Billy Beane sold Andrew Bailey off to the Red Sox Wednesday, ending the Rangers' pursuit of the righty. Boston and Texas both reportedly had interest in Gio Gonzalez and Bailey throughout the offseason. After the Rangers won the right to negotiate exclusively with Yu Darvish they backed out on Gonzalez, and the Sox eventually lost out to a strong Nationals package for the lefty.
That left Bailey and that race seemed to come down to the wire between Texas and Boston. The A's got outfielder Josh Reddick and two prospects - Miles Head and Raul Alcantera - for Bailey, but they also included frequent thorn in the Rangers' side, Ryan Sweeney.
My first reaction upon seeing the package: Texas wouldn't budge on Mike Olt. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Beane could prefer Reddick to Olt. Reddick is a quality defender and started to get his feet on the ground offensively in the major leagues last year. Olt looks like he's also going to be a good defender at third base, and he has upside not too dissimilar from Reddick's. The fact that Oakland really wanted a third baseman and that Olt is one of the best 3B prospects in baseball makes me think that Texas could have won the deal with Olt's inclusion if they'd matched the rest of the deal and that part wouldn't have been difficult.
At any rate the end result is that Texas did not add an extra arm to their pen, but they still have Olt to use either as a key piece in another deal or as some sort of a corner utility type who probably has enough athleticism to play in the outfield and can provide better defensive insurance at third than, say, Michael Young if Adrian Beltre suffers another injury.