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The Texas Rangers have announced that a pair of veterans, Asdrubal Cabrera and Tim Federowicz, are being designated for assignment (and presumably waived) on Friday. To take their place the Rangers are recalling Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who will be playing third base going forward, and Jose Trevino, who will be sharing catching duties with Jeff Mathis.
The decision to move on from Asdrubal Cabrera is one of those moves that likely doesn’t happen under the old rules where waiver trades are allowed after July 31. In previous years, Cabrera is likely moved in August to a team looking for infield depth for the stretch run. Now, however, non-contenders are incentivized to go ahead and cut loose veterans in August.
Federowicz could end up clearing waivers and accepting an outright assignment, giving the Rangers some insurance at AAA.
The experiment of having Kiner-Falefa being a regular catcher appears to be over, at least for the time being, with Jon Daniels saying IKF would need to be in the minors to continue to work on catching on a full time basis. He apparently will be auditioning the rest of the way for a shot at the third base job for 2020.