Here we are. And barring some late deal involving Joaquin Benoit or Gerald Laird, the dust appears to be settling and we know what the Rangers have now.
The Rangers have added, in the past few days:
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Kason Gabbard
David Murphy
Matt Harrison
Max Ramirez
Elvis Andrus
Beau Jones
Neftali Feliz
Engel Beltre
That's a pretty nice haul.
And there's an interesting set of groupings there...Saltalamacchia is on a level on his own, followed by three relatively low-ceiling but close to ready prospects, an interesting, higher-ceiling catching prospect, and then 4 very young, very high ceiling guys.
Jones and Feliz are similar in that they are young power arms who only have one pitch right now, but can really bring that one pitch.
But the thing that really jumps out at me is that you can see Daniels' organizational philosophy developing.
He makes an effort to gather the young, toolsy up-the-middle guys (Borbon, Paisano, Andrus, Beltre). He hoards catchers (Ramirez, Tracy, Laird, Saltalamacchia, Killian, Stewart). He likes the power arms (Feliz, Jones, Mendoza, Galarraga).
And the thing is, with most of these guys (Saltalamacchia and Borbon being the notable exceptions), he's bought low on these guys. He picks them up as throw-ins, as the extra guys on these deals.
But the thing to keep in mind about all three categories I just listed is that those are the types of players that other teams covet in trade talks. If you want to make a deal for a major leaguer, having power arms and toolsy guys to dangle helps get a deal done.
And power arms and toolsy guys are the minor leaguers that turn into the impact players, the superstars down the road.
Daniels isn't going to Jim Bowden route, steering exclusively to the tools goofs and ignoring guys who can play baseball.
But he seems to be putting together a minor league system that has a nice variety of players, a good mix of the high-ceiling big-upside guys that are attractive trade chips, and the lower-ceiling but more reliable guys who can help fill holes on the major league level.