Expensive leather.


There was a store in the mall that, every time we walked past it, my kids would want to go into just to smell the leather. Leather jackets, leather purses, leather gloves.

Instead of saying “No thanks, we’re just here to look around” when the sales clerk approached us, it was, “We’re here to smell around.”

Everything in there was pricy too. Leather is expensive. Toss gold into the mix, and it gets really pricy.

The Rangers found that out yesterday when they avoided arbitration by reaching agreements on new contracts for their two Gold Glove Winners, Joey Gallo and Isiah Kiner-Falefa.

Gallo batted .181 with a .301 on-base and woeful .679 OPS. He got a $1.8 million dollar raise to $6,200,000 for 2021. He won his first Gold Glove in 2020 but lost the fight against his head as he let the dimensions of The Shed eat at him. He was a major disappointment at the plate as a step backward offensively. But, with just a short 60-game season, he never had the time to recover.

Kiner-Falefa had a steady if not remarkable year at the plate, ending up hitting .280, with an on-base of .329, but only a .699 OPS, which isn’t good enough for a third basemen. Yet, he too won his first Gold Glove, which was enough to get him promoted to starting shortstop, and to get a raise from $587,000 in 2020 to $2 million in 2021.

This was Kiner-Falefa’s first year eligible for salary arbitration. The club still has three more years of control including 2021.

For Joey Gallo, the Rangers have two more years, including 2021. He will be a free agent after the 2022 season, making the next two year critical for him to find consistency at the plate to approach where we was the first part of 2019 when he was an All-Star and on his way to an MPV-caliber season before it was derailed by injury.