Reigning champs need production from young starters
SURPRISE, Ariz. — Risk is abundant in the Texas Rangers’ planned opening day starting rotation. Andrew Heaney has been on the injured list six times in seven years. Nathan Eovaldi sees that and raises it by a trip. And Jon Gray raises that. Seven years, eight trips.
Starting pitching is fragile. It’s why GM Chris Young should start wearing a chain with his mantra: “You can never have enough starting pitching.” Might be too big to fit.
There is also an abundance of high-profile pitching prospects in camp. Two former firstrounders: Cole Winn and Jack Leiter. A secondrounder: Owen White. And Zak Kent, a guy with perhaps a better breaking ball than all of them.
The issue is this: Is anybody from the second group ready to be an adequate fill-in when the inevitable happens to somebody from the first?
That’s what the Rangers are going to try to decipher this spring.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for them to do that,” manager Bruce Bochy said Thursday. “We want to get them the work they need and give us a chance to get a good look at them and put them in situations they are going to be in at some point this year, if not the start. I want them to come in and not just make a great impression but give us a tough decision.”
Let us suggest a slight edit. There isn’t just a great opportunity to make an impression; the Rangers need at least one to do so.
“Yeah,” Bochy said. “It would be big for us.”
As camp starts, it’s hard to put the quartet in a pecking order. There is plenty of talent but not much momentum. It could be argued the only steps they took last year were backward. White did make his MLB debut in June as a reliever but wasn’t ever a consideration down the stretch. Leiter was shut down for seven weeks to hone his mechanics. Kent missed the first half of the season with an oblique injury and never got on a roll. Winn ended up with more innings in relief than as a starter.
As a group, they combined for a 5.45 ERA, walked 11.3% of the batters they faced and allowed 1.48 homers per nine innings. The MLB average for walk rate for starters: 7.9%. For homers per nine innings: 1.32. It wasn’t pretty.
If you can critique a season that ended up with the Rangers winning the World Series and being named Baseball America’s Organization of the Year, it’s that there was precious little advancement among the top tier of pitching prospects. Just an issue that has dogged the organization since forever.
In contrast to most seasons in Rangers history, the expected starting rotation, rounded out by Dane Dunning and Cody Bradford, would be considered above average in terms of talent. But, as Young said on the first day of camp, the organization’s definition of success has changed. It will be measured by what it does going forward, not against its past.
As they move forward, the Rangers have those injury risks to manage. They spent zero guaranteed dollars this winter on guys who will be part of the opening day rotation or guys who will be opening day depth options in the event of a spring training injury. The veteran options in camp who should be the first level of defense — José Ureña, Adrian Sampson and Danny Duffy — combined for 10 major-league starts last year. Ureña had all of them. The Rangers are his seventh organization in the last five seasons.
Young all but ruled out the possibility of seriously pursuing one of the veteran free agent options still on the market or, as we call them, “Jordan Montgomery.”
If the kids don’t step up this spring, it leaves the Rangers potentially one first-half injury away from catastrophic pitching implications. The next tier of Rangers’ pitching talent isn’t expected to be ready before 2025.
If this sounds potentially bleak, it’s all because the backdrop has changed. Not enough to merely get them starts. The Rangers have given minor leaguers with lots less talent plenty of starts in the past. They have to succeed.
Leiter, who showed improvement over the final month of the season after his pitch-development sabbatical, spent the winter working closely with Sonny Gray and big league catcher Curt Casali at Vanderbilt.
“The biggest thing (Gray) said was: ‘Your stuff and your plan are really good right now. Don’t overcomplicate it and don’t go and change. You don’t need to do more,’ ” Leiter said.
“I’m learning that not everything has to be perfect. I’m simplifying.”
White said he has more life on his fastball than at any point last year. The lack of fastball life made him turn too much to the cutter.
“I didn’t have my best stuff,” White said. “I was pitching too much off my ‘C’ and ‘D’ stuff instead of my ‘A’ game. I was searching too hard for answers.”
Both White and Kent spent the offseason at biomechanics pitching lab Tread Athletics in Charlotte, N.C. Other Rangers have had success after going through the Tread program. Kent, who has been bothered by nerve issues in his shoulder in the past, lowered his arm slot to lessen stress. He says his velocity is almost back to where it was before 2023. The new arm slot didn’t really diminish the depth on his breaking ball; instead, it’s also accentuated its horizontal movement, he said.
“I’m older, a bit wiser and I’ve learned more about how to pitch,” said Kent, who turns 26 in a week. “I’m a little more analytical in how I handle things. All I need now is a shot.”
Oh, the Rangers are going to give them each a chance.
They need at least one of them to grab it.