{"id":771,"date":"2012-12-11T11:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T16:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=771"},"modified":"2012-12-11T11:07:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T16:07:25","slug":"rangers-join-group-of-teams-interested-in-a-j-pierzynski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2012\/12\/11\/rangers-join-group-of-teams-interested-in-a-j-pierzynski\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Texas Rangers interested in A.J. Pierzynski?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-773\" title=\"ajpierzynski\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2012\/12\/ajpierzynski.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"594\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2012\/12\/ajpierzynski.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2012\/12\/ajpierzynski-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The market for catcher A.J. Pierzynski is starting to heat up. Pierzynski represents the last viable name on the free agent market at catcher.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Napoli was given a three year deal from the Boston Red Sox worth $39\u00a0 million. The Pittsburgh Pirates gave Russell Martin a contract worth $17 million over two years.<\/p>\n<p>Pierzynski future deal should fall somewhere between the two.<\/p>\n<p>One team known to be seeking an upgrade at catcher is the Texas Rangers. After losing out on re-signing Napoli, Texas is looking at the posability of having Geovany Soto as their primary catcher.<\/p>\n<p>Signing Pierzysnki would provide the type of veteran leadership that the team lost when they traded Michael Young to Philadelphia. Pierzynski&#8217;s numbers are likely to dip some next season from the 27 home runs he had in 2012 but he is still an accomplished hitter.<\/p>\n<p>In 15 career seasons, Pierzynksi is a\u00a0 .284\/.324\/.429 hitter who averages 15 home runs and has gotten a reputation as a good game caller even if his ability to throw out runners is eroding.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Yankees who lost Martin and the Chicago White Sox, Pierzynski&#8217;s former team, are both known to have interest in the soon to be 36-year-old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The market for catcher A.J. Pierzynski is starting to heat up. Pierzynski represents the last viable name on the free agent market at catcher. Mike Napoli was given a three year deal from the Boston Red Sox worth $39\u00a0 million. The Pittsburgh Pirates gave Russell Martin a contract worth $17 million over two years. Pierzynski [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[131],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aj-pierzynski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}