{"id":505839,"date":"2026-03-05T20:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505839\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T20:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:22:07","slug":"rangers-to-sign-andrew-mccutchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505839\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers To Sign Andrew McCutchen"},"content":{"rendered":"

1:40pm: McCutchen\u2019s base salary would be $1.25MM if he makes the team, per Grant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

11:37am: McCutchen\u2019s deal can max out around $2.5MM if he makes the roster and hits his full slate of incentives, per Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports<\/a>. Obviously, that suggests the base salary on his deal is shy of $2.5MM.<\/p>\n

9:03am: The Rangers are bringing veteran outfielder Andrew McCutchen<\/a> aboard on a minor league contract with an invitation to big league camp, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News<\/a>. The Aegis Sports client\u2019s deal is still pending a physical.<\/p>\n

McCutchen, 39, is years removed from peak form but still turned in a .239\/.333\/.367 slash (95 wRC+) last year in what now looks like his final season with the Pirates. His .267\/.353\/.389 output against left-handed pitching was a bit above average, and he knocked lefties around at a heftier .261\/.383\/.410 clip as recently as 2023.<\/p>\n

For the past three years, McCutchen has suited back up for his original club in Pittsburgh, where he was a first-round pick who broke out as a star and eventually won National League MVP honors. The hope for both McCutchen and the Pirates was that he\u2019d return to play out his final seasons where it all began, leading a more competitive Bucs club back to the playoffs in the twilight of his career.<\/p>\n

That storybook ending never came to be. Pittsburgh struggled in each of the past three seasons, finishing under .500 each year along the way. The Bucs fired manager Derek Shelton last May and took a more urgent and aggressive approach to building up their offense this winter. Pittsburgh acquired Brandon Lowe<\/a> via trade and signed free agents Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a> and Marcell Ozuna<\/a>. They had even bigger targets throughout the winter (e.g. Kyle Schwarber<\/a>, Josh Naylor<\/a>, Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>, Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a>). All those pursuits cast doubt on whether there was room for one more go-around with McCutchen on what\u2019d have been a more nostalgic\/sentimental reunion. Last month\u2019s signing of Ozuna all but confirmed that the book on the three-year reunion with McCutchen had been closed.<\/p>\n

McCutchen now heads to the Rangers in hopes of grabbing a bench spot. His right-handed bat makes for a natural platoon complement alongside designated hitter Joc Pederson<\/a>. Cutch could also see some time in the outfield corners when Texas faces off against left-handed starters, with Wyatt Langford<\/a> shifting over to center field in place of lefty-swinging Evan Carter<\/a>, who has just five hits in 68 career plate appearances against southpaws.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little sense citing McCutchen\u2019s career .289\/.387\/.514 slash against lefties, since so much of that is influenced by otherworldly production during his MVP peak. However, even over the three seasons in his late-career return to PNC Park, McCutchen hit .244\/.353\/.392 in 435 plate appearances. That sort of production is more solid than eye-catching, but it\u2019d still mark an upgrade over the awful .225\/.290\/.363 batting line the Rangers turned in versus left-handed pitching in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1:40pm: McCutchen\u2019s base salary would be $1.25MM if he makes the team, per Grant. 11:37am: McCutchen\u2019s deal can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[77464,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-505839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andrew-mccutchen","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}