DALLAS (AP) — Texas acquired slugging corner infielder Jake Burger from Miami for three minor league players Wednesday during the winter meetings, and the Rangers later signed reliever Jacob Webb to a $1.25 million contract to bolster their bullpen.
The Rangers made those moves a day after accomplishing one of their primary offseason goals with a deal to re-sign Nathan Eovaldi, the winning pitcher in their 2023 World Series clincher.
Burger hit .250 with 29 home runs and 76 RBIs in 137 games for the Marlins last season, with 150 strikeouts in 535 at-bats with 31 walks. He started 59 games at third base and made 50 starts at first. Five days of service time short of being eligible for salary arbitration this offseason, he will be eligible next winter and can become a free agent after the 2028 World Series.
“He's played third, he's played some first, DH. And I think that’s a pretty good fit in terms of building out our depth with our current lineup and adding an impact bat,” said Chris Young, the team's president of baseball operations. “We’ve said one of our goals is to get back to being a very good offense that we were in 2023. We think he helps us with that.”
Miami got infielders Max Acosta and Echedry Vargas and left-handed pitcher Brayan Mendoza.
The 31-year-old Webb made his big league debut with Atlanta in 2019, and also pitched for the Los Angeles Angels, set career highs with Baltimore last season with 56 2/3 innings pitched and 58 strikeouts while going 2-5 with two saves and a 3.02 ERA in 60 appearances. He is 12-10 with six saves and a 2.98 ERA in 192 career games.
“A proven right-handed reliever, been on a winning team. Real competitor. We’ve got multiple needs in our bullpen, and we feel like he certainly raises the floor and gives us a reliable, solid option,” Young said. “It's not a veteran per se, in terms of service time, but he’s a veteran in terms of being battle-tested.”
The acquisition of Burger comes about a month after the Rangers hired former Marlins manager Skip Schumaker as a senior adviser for baseball operations. Luis Urueta, Miami's bench coach the past two seasons, also was added recently to manager Bruce Bochy's on-field coaching staff for 2025.
Burger was the 11th overall pick out of Missouri State by the Chicago White Sox in the 2017 amateur draft and made his big league debut in 2021. He was dealt to Miami at the trade deadline during the 2023 season, when he hit .250 with 34 homers and 80 RBIs in 141 games.
“He’s an aggressive hitter that makes hard contact, a lot of hard contact,” Bochy said. “We’re excited to have him. He’s going to make us a better offense and help get us back to where we were couple of years ago, and be one of the elite offenses in the game, and he’ll be part of it.”
Burger hit 22 homers from July 1 until the end of last season, the third most in the National League during that span, behind only unanimous NL MVP Shohei Ohtani (28) for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona's Eugenio Suárez (24).
Texas had a .238 batting average this year while hitting 176 home runs and averaging 4.2 runs a game. Those stats all were down significantly from the World Series championship season in 2023, when the Rangers averaged 5.4 runs a game and hit .263 with 233 homers.
Primary first baseman Nathaniel Lowe won a Silver Slugger with Texas after hitting .302 in 2022, then was a Gold Glove winner that World Series season. He hit .265 with 16 homers and 69 RBIs last season.
Third baseman Josh Jung was voted an All-Star starter as a rookie in 2023 but broke his right wrist when hit by a pitch this past April 1.
The 26-year-old was 7 of 17 with two homers, six RBIs and five runs scored in the first four games of the season before the injury and missing 102 games while on the injured list until the end of July. Jung finished the season at .264 with seven homers and 16 RBIs in 46 games, but missed the final week when he went back on the IL for wrist tendinitis.
AP MLB: https://www.apnews.com/hub/MLB
FILE - Miami Marlins' Jake Burger, right, celebrates with Jesus Sanchez after hitting a three-run home run off of Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson in the first inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Craig Lassig, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Wednesday she's suing a Saudi Arabian agribusiness for allegedly violating a public nuisance law, contending that its groundwater pumping threatens the public health, safety and infrastructure of local communities in a rural western county.
The complaint filed in Maricopa County Superior Court alleges that the pumping at a Fondomonte Arizona, LLC. alfalfa farm has had widespread effects in the Ranegras Plain Basin of La Paz County, harming everyone who depends on basin water by drawing down supplies, drying up wells and causing the ground to crack and sink in some areas.
The lawsuit is the latest action by Arizona against foreign companies that use huge amounts of groundwater to grow thirsty forage crops for export because of climate challenges in other countries. Rural Arizona is especially attractive to international businesses because it has no groundwater pumping regulations.
The lawsuit alleges that since 2014, Fondomonte has extracted huge amounts of water that accelerated depletion of the basin’s aquifer. The company is a subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almarai Co.
“We find the allegations of the Attorney General totally unfounded, and we will defend any potential action against Fondomonte and our rights vigorously before the competent authorities,” Fondomonte said in a statement Wednesday.
“The company has invested significantly to bring the latest conservation technology and applies environmentally sustainable practices on these long-established farms,” it said. “Fondomonte has continued to develop responsibly during its time farming in the state and the company complies with all state regulations. ”
Years of drought have increased pressure on water users across the West, particularly in states like Arizona, which relies heavily on the dwindling Colorado River. The drought has also made groundwater — long used by farmers and rural residents without restriction — even more important for users across the state.
“Protection of Arizona’s precious groundwater is certainly important, but this lawsuit could open a can of worms,” said Kathryn Sorensen, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “Nearly every farm, city, mine, tribe, and power company in the state relies on groundwater.”
Water attorneys said they did not feel qualified to address the legal theory of public nuisance but emphasized the lack of regulation of groundwater pumping in rural Arizona.
Kathleen Ferris, an attorney and Arizona water policy expert who directed the study that led to the current law overseeing the state’s groundwater management, said rural groundwater use in the state “is “governed by the rule of reasonable use.”
“Anyone may drill a well and pump groundwater as long as the use of the groundwater is reasonable,” said Ferris, a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center. “Unfortunately, no use of groundwater has been determined by the courts to be ‘unreasonable.’ It’s basically a rule that benefits the biggest landowners with the deepest wells.’”
Mayes told reporters Wednesday that the Arizona Legislature has done nothing to fix the groundwater problem despite knowing about the problem for years.
“While laws regulating groundwater pumping could have prevented this situation, the legislature’s inaction has allowed the crisis to grow,” Mayes said. “When the legislature fails to protect our most basic resources, the attorney general must step in.”
La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin, a Republican, commended Mayes, a Democrat, for attempting to address what she described as her community’s “most challenging” concern.
“I know that my constituents will be thrilled over this, that somebody is actually paying attention to the real problems here,” Irwin said during Wednesday’s news briefing via a video conference call.
Mayes' lawsuit alleges that Fondomonte's actions are a public nuisance under a state statute that prohibits activity that injures health, obstructs property use, or interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property by a community.
Mayes called the company’s groundwater pumping “unsustainable” and said it caused “devastating consequences” for people in the area.
“Arizona law is clear: no company has the right to endanger an entire community’s health and safety for its own gain,” she said.
The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the company from further groundwater pumping it says is “excessive” and require that an abatement fund be established to cover the costs of damages caused by the company.
Mayes said the dollar figure hasn't been determined but it will be established through the course of litigation.
Arizona officials have been targeting Fondomonte for more than a year over its use of groundwater to grow forage crops, by not renewing or canceling the company's leases in Butler Valley in western Arizona. Some residents there had complained that the company’s pumping was threatening their wells.
Gabriel Sandoval is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announces she's suing a Saudi Arabian company for allegedly pumping groundwater that harms local communities in a rural western county, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Gabriel Sandoval)
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announces she's suing a Saudi Arabian company for allegedly pumping groundwater that harms local communities in a rural western county, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Gabriel Sandoval)
FILE - This image shows an Almarai logo in Cairo, Egypt, on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin speaks with The Associated Press, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
Cut rows of alfalfa, waiting to be raked and baled, lie to the left as a windrower cuts an alfalfa field Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in the Gila Valley, Ariz. (Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun via AP)