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Potential Player of Interest -- Jonny Gomes

The Rangers need a reasonably priced righthanded bat with pop that can DH and maybe fill in at a COF or CIF spot.

And I stumbled last night on an item by Ken Rosenthal that discussed a guy who could be a fit -- Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jonny Gomes.

Gomes is a guy I have always found to be intriguing, but who I finally gave up on last season and ignored...and he went on to have a pretty good season for Cincy:


G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG
2009 - Jonny Gomes 98 281 39 75 17 0 20 51 26 85 3 1 .267 .338 .541

 

Gomes is a lousy defender, and he didn't hit the previous couple of years with Tampa, but he's a righty bat with pop who will draw some walks.  And he has a career .274/.369/.517 line against LHPs.

Gomes just turned 29, and he's arbitration-eligible this offseason, so he's not a long-term solution.  But as a one year guy who ideally would get 250 PAs, mostly at DH against LHPs, but who you might want 400-500 PAs from if need be, he could be a good fit.

There's apparently talk that Gomes could be non-tendered, which would make him a free agent, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth the Rangers while to offer some of the team's minor league depth to deal a fringe guy -- a Brennan Garr or Evan Reed or Tim Murphy -- to get Gomes, if they think he's looking at $1.5-2 million in arbitration.  And of course, if he were to be non-tendered, I'd hope the Rangers would be interested in him on a cheap one year deal.

Gomes is the type of role player who could be a perfect fit for the Rangers' needs, and I think he's someone who is worth keeping an eye on this offseason.