Texas Rangers have signed James Loney, per Heyman

The Texas Rangers have signed free agent first baseman James Loney to a minor league deal, per Jon Heyman on Twitter.

I know the immediate reaction from some will be to interpret this as the Rangers being out of money, not in on Napoli, etc. More likely, I think this is simply a depth signing, much like Travis Snider is.

Loney is a lefthanded hitting first baseman who will presumably vie with Josh Hamilton in battling for a platoon first base job. Loney has mixed replacement level performance with roughly average performance over his career, but wasn't good for the Mets last year or with the Rays in 2015.

The 32 year old has a reputation for being a good glove man at first base, and at his best has on base skills and doubles power. That said, I wouldn't expect Loney to be getting significant major league playing time in 2017 for the Rangers unless something goes wrong.