{"id":342034,"date":"2025-12-13T06:10:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342034\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T06:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:10:06","slug":"rangers-to-sign-alexis-diaz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342034\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers To Sign Alexis Diaz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rangers are in agreement with reliever\u00a0Alexis D\u00edaz<\/a> on a one-year deal, reports ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a>. Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News first suggested<\/a> that the sides were closing in on a deal, and has suggested<\/a> the contract will be on the cheaper side.<\/p>\n

With Phil Maton<\/a>, Chris Martin<\/a>, Jacob Webb<\/a>, Hoby Milner<\/a>, and Danny Coulombe<\/a> all reaching free agency after the season, Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young has to assemble a new bullpen once again.\u00a0 He made a pair of relief additions within minutes of each other Friday night with the signings of Diaz and<\/a> Tyler Alexander<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Diaz, 29, was a 12th round pick of the Reds out of a Puerto Rico high school a decade ago.\u00a0 He skipped Triple-A to make the Reds\u2019 Opening Day roster in 2022, making good on the promotion by posting a 1.84 ERA and earning a fifth place Rookie of the Year finish despite a bout with biceps tendinitis.\u00a0 With a strong start to the 2023 season, Diaz earned an All-Star nod.\u00a0 He finished third in the NL with 37 saves that year.\u00a0 Diaz punched out 31.2% of batters faced during his first two seasons, 14th in baseball among relievers with at least 100 innings.\u00a0 However, he also had the fourth-worst walk rate in that group at 12.8%.<\/p>\n

Diaz was able to save another 28 games with a 3.99 ERA for the Reds in 2024, but his strikeout rate plummeted to 22.7% with the walks remaining a problem.\u00a0 On the strength of his saves totals and early success, he landed a $4.5MM salary for 2025 as he entered the arbitration system.<\/p>\n

The righty started 2025 on the IL with a hamstring injury, and things only went downhill from there.\u00a0 Diaz was still under consideration for the Reds\u2019 closing job when he made his mid-April season debut, but after a disastrous three-homer outing against the Cardinals on April 30th, he was sent back to Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Diaz\u2019s control issues continued at Triple-A, and by the end of May the Reds sent him to the Dodgers in a trade for minor league pitcher Mike Villani<\/a>.\u00a0 Diaz served in a low-leverage, up-and-down capacity for the Dodgers, who eventually designated him for assignment on September 4th.\u00a0 He then joined the Braves in a waiver claim and made three appearances before being sent down.\u00a0 Diaz elected free agency in early October.<\/p>\n

Diaz\u2019s nine-game stint with the Dodgers was easy to forget, but it ending up playing a role in the club signing his older brother Edwin a few days ago<\/a> to a three-year, $69MM deal.\u00a0 According to Edwin<\/a>, \u201cHe told me the Dodgers are a really good organization. He made it easy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexis may be on the opposite end of the relief salary spectrum as compared to his older brother, but Chris Young had success last winter with bargain-basement relievers.\u00a0 He let Kirby Yates<\/a> and David Robertson<\/a> depart for greener pastures, signing Armstrong, Webb, Milner, Martin, and Luke Jackson<\/a> to one-year deals topping out with Martin\u2019s $5.5MM.\u00a0 All but Jackson had solid years.\u00a0 Milner and trade deadline pickup Maton signed with the Cubs this offseason.\u00a0 Southpaw Robert Garcia<\/a> serves as the main holdover.<\/p>\n

Mike Maddux departed for the Angels after three years as the Rangers\u2019 pitching coach, leading the club to elevate Jordan Tiegs to the role under new manager Skip Schumaker.\u00a0 According to Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News<\/a>, \u201cTiegs, 38, ran the team\u2019s bullpen last season in his first on-field role with the big league club, helped stabilize a group that was largely pieced together the previous winter and drew positive reviews from veteran relievers and organizational higher-ups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiegs will have his work cut out for him with Diaz.\u00a0 The righty\u2019s average fastball velocity slipped from 95.8 miles per hour as a rookie to 93.6 with his three teams this year, though it plays up with some of the best extension in the game.\u00a0 It\u2019s been two years since Diaz missed bats with a high spin rate fastball and one of the best sliders<\/a> featured by any reliever.\u00a0 His control is worse than ever.\u00a0 Diaz has been able to dodge longballs until this year, but doesn\u2019t really keep the ball on the ground.<\/p>\n

Young\u2019s active Friday evening included the signings of Diaz, Alexander, and catcher Danny Jansen<\/a> in rapid succession.\u00a0 He previously swapped Marcus Semien<\/a> for Brandon Nimmo<\/a> for an OBP boost.\u00a0 With limited payroll flexibility, Young figures to continue adding to the pitching staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers are in agreement with reliever\u00a0Alexis D\u00edaz on a one-year deal, reports ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan. Evan Grant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[14709,49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-342034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alexis-diaz","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}