Rangers got Napoli, not sure why they just didn't sign Carter.
Holland and Lewis gone, that's going to be kinda weird. Ross/Cashner signed, if Ross can get healthy then that's probably an upgrade. Don't know a whole lot about Cashner.
Hitting lineup looking pretty good. Looking forward to seeing some of the younger guys like Odor, Mazara, Profar.
My guess is the team knows Napoli and likes what he brings to the clubhouse and they don't have that personal knowledge with Carter. There's also the fact that Napoli tends to be more split neutral then Carter is, which is important if you're signing someone who you're not intending to platoon.
It will be odd not to see Lewis and Holland in the rotation. Of course we didn't see a whole lot of either in the rotation last year, and very hit and miss results when they were. Ross is probably a midseason addition more then opening day. Cashner had troubles last year, but had been solid before that. Just box score scouting he was either unlucky or throwing meatballs, high BABIP and HR/9, and he started walking about 2x the people. Just a quick reading says he stopped throwing his curve/change up as much last year and that could suddenly cause a change in numbers, also there's some hope that just going to work with lucroy will make him better. Lucroy is considered a good framer and a good game caller. The real wild card for this years pitching staff is Martin Perez. If he takes a step forward and becomes the #3 that we hope he could be then we have a very solid 1-2-3 and that's better then most can claim.
The lineup is going to be interesting. Can Odor keep up what he did last year? He had a very odd season, good power, decent average, bad eye, and bad defense. I hope he takes a step forward with his defense as I doubt he's ever going to walk a reasonable amount so that seems like his quickest way to make the team better. Mazara is a question mark to me. He never really made the adjustments he needed to last year, but he was damn young. Profar I'm guessing isn't going to get enough AB to really matter, unless someone gets hurt. Also I'd include Elvis on the interesting part. Elvis had a very good year last year with the bat. Some of it was a BABIP spike, so that could easily go away, but he was hitting for more power and walking a bit more. A year around 280/340/400 would be a success for Elvis again, would keep most of what he gained last year but not all of it. Gomez is another very big question mark. Did getting to a different situation help him enough mentally that he's going to perform better from here out or was it the dead cat bounce of a player who's career is about over.
