Texas Rangers non-tender Jared Hoying

The Texas Rangers have non-tendered outfielder Jared Hoying today in advance of tonight’s 7 p.m. deadline for tendering a contract, thus making him a free agent, per John Blake on Twitter.

Before you scroll down to the comments and start typing about how that’s different from Jon Daniels’ statement earlier today, let me point out — JD said all the team’s arbitration-eligible players were being tendered contracts. Hoying is not eligible for arbitration, and thus what Daniels said wasn’t applicable to him (and I’m pretty sure that’s why JD phrased it that way, rather than saying no one would be non-tendered).

So why, if Hoying isn’t arbitration eligible, was he non-tendered, rather than waived? My guess is that the Rangers want to keep Hoying in the organization, and feared that, if they waived him, another team would do the claim/waive/attempt to outright move that the Rangers just (unsuccessfully) tried to do with David Rollins, and are probably trying to do with Brady Dragmire. Then the Rangers would lose Hoying, and have nothing to show for it but the $25,000 waiver fee, and another team would be able to stash Hoying in their minor league system...unless the Ranger re-claimed Hoying, and then tried again to waive him.

Instead, by non-tendering Hoying, the Rangers have the opportunity to immediately re-sign him as a minor league free agent, keeping him in their system. My guess is that there have already been discussions between the Rangers and Hoying’s agent, and unless another team is willing to sign him to a major league deal (which seems unlikely), Hoying will re-up with the Rangers in the near future on a minor league contract.