Leading the five-player deal on Saturday, A’s and Rangers navigated the off-season in two completely different ways. The A’s made a total of four additions (two of which were Rule 5 choices) to their list of 40 men and watched six of their 10 free agents leave this off-season, while the Rangers did a series of negotiations, hiring agents and others moves to overhaul their major league squad.
For the Rangers, dealing with longtime shortstop Elvis Andrus with A’s was an emphatic score in a wild winter. For the A’s, Khris Davis’s switch was the first (and probably the only) major offseason move, a move that frees up about $ 14 million that could be used for a last-minute hire. The complete package is as follows: the A’s acquire Andrus, the catcher Aramís García and money from Texas Rangers, which receive Davis, the catcher Jonah Heim and the right-handed player Dane Acker in …