On SportsDayDFW's "Ballzy" podcast, Rangers assistant general manager Thad Levine joined Evan Grant, Barry Horn and Kevin Sherrington to discuss spring training, arbitration and possible additions to the Rangers.

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Some highlights:

Evan Grant: What's your feeling on the whole arbitration process since you have not gone with a player yet?

Levine: "I think our philosophy all along is that we try to leave the door open to negotiate as long as possible and give ourselves as many avenues to get a deal done shy of going into a hearing room and having three impartial judges decide our case. We're two days away from that with Mitch Moreland. Sometimes things take a little bit longer than they do in other times. As we speak I'm on my way to the airport to fly to Phoenix, Arizona, and hopefully we can resolve this matter here before Wednesday morning."

Grant: You guys are still hopeful of resolving this, correct?

Levine: "Absolutely. We try as best we can not to put ourselves in those intractable positions. We always want to leave the doors open and try to get a deal done, ideally a fair one. We aspired to do it a while ago but it hasn't happened. We're still optimistic we can do something before Wednesday."

Grant: Are you more worried about starting pitching or outfield depth?

Levine: "We would like to add another pitcher on the starting side. It doesn't have to be a top-of-the-rotation guy but we would like to add something there. Having lived through 2014 and to a lesser extent 2015 we're just so keenly aware that you can't have enough pitching going into camp. So we'd rather have a surplus there than any sort of deficiency. We do believe we have a great wave of pitchers coming but ideally a lot of those guys would start at Triple A and would be the next line of defense rather than called to duty opening day. If that's the way it works out we'll be very positive about that but if we could push those guys back to Triple A, create an even bigger cushion, I think we still see starting pitching as a priority to add some more depth at this stage."

Grant: Would a guy like Tim Lincecum who may have to take a minor league contract be more attractive for the Rangers rather than a guy you have to move to the major league roster?

Levine: "We monitored his health process throughout the offseason as well as his rehab. We've been in contact with his agent as well. We're definitely going to be in attendance at his next throwing session and evaluate him. I think you bring up an interesting point. What started at the beginning of the offseason as far as contract expectations from their perspective probably have changed slightly as he is still waiting for his throwing session. But by-and-large we're looking at the right player at this point. If that's a guy on the roster or a guy not on the roster is relatively secondary to us. We do feel comfortable with our 40-man roster as it currently stands. We don't have obvious guys in our mind to take off. But if we can find the right starting pitcher that adds depth and production for Jeff Banister, we'll add that guy whether he's on the roster or not. Our supposition is that (Lincecum's) hip injury which has caused some problems, affect his hip turn and his thrust off the rubber. Yet to be determined and I think that's why we and so many other clubs are so eager to see him throw right now, to see if indeed the injury was responsible for the drop in velocity or if it were something else."

Grant: Is there any kind of chance that former Ranger Joe Nathan, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, could rejoin the team moving forward?

Levine: "We've had a lot of conversations with Joe. We have a ton of respect for what he did for the franchise when he was here and it sounds like the feeling is mutual, that he really enjoyed his time as well. He's definitely committed at this point to trying to make a full comeback. We respect that. We have had some conversations with him about what he wants to do after his playing career. We will monitor his throwing sessions and to see how his rehab progresses but it sounds like that's not an opening day decision at this point."