Three Value Free Agents the Texas Rangers Should Target

The Rangers already dipped into the value free agent pool with the recent signing of catcher Kyle Higashioka. Who are three others they could add this offseason to help propel the club back to the postseason?

After the disappointment of missing the playoffs only a year after hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy, the Texas Rangers are in search of the pieces that will vault them back to the top.

With budget constraints an apparent factor this offseason, president of baseball operations Chris Young and newly promoted GM Ross Fenstermaker will most likely be focusing on value and not just the splashy signings.

But value doesn’t mean not good. It also doesn’t mean cheap. Baseball has not been immune to inflation throughout its history. The idea that a value contract could still be worth $10-$15 million is quite something.

So, what will the Rangers be looking at position-wise in the free agent market? Their main areas of concern after the 2023 season and heading into next year are catcher, the outfield, and pitching of all varieties.

Texas addressed the need at catcher last week with the signing of Kyle Higashioka to a two-year $12.5 million contract with a mutual option for 2027 worth $7 million. Higashioka will be splitting time with Jonah Heim, and they should make for a solid unit behind the plate for the Rangers.

That leaves outfield and pitching as the positions of serious need for Texas. Let’s take a look at three guys who won’t carry top-tier free agent price tags this offseason but could help to get the club back to the postseason in 2025.

Ryan Yarbrough – Relief Pitcher (LHP)

In MLB, a pitcher coming out of the ‘pen has one job: to get batters out. Most of the arms that trot in from the outfield – or take the bullpen car in D.C. – are flame-throwing dragons. If you want to see the radar gun light up, most relief pitchers who make their way to the big leagues are going to give you just that, gas.

Then there are pitchers like Ryan Yarbrough, who have completely different highlight reels. With his size – 6-foot-5, 215 pounds – you would think that he might be bringing the heat and blowing the ball past guys. But that is not the case.

His game is built upon spin, soft pitching, and soft contact. With a four-seam fastball that averaged just 86.5 mph this past season, there shouldn’t be a hitter in the league that he can throw it by. Yet, much like a knuckleballer, sometimes he actually can.

Yarbrough started his career in Tampa Bay and has spent time both as a starter and in relief. Of his 196 MLB games, he has started 68 of them. While the Rangers would be looking for him to boost a bullpen that had few reliable lefties, the fact that he could make the occasional spot start is also a nice tool in his toolbox.

How bad were the Rangers’ lefties out of the pen in 2024? They ranked 27th in ERA at 4.82 and dead last in FIP at 5.21.

Yarbrough appeared in 44 games in 2024, pitching 98.2 innings – the Rangers only had 97 innings of relief from all of their lefties – and he had a 3.19 ERA and 1.034 WHIP. According to Baseball Savant, his fastball velo was in the bottom 1% of the league, yet his hard-hit rate was in the top 99% and his exit velo was in the top 97%.

Spotrac estimates Yarbrough’s value at $4.5 million per year and predicts he will get a two-year contract.

Randal Grichuk – Outfielder (RHB)

Outfield and designated hitter are two more areas the Rangers could improve upon heading into 2025.

Randal Grichuk, who grew up in Rosenberg, TX, might not be a name that casual fans know, but anyone who was following baseball extensively, or just the Arizona Diamondbacks at all last season knows that he had a fantastic year. In fact, Just Baseball’s Joey Peterson had Grichuk as the 10th best free agent outfielder available last month.

Used in a platoon role for most of the 2024 campaign, the 33-year-old Grichuk made the most of his time between the lines. Appearing in 106 games and getting 286 plate appearances, he slashed .291/.348/.528, hit 12 home runs and had an OPS+ of 140. It was one of the best seasons of his 11-year career.

Grichuk hits both right-handed and left-handed pitching, but he feasts on lefties. And for a team like the Rangers that struggled against left-handed pitching in 2024, a strong bat either in the starting lineup or off the bench for Bruce Bochy to deploy could make a big difference in 2025. Texas’s right-handed batters only managed a hitting line of .230/.304/.384 against southpaws last season.

Not only would Grichuk help out in the outfield, but he would also allow the Rangers to plug Adolis García into the DH role more often.

If Young and Fenstermaker do in fact sign Grichuk, they would have the option of trading Leody Taveras or even García for additional pitching depth. Or they could choose to hang on to their current outfielders, García, Taveras, Wyatt Langford, and Evan Carter, and plug Grichuk into a strong rotation of outfield and DH.

A healthy Carter will bolster the Rangers outfield in 2025, but a value signing like Grichuk would sure be nice as well.

Walker Buehler – Starting Pitcher (RHP)

For those of you who thought that this was an article about value free agents, yes, you are correct, it is.

The name Walker Buehler is still on the elite side of the game, especially after his dominant and gutsy showing in this year’s World Series. But while he showed his mettle in the playoffs, his regular season was a struggle at times.

After an All-Star campaign that saw Buehler finish 4th in the NL Cy Young race in 2021, he has been battling injuries ever since. Arm issues in 2022 led to the hurler’s second-career Tommy John surgery in August of that year and kept him on the shelf for all of the 2023 season.

A hip issue this past year while bouncing back from the surgery forced Buehler to miss quite a bit of time as well.

His numbers for 2024 reflect the issues he was having physically. In 16 starts and 75.1 innings, Buehler had an ugly 5.38 ERA and a 1.553 WHIP. That is a far cry from his 2018-2022 numbers: a 2.95 ERA and 1.021 WHIP in 629 innings pitched.

This postseason saw Buehler first struggle against the Padres in the NLDS before throwing four fantastic innings against the Mets in the NLCS. He then bounced back even further on the health train, as he went on to pick up the win in Game 3 of the World Series against the Yankees only to follow that up with the title-clinching save in Game 5.

The Dodgers trusted him when it counted the most.

It’s not a stretch to say that Buehler is back, but with his recent injury history and struggles this past season, a two-year bounce-back contract with an opt-out after year one is probably in order. If the Rangers do sign Buehler, it would give them yet another high-risk, high-upside arm for the rotation.

While the Rangers haven’t been tied to Buehler this offseason, there is quite the case to be made that the pairing would be a good fit.

Quality and quantity seldom go together, but the prospect of having Jacob deGrom and Walker Buehler along with youngsters Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter in the rotation could be electric. Not to mention the Rangers could have not two but three Vandy Boys on the staff. And don’t forget the likes of Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford, and even Dane Dunning.

Buehler isn’t going to be cheap, but at this point, he could be a real value signing for the Rangers. As the Winter Meetings get started in Dallas, all eyes will continue to be on the hot stove and the state of Texas.