Rangers won't spend for the sake of spending

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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jeff Wilson wrote an interesting article about the Texas Rangers on Sunday, and the fact that the club is sitting on a ton of cash. Here's what you need to know:

• The Rangers have drawn over six million fans in 2012 and 2013 combined. Texas' attendance ranked fifth in 2013, at 3,178,273, and third in 2012, at 3,460,280. Getting fans out to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is no problem. 

• The Rangers' two principal owners are worth close to $2 billion. That's a lot. They bought the franchise in 2010 for just under $600 million. The club's now valued at over a billion dollars. That's a handsome return on investment. 

• Baseball's new TV deal -- worth billions -- is about to kick more money into the Rangers' pockets. The rich get richer, because America. 

• However, the Rangers aren't about to make it rain. They're working on a budget. Because, as the old saying goes: "Without budgets, there is chaos." The Rangers could use Nelson Cruz's bat, and Shin-Soo Choo's on-base percentage, but they're not going go to give the two free agents more than what the Rangers believe they're worth. The Rangers, with cash to spend, are standing firm.

Wilson writes:

"General manager Jon Daniels drove home the point Thursday just before leaving the Lake Buena Vista, Fla., saying five times in nine minutes that he doesn’t expect any 'major' moves the rest of the off-season.

"Something isn’t adding up for many fans, who want to win now and believe spending is the way to get there. Daniels has short-term aspirations, obviously, but he is charged with the task of the Rangers’ long-term well-being, too.

The Rangers have four players who'll make $10 million or more in 2014: Prince Fielder ($24 million), Adrian Beltre ($17 million), Alex Rios ($13 million), and Yu Darvish ($10 million). 

On an aside, how great does that Darvish contract look now? He'll make $10 million in 2014, 2015, and 2016, and $11 million in 2017. He's a bargain at those prices. 

Five players will make $10 million or more in 2015. Rios will be off the books, a free agent, but Matt Harrison's salary jumps from $8.2 million to $13.2 million, and Elvis Andrus' salary jumps from $6.725 million to $15.25 million. Andrus is due that amount through 2019, and as great as Darvish's contract looks in hindsight, Andrus' looks awful. Hey, you win some, you lose some. 

So, as you can see, adding more guaranteed money to guys in their 30s doesn't seem like the best idea right now. Not when the Rangers are already on the hook for about $120 million in salaries in 2014, and a guaranteed $95.35 million in 2015, without including those players that are arbitration-eligible.

General manager Jon Daniels wants you to know, though, that money isn't an issue. "We're not complaining about money," he said. 

There are other costs, too, in running a contending baseball team, in addition to payroll, as Wilson writes:

"Ownership has never shied away from expenditures that are deemed necessary, like the $51.7 million posting fee shelled out for Yu Darvish in 2011 and the annual trade-deadline acquisitions.

"They also foot the bill for the Rangers’ extravagant spending in Latin America, which includes a complex in the Dominican Republic and a deep team of scouts throughout that region. ...

"Running a team doesn’t just mean putting players on the field or stocking the minor leagues. Upgrades have been made to the Ballpark each of the past four off-seasons, and two baseball sources said that ownership has had to make cash payments to satisfy Major League Baseball’s debt-to-capital ratio."

All that is to say: the Rangers don't have a blank check. No team does. Even the Yankees are operating on a somewhat-strict budget. 

The Rangers have money. But that doesn't mean they're going to spend all of it. Daniels said:

"When you invest in the wrong contract, there’s a consequence. Every team has a budget. These are businesses. Our owners invest a lot of money into the club, probably above and beyond what our revenues call for. We’re just trying to be responsible about that."

Here's to fiscal responsibility, and refusing to pay free-agent outfielders more than $20 million when they're approaching 40. It doesn't make sense, and it seems more teams are quickly figuring that out. (Don't tell the Mariners. Let them enjoy Robinson Cano for a while. They'll figure it out on their own.) 

All salary information courtesy of Baseball Prospectus