Rangers Links: Injuries, Darvish, Gallo, Ortiz

In one of his latest pieces, Grantland’s Jonah Keri breaks down the historic injury woes that have ravaged the Rangers’ roster this season. Keri points to some research done by Jeff Zimmerman of Fangraphs that had pegged the Padres as the most injury-prone team from 2010-13, noting that in San Diego’s worst season, their players spent a total of 1221 days on the DL. The 2014 Rangers, Keri writes, are on pace for an unfathomable 1715 days on the DL. To compound matters, they’ve lost a number of key contributors for the entire season, including Prince Fielder, Matt Harrison and Martin Perez, while No. 2 starter Derek Holland has yet to pitch.

Here are some more links pertaining to what could be baseball’s unluckiest team in 2014…

• Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reminds readers of a potentially dangerous clause for the Rangers in Darvish’s contract: if Darvish wins a Cy Young Award at any point in 2012-16 and finishes in 2nd-4th place in another of those seasons, the final year of his contract becomes a player option. Darvish finished second in last year’s voting, meaning that if he wins the Cy Young Award in any of the next four years, he can opt out of his deal one year early. As Grant notes, the team’s short-term gains could result in some long-term damage. Darvish fired his first career shutout last night to drop his ERA to 2.11.
• In a second Grantland piece, Ben Lindbergh looks at the unparalleled career of Rangers prospect Joey Gallo, who has polarized scouts with his 80-grade power and his alarming propensity for swinging and missing. As Lindberg notes, the term “unique” is used perhaps too liberally when discussing players in a game with a history as long as baseball’s, but Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system can find virtually no player with a strong degree of similarity to Gallo. Lindbergh spoke with Gallo and many of his coaches and mentors — including Jason Giambi — in an examination of adjustments to his approach this season. Gallo was recently promoted to Double-A and has received very positive reviews for his improved approach and mechanics this season.
• Anthony Andro of FOX Sports Southwest shares a brief video of Rangers first-rounder Luis Ortiz stating that the opportunity to be drafted by Texas “means the world” to him, and he placed an emphasis on signing early to begin his pro career as quickly as possible.