Rangers release, re-sign Sandy Leon

Mar 28, 2023 - 11:05 PM

Yesterday, the Texas Rangers announced that they had released catcher Sandy Leon, who was in camp on a minor league deal.

Today, the Texas Rangers announced that they have re-signed catcher Sandy Leon to a minor league deal.

Pretty weird, huh?

I suspect that this is because Leon, having six-plus years of service time and having finished the 2022 season on a 40 man roster, would have received a $100,000 bonus if he were not added to the active roster, per the CBA. Since the Rangers weren’t going to add him to the active roster and didn’t want to pay him a $100,000 retention bonus, they released him. Since they wanted to keep him around, they re-signed him. This is a fairly common practice around the league.

Leon appears likely to start the year at AAA Round Rock. He theoretically could make the major league roster if someone gets hurt or they just decide to go with three catchers, but that seems very unlikely.