Rumor Grade: Lorenzo Cain to the Texas Rangers

Of the three major free agents to leave the Kansas City Royals this offseason — Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, and Eric Hosmer — none of them have found a new team (or re-signed with the Royals) yet. But of those three, Cain’s offseason has been the quietest of them all. There’s been barely a rumor about where he might sign, until now.

The rumor

The rumor floating around is that the Rangers are interested in signing Cain, according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. It’s barely a rumor in that the way Crasnick phrases the scoop — “ramped up their pursuit” — doesn’t give any sense as to how badly Texas wants Cain. Is this ramping up from zero? Did they have any interest before? It seems like a leak to help his market mature faster in this agonizingly slow offseason, but there may be merit to it in the end. Let’s see how much merit by grading it.

Why it makes sense for Lorenzo Cain

Because he’s going to need to sign somewhere eventually, and there aren’t too many options out there right now for he or anyone else waiting to get a huge contract for the next seven to 10 years.

Whether that’s an intentional strategy by the owners to knock prices down league-wide or not (it totally is), that’s where the top free agents stand, including Cain. So it works from his camp’s view because it gives him a job, from a team that can pay him close to what he wants per year even if he’s not going to secure a contract that takes him through his age-40 season.

He would get playing time in Texas, but not for years and years. The probability is more that he would sign there for less than three years and be right back on the market then, except at that point turning 35 rather 32 in the upcoming season. That’s a tougher sell than 32-year-old Cain is (and that is proving to already be a tricky sell) and not at all what his team wants.

Why it makes sense for the Rangers

This is where it makes a little less sense, but could still happen if they try to force things into place. They have a full outfield for the most part with Delino DeShields, Nomar Mazara, and Shin Soo Choo (signed through 2021 on a tough deal to trade away) with Drew Robinson and Ryan Rua backing them up and Willie Calhoun just about ready to make the permanent jump to the majors. So do they stun Calhoun’s growth in the outfield? Trade someone? All to give them what seems like a leg up but could be someone pulling the step stool out from under them if Cain’s output drops off.

Could they use him for a year or two while Willie Calhoun acclimates to the major leagues (or fizzles out and necessitates they find a more long-term solution)? Sure. But a long-term contract is what Cain is looking for and they aren’t.

The other suitor is the Brewers, who originally drafted Cain into the league before trading him away in the Zack Greinke deal, and they would definitely have to make room by trading away an outfielder or two. Which, while it could help them right now, is again not really a long-term, viable option if they don’t wish to be saddled with a massive contract that they need to get out from under in 2021 or 2022.

In that way, the Rangers are in a similar situation. If they make trades to commit to Cain for seven years or more, it will be poor decision making for a (possible) short-term gain. If they find a way to negotiate with Cain’s team for a short-term contract now, they’ll be spending a lot of money and might make their outfield worse in the long run anyway by breaking up something that’s working right now and could be a great plan moving forward.

Rumor grade

C-. This, to me, seems very much like Cain’s camp put a bunch of rumors out into the world to see which ones stuck and were circulated, or both the Brewers and the Rangers hinted at going after him to see if they could get other contracts done that are more suitable for their current situations. While it worked to get people thinking about Cain and where he might sign after months on end of silence around him, neither of these situations seems like a decent fit. In fact, it might put both teams further behind their competition in a few years rather than giving them a boost over that same span.