The Rangers are a stern serious interest in free-agent catcher Mike Piazza, as Major League officials confirmed on Saturday. The Rangers are interested in Piazza more as a DH than a catcher. Piazza could do some catching behind Gerald Laird as well, but the Rangers are looking at him mainly as an offensive player.
Piazza hit .283 with 22 home runs and 68 RBIs in 126 games and 399 at-bats for the Padres last year. His is still producing at the old age of 38, and could give the Rangers a punch in the middle of the order. Piazza has been an All-Star 12 times, he has a .309 career batting average which is the eighth highest among active players, and he has 419 career home runs which is 12th most among active players.
I feel like the Rangers need to pursue outfielders and pitching before they go after Piazza. They still don't have a true center fielder and need to fill the hole that Gary Matthews left. Pitching is also a must. The Rangers have plenty of questions that need to be answered and I feel like a DH is not a big need for the Rangers. The Rangers should instead fill their depleted rotation before they go after a aging catcher/DH. Signing Piazza would be further convince me that the Rangers still don't understand the good pitching dominates good hitting. The Rangers need to stay away from the big bats and look for game changing starters and relievers.
- Big-D Sports
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1 comment:
the rangers did not have a true DH last year that was consistent. Botts could do it this year but we also don't have a proven back up for laird...if laird falters then Piazza could step in...The rangers are acting now to prevent oakland for jumping on him. Starting pitching, the good ones at least will not start signing immediately...and besides, if the rangers do sign Piazza now it does not mean that they are not negociating with Zito or padilla. and I have not heard that there is a long line of suiters for Kenny lofton at the moment either.
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