Carlos Gomez officially signed, Brady Dragmire DFA’d

Carlos Gomez is a Texas Ranger officially, as John Blake tweeted the team has officially re-signed the free agent outfielder. To make room for him on the 40 man roster, the Rangers have designated Brady Dragmire for assignment. Dragmire had been claimed on waivers a week or so ago, and I think we expected at the time he would be put back on waivers at some point this offseason, in an effort to outright him.

We talked about the Gomez signing already, and at one year, $11.5 million, I think he’s a pretty good pickup. There’s always the risk that Gomez really is done, that the Houston version of Gomez is what Texas will get in 2017, but I think the team saw enough of him in September to believe there’s more there. He’s not going to perform like he did in Texas, most likely — a .284/.362/.543 slash line would be terrific, but there’s little reason to think Gomez will do that.

And realistically, he’s probably not going to be as good as he was in Milwaukee in 2013 and 2014. But if he can replicate what he did in 2011, 2012, and 2015 — when he was a 2-2.5 win player — the Rangers will be very happy with that outcome for $11.5 million.

Meanwhile, the Rangers’ roster is still full at 40, and one would expect they will add at least two more players on major league deals at some point. I still think Colby Lewis will be back, although the team and Lewis may just delay officially doing a contract until early February, when Prince Fielder can be moved to the 60 day d.l.

But Texas is probably going to add at least one more position player, either a defense-first center fielder (which would put Gomez in LF and Shin-Soo Choo at DH), or a 1B/DH type (which would potentially move the Ryan Rua/Jurickson Profar platoon to somewhere other than 1B), if not both. I tend to believe that the Rangers will look to move another reliever at some point, which would clear a 40 man spot, but otherwise, Tyler Wagner appears to be the next player on the 40 man chopping block. He was claimed earlier in the offseason, and if someone has to be DFA’d, he’d seem to be the likely choice.