see Drew Meyer starting in CF for Oklahoma than Laynce Nix, but I am giving up on seeing that happen.
This also means, as a couple of folks have pointed out, that the return on the Uggy Urbina trade isn't looking too hot...the Rangers got Ryan Snare and Will Smith, who have both been released, along with Adrian Gonzalez, who has been portrayed as something of a throw-in in the deal that brought Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka to Texas.
On the other hand, the return on the Carl Everett trade still looks pretty solid...