rangers and sluggers Jock Pederson According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the two sides have reached agreement on a contract. The deal gives Pederson two years and $37 million guaranteed with an opt-out after the 2025 campaign, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported last night that the Rangers and Pederson were in contact about a potential trade.
Pederson, 32, has now signed his fifth consecutive contract, allowing him to re-enter free agency in a year. The slugger became a free agent for the first time in the 2020-21 offseason and signed a one-year deal with the Cubs. He then signed a one-year deal with the Giants, then accepted the club’s qualifying offer the following offseason and signed another one-year deal with the Diamondbacks last winter. However, his latest deal offers more security as it comes with a player option for a second season.
The constant free-agent journey hasn’t stopped Pederson from becoming one of the most productive left-handed bats in the majors in recent years. Since making his second career All-Star appearance as a member of the Giants in 2022, Pederson has slashed .262/.365/.485 with a 135 wRC+. That number ranks him 16th among qualified hitters over the past three seasons, and he’s comfortably sandwiched between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Jose Ramirez On that ranking list.
It might seem surprising that Pederson ended up on another relatively short-term deal that guaranteed him less than $20 a year, considering he’s provided superstar-caliber offenses for multiple teams on the cheap in recent years. This discrepancy is largely due to the extremely limited profile of Pederson. While he’s a hitter who excels against right-handed pitching, his profile has huge platoon-splitting characteristics, and he’s generally been at his best throughout his career when he’s pitched against the same hand as much as possible. Best condition. He’s a career .210/.300/.330 (78 wRC+) hitter against left-handed pitchers, and he’s even posted a 104 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers over the past three seasons.
Maybe that by itself isn’t enough to prevent Pederson from getting a big contract in free agency, but he’s also a terrible defender in the outfield and didn’t put on the glove once after starting in one year in Arizona. . In 2022, Pederson’s final season as a primary defenseman, he was -11 above average in shutouts, which put him at the bottom of the league leaderboard. Despite Pederson’s prodigious hitting talent, his ability to earn money on the open market has been limited by the relatively small upside of signing a platoon bat that is increasingly limited to DH duties. Against that backdrop, Pederson actually did a pretty good job with the deal he got from the Rangers. His $37 guaranteed is significantly more than the two-year, $24 deal MLBTR projected when they listed him as the No. 24 free agent on our list of 50 MLB free agents at the start of the winter.
For the Rangers, the addition of Pederson provides some much-needed punch to a lineup that ranked just 22nd in the majors last year with a 95 wRC+. That included a poor showing at DH, where the Texans only managed a 65 wRC+, second-best in baseball behind the Reds. The addition of Pederson not only adds another left-handed slugger to the Rangers lineup to complement his former Dodgers teammate Corey Seager But it also made up for the loss Nathaniel Lowethe club traded him to the Nationals last night. Pederson added, Higashioka Kyleand Jack Burger Improvements in club squads and fitness of young people Josh Jung and Evan Carter Should give the Rangers a stronger offense up and down the batting order while allowing the club to rely less on utility staff Josh SmithHe was one of the team’s biggest offensive contributors in the first half, but after the All-Star break, his shooting percentage dropped to only .215/.265/.300.
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