With Monday’s trade deadline staring down at them, the Rangers made a deal yesterday that helps them in two areas: catcher and bullpen.

You wouldn’t think they’d need catching help going into the season with Kyke Higoshioka and Danny Jansen expected to split time. Neither was a huge offensive threat, but they could hold down the position on a team that wasn’t willing to spend money to improve.

Unfortunately, Jansen went down in early June, Higashioka in mid-July. The Rangers plucked Elias Diaz off waiver wires when Jansen went down, and Austin Wynns for Higashioka. Again, neither an offensive threat although Diaz had a nice run early on and has since reverted back to his water level.

The Rangers found a more reliable bat to catch yesterday in Logan O’Hoppe, to go along with a reliable bullpen arm in righty Chase Silseth.  

When O’Hoppe (pronounced oh-HOP-ee) came up with the Angels, it looked like he might be a keeper. His first full year, in 2023, he hit 14 home runs, drove in 29. Not stellar numbers, but promising. The next year, he drove in 56. His numbers, in fact, resembled Danny Jansen’s in his best years. Not bad for a second-tier catcher. But O’Hoppe’s production has fallen off, though, the last two years, which made him available to the Rangers. And what made him attractive is he’s cheap and controllable for a few more seasons until he’s a free agent. O’Hoppe isn’t an all-star by any means but he’s an offensive improvement over Daiz and Wynns, and even Jansen and Higashioka, who’s in the last year of this two-year deal with Texas.

Chase Silseth is having a pretty strong season, but that always seems to be the case with pitchers in a Mike Maddux staff. In 47 games out of the pen, he has a 2.72 ERA. He was mostly used in the seventh inning. ERA+ is a good stat to measure a pitcher’s performance compared to the league. A 100 means he’s average. Silseth’s this year is a very nifty 151, meaning he’s 51 percent better than average. Last year, it was 259, meaning he was nearly three times as productive as the average pitcher. Those are good numbers.

With that one trade, which sent 19-year-old infield prospect Angel Arredondo to the Angels, the Rangers improved in two badly needed ways, and did it on the cheap.

They have until Monday at 5:00 to fill the other holes they have. Resume the bargain hunting. 

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