Jason Castro to Angels: 1 year, $6.85M, per report

Jason Castro and the Anaheim Angels are in agreement on a one year, $6.85 million deal, per Jeff Passan on Twitter. The free agent catcher, who spent the 2019 season with the Minnesota Twins, was generally considered the top catcher remaining in the free agent market, and there had been some speculation that he could be of interest to the Rangers.

Castro, 32, is a lefthanded hitting catcher who had a big 2013 season with the Houston Astros, who drafted him out of Stanford with the #10 pick in the 2008 MLB Draft (one pick before the Rangers took Justin Smoak), but otherwise was pretty pedestrian with the Astros. After signing with the Twins before the 2017 season, Castro put up a .229/.325/.390 slash line with Minnesota, though he only played 19 games in 2018 and 79 games in 2019.

With Castro off the market, the Rangers would seem to be needing to ramp up their efforts to bring back Robinson Chirinos, who they let walk (to the Astros) after the 2018 season in a decision that seemed questionable at the time, and pretty bad in retrospect. The Rangers have been linked with Chirinos of late, but if for whatever reason they miss out on him, they will have to scramble to try to find someone viable behind the plate if they don’t want to roll with a Jose Trevino/Jeff Mathis pairing.