So the story is beginning to ever so slowly change from "These Rangers are front-runners for everyone!" to "Hopefully Ian Kinsler and Mike Napoli really like Texas and not money."
Last night Ken Rosenthal published a piece about the Rangers perhaps having less to spend than we/the rest of baseball thought. Rosenthal thinks -- unless plans change -- that the Rangers will look to the trade market for cost effective options rather than going after an expensive Prince Fielder or Yu Darvish type.
The DMN has an article about Rosenthal's article where they editorialize the following:
But now, at least one national writer is confirming what the team has been saying all along: the Rangers just don't want to pony up the cash.
I guess I missed where the team had been saying all along that they just don't have money to spend.
I know the Rangers have a finite amount of money to spend. I can understand how that maybe doesn't include the likes of Darvish or Fielder if the Rangers don't feel that is a proper allocation of their resources. We have heard that the Rangers are interested in locking up players who are nearing free agency and that is still something that I expect will happen. However, I feel like it is a shift in tone from what we had heard coming into the off-season to say the Rangers have been saying all along that they aren't able to pay to improve the club.
Nevertheless, Richard Durrett talks Darvish in his continuing series of potential Ranger free agent and trade targets. Durrett doubts that the Rangers would be willing to invest $100 million plus on Darvish, however.
The DMN has a transcript of a Rick Gosselin radio appearance where he said he doesn't think that the Rangers losing C.J. Wilson is a big deal and they're better off now than last season without him.
Finally, here's T.R. Sullivan's Inbox column from yesterday. There's a Donna Karan joke in it.