Texas Rangers non-tender four, including Matt Bush

The Texas Rangers non-tendered pitchers Matt Bush, Ricky Rodriguez, Adrian Sampson and Zac Curtis today.

Normally, teams non-tender players because they don’t want to pay them what they anticipate they would receive in arbitration. However, all four of these players are pre-arbitration, which means they would be on split contracts and would make close to league minimum in the majors.

So why, you may ask, would the Rangers non-tender them, rather than simply waive them and try to outright them?

If a team puts a player on waivers, another team could claim that player. Teams will often claim players for the express purpose of turning around and putting them on waivers in the near future, for the purpose of trying to outright the player, like the first team was trying to do. Or a team may claim a player and intend to keep them in the 40 man roster for depth purposes, or maybe waive them at the end of spring training when the waiver wire is flooded with players and there’s a better chance of a player clearing.

By non-tendering the player, however, the Rangers can make the player a free agent, and immediately re-sign the player if they wish, or wait until after the Rule 5 draft to re-sign the player. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Rangers had oral agreements with one or more of these players — Matt Bush and Ricky Rodriguez in particular — on a lucrative minor league deal. In that case, the Rangers keep the player and free up a 40 man roster spot.

We shall have to wait and see if the Rangers opt to re-sign any of these guys in the coming days.

With these moves, the 40 man roster stands at 34.