As Globe Life Field cost hits $1.2 billion, will Rangers’ budget shrink in off-season?
From the time Arlington voters approved to extend a tax that would help to pay for Globe Life Field, the price tag for the new home of the Texas Rangers has slowly crept higher and higher.
The project was initially believed to cost $1 billion. About a year later, it became a $1.1 billion project. Now, the budget has hit $1.2 billion less than five months from the first game at the new ballpark.
The city of Arlington is on the hook for $500 million. Rangers ownership is picking up the rest.
The $200 million difference in the three years since the 2016 election isn’t chump change. That kind of money could buy the Rangers a premiere free agent this off-season.
If ownership were to pull from the baseball budget to help pay for the stadium, it could keep the Rangers from considering a play for third baseman Anthony Rendon or right-handers Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg.
General manager Jon Daniels has said that the Rangers will have the money to go after the top free agents, but did he have the financial rug swept from under him as he headed to the annual GM meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona?
“Our budget has not changed in quite some time,” Daniels said Monday. “We’re going to have the resources to get back into the games that we sat out the last couple years. It just depends on if we determine if now is the time to do it.”
It could be, and the top names on the market are at need positions for the Rangers — third base, starting rotation, first base and catcher. The Rangers have looked ahead, when players like Francisco Lindor, Kris Bryant and Trevor Bauer can become free agents, to see if it’s wiser to make a splash in subsequent off-seasons.
The Rangers might go that route if some of their targets come off the board.
But free agency isn’t the only way for the Rangers to add help where they could use it, and one goal for Daniels this week is to feel out other GMs to see if they might be a good trading partner.
A trade might put less money on the books, while potentially costing the Rangers some prospects. They also have a surplus of lefty-hitting corner outfielders, with Nomar Mazara thought to be the one who will be shopped.
As for the ballpark, it should be a nice tool this off-season to help sell the Rangers to free agents, but Daniels suggested that Globe Life Field could have more of an impact next off-season.
The club expects the new ballpark will create more revenue, giving the Rangers more money to spend in free agency after this season, and it might take a season for word to spread throughout baseball at how nice the new player amenities are.
Of course, money and the chance to win will always be the top recruiting tools. The Rangers are going to have more of it, no matter how over budget the new ballpark ends up being.
“I do think it makes us more attractive,” Daniels said. “I think it’s a clear symbol of ownership’s commitment to win.”
