Pitchers may be on Rangers' trading block

By JEFF WILSON

jwilson@star-telegram.com

CHICAGO — The biggest storyline of the Texas Rangers’ 2009 season was a pitching revolution that saw the club spend more than a month in first place and remain in contention deep into September.

As critical as Kevin Millwood and Scott Feldman, among others, were to the pitching success, the contributions of Dustin Nippert and Brandon McCarthy, among others, should not be discarded.

The Rangers found depth, quality depth, in their starting rotation, and general manager Jon Daniels is in no rush to deal away the arms that helped pave the way to an 87-75 record.

But on Monday, the first day of the annual general managers’ meetings, Daniels said that a trade will be the first avenue for the Rangers to make any upgrades to the roster.

A pitcher might be the key to locking up a deal.

“Our depth played a very big role in the year we had,” Daniels said. “No matter what kind of injury or problem we dealt with, we had a good internal option to go with.

“Is there an opportunity to move some of those guys? Possibly. But I’m in no hurry to eliminate that depth that’s been so important to us.”

There will be a crowd at the mound in spring training with as many as 10 pitchers competing for five rotation spots. Millwood and Feldman are in. Nothing is certain after that, though Tommy Hunter and Derek Holland seem to be logical choices.

That leaves a bevy of candidates — a group that includes Neftali Feliz, Eric Hurley and possibly C.J. Wilson — vying for one spot. McCarthy, who pitched well before and after missing three months with a stress fracture in his shoulder blade, could be the most attractive from the group to other teams.

The Rangers have bullpen needs and would like to add a right-handed bat. Though the Rangers ended up spending $77 million in 2009 after the additions of Ivan Rodriguez and Jason Grilli and paying out performance bonuses, the payroll is likely to be at or marginally below $68 million at the start 2009.

Daniels said the Rangers will explore free agents but won’t be involved in anything on the upper end of that market. That leaves the trade market.

“We’re going to explore trade opportunities first,” Daniels said. “I don’t expect we’ll be quick players on the free-agent market.”

At the top

The Rangers’ farm system was rated No. 1 by Baseball America last year. Though many of the top prospects are now major-leaguers, don’t expect the Rangers to slip out of the top five.

There’s plenty of talent down there. While Feliz, Holland, Julio Borbon, Justin Smoak and Martin Perez were the coveted players at the trade deadline, others received hits.

Daniels is awfully comfortable with the Rangers’ place in the minor-league pecking order. Most of the talent is in pitching at the lower levels.

“Our scouts and development guys have done a great job getting a variety of young arms in the system,” Daniels said. “We’ve graduated a lot of players [to the majors]. We still have some potential impact guys at Double A and Triple A.”

Briefly

Scott Littlefield has been hired as a special assistant in baseball operations, and his duties will be concentrated on scouting, Daniels said. Littlefield, the brother of former Pittsburgh GM Dave Littlefield, was the national crosschecker for San Diego.

The Rangers have been linked, though possibly as a byproduct of their recent attempts to woo Japanese players, to right-handed reliever Ryota Igarashi. He has expressed a desire to play in the United States in 2010 and is believed to be the top Japanese player available to big-league teams this off-season.

Jeff Wilson, 817-390-7760

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