Merry Christmas: Texas Rangers sign Kohei Arihara

The Texas Rangers sign Kohei Arihara and mark another item off of their busy to-do list this winter. Ken Rosenthal, of The Athletic reported the Rangers have signed right-handed pitcher Kohei Arihara to a two-year deal. Merry Christmas Ranger fans!

Arihara, 28, was posted by the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters this off-season. It was reported earlier today that the Rangers were one of the three finalists to sign him but I didn’t expect a deal to come this quick. The deal is reportedly worth approximately $7.5 million. That also includes the $1.5 million posting fee owed to the Ham Fighters. That’s cheap in baseball terms.

In six professional seasons, Kohei Arihara has a career record of 61-53 with a 3.65 earned run average. He has a reprotiore that includes a fastball (low 90’s), slider and a change up. But he’s been reported to have up to seven pitches in his arsenal.

He doesn’t get a ton of swing and misses with a career strikeout rate of 6.8 per nine innings but he’s averaged two walks per nine innings over his career.

I love this signing because we’ve got another arm at a really cheap price. He will slide right into the middle to back of this rotation and eat some innings. This will allow more development time for another one of the younger guys.

Something tells me the Rangers aren’t done making moves this off-season. Stay tuned.