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In a good move, we signed Mark Teixeira to a two year contract this morning, avoid a REALLY ugly arbitration process. Of all the players we had eligible for arbitration, Tex’s one was the scariest, as these things are never good. If you’re a regular reader here then you likely know why they’re ugly, so I won’t get into that.
Anyway, the two year deal is worth $15.4 Million, which is what some people think he might have gotten for one year had he been on the open market with the kind of season he had in 2005. He gets $6.4 million in 2006, and $9 million in 2007. This doesn’t totally buy him out of arbitration, as he’ll be eligible again for that in 2008 (his final year before he can become an unrestricted free agent).
I don’t think there’s anyone that can rightfully say that this is a bad move. It’s a good move. Would have liked to have seen a 10 year $125 million contract or something like that, but I’ll take not going to arbitration nwo, giving us more time to get something longer done during the contract (although with Boras, that’s not always likely).
This leaves outfielders Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench and Gary Matthews Jr. and pitchers Adam Eaton and Vicente Padilla as the remaining arbitration eligible players.

Assuming the thing even happens thanks to the usual political nonsense…
Mike Young and Mark Teixeira were named to the Team USA roster yesterday evening, as managed by Buck Martinez, currently the host of XM’s morning baseball talk show. There’s talk that Michael Young will play second base again, as there’s a number of shortstops named already, although the only ones IMO that are good enough to start in place of Young are Derek Jeter & Jimmy Rollins. The rest shouldn’t be considered above Young. Still, it’ll be interesting to see him back at second base, if that’s where he ends up.
Other Rangers invited to participate are closer Francisco Cordero (Dominican Republic), right-handed reliever Akinori Otsuka (Japan), outfielder David Dellucci (Italy) and infielder Mark DeRosa (Italy).

No details as I get this, the news just hit. It’s a one year deal worth $3.2 Million. More later on.

Short story. Joaquin Benoit was signed for the 2006 season, avoiding arbitration. He resigned for $750,000 with an additional $50k in incentives. He gets $25k if he makes 55 appearances, and another $25k if he gets to 60 appearances.
I don’t think his resigning is a bad thing, but after the moves with Millwood and all that activity, it sems like an “eh” move.

Baseball Prospectus Rangers notes for Dec 30th:
They weigh in on the Millwood signing, the Eaton/Young trade, Vicente Padilla, and the starting to be annoying Roger Clemens rumours.
Mets sign Bret Boone:
This has two benefits. We won’t do something stupid and sign Boone (something I heard rumoured this morning on XM’s MLB Home Plate channel). Second, we don’t have to see the stupid bat flip anymore, as he’ll be in the NL.