The season starts in a couple of days, and the exhibition game from yesterday was rained out, so not a lot of news out there today.
Jan Hubbard says final cuts will be announced tonight, although the only real mystery is whether Miguel Ojeda or Chris Stewart will be the backup catcher. Matt Kata has made the team, by all accounts, which means Marlon Byrd will be put on waivers, and Bruce Chen and Mike Wood will both make the team, as well, it seems.
Hubbard points out that Chen's deal provides that he'll get $1.1 million this year, and if the Rangers released him, they would owe him $275,000...so basically, they'd be paying him $300,000 for a week's work (if they let him go when Eric Gagne and Jamey Wright came back), during which there's a decent chance he wouldn't even be used.
Jim Reeves has a column about the Rangers pitching situation, which includes some praise for Jon Daniels' decision to slot Kam Loe in the bullpen, although he quotes Daniels as saying that, if the team were going just off spring performance, Loe would have been the Opening Day starter. There are the usual snide remarks about the Rangers not having enough pitching mixed in, though, along with a shot at Brandon McCarthy...
Richard Durrett has some Sosa stuff, if you haven't gotten your fill yet.
And T.R. Sullivan has an overview of the team going into Opening Day...