The Rangers have a deal in place with righty Colby Lewis that will bring him back to Texas for one year and $6MM, Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.
A return had long been rumored to be in the works. The physical and official announcement may not occur until the new year, Wilson adds.
Lewis, 36, has recently dealt with a torn meniscus in his knee. But he expects to be ready for the start of Spring Training.
Presumably, Texas will slot Lewis right back into its rotation. He ended the 2015 campaign with a 4.66 ERA, which is hardly exciting. But Lewis logged over two hundred innings and ended with 6.2 K/9 versus 1.8 BB/9.
The total contribution was valued at 2.6 fWAR, based on his more promising 4.17 FIP. On the other hand, he only accrued 1.0 rWAR and both xFIP (4.62) and SIERA (4.43) were less enthused about his efforts.
As Wilson notes, though, both sides were clearly interested in a return. Lewis is a well-known commodity and has shown the ability to rack up solid innings tallies. With the team unsure of what to expect from a struggling Derek Holland, the rehabbing Yu Darvish, and youngsters like Chi Chi Gonzalez and Nick Martinez, it certainly makes sense to re-unite with the steady veteran.
There’s a log jam of the middle tier guys right now.
Scott Kazmir / Yovani Gallardo / Mike Leake / Doug Fister / Ian Kennedy
The better guys available.
Josh Johnson / Mat Latos
Scary but they may be attractive to team who wants upside.
Kyle Lohse / Jeremy Guthrie / Aaron Harang / Bronson Arroyo
Inning eating veterans.
Wonder who the Dodgers go after of this bunch.
Hopefully Gallardo so the O’s don’t decide to spend a pick on him. 😛
To be honest I think the Dodgers would do well to investigate Wei-Yin Chen. He might be pricey as a Boras client but if he can put up solid numbers through 4 years in the AL East, imagine what he could do pitching in the NL and spending a majority of his time pitching at Dodger Stadium, AT&T Park and Petco.
It’s a good deal for both. ….. Colby can offer innings. Bannister needs to find a way to get Lewis more rest between starts. He was 11-4 last year with a 3.15 ERA with 5+ days of rest. With only four days of rest, his ERA was 6.70!
I bet Colby is ecstatic about this signing. His history is good, but this is a risk that I wouldn’t take as a GM
One year….six million, for a pitcher coming off a 17-win, 200+ inning season….that’s not bad. The key is getting him rest. If they can spot start him—give him maybe 23 starts, 150 innings, he might be very valuable. That bad ERA came in games with only four days rest and in several of those games, they kept him out there to take a beating to save the bullpen. In five of those starts, he gave up 40 runs. Take that out of the mix and suddenly, his 4.66 ERA drops to 3.01. I’m not suggesting he should have been in the talk for Cy Young—but he had value and was a key to the Rangers winning the west.
Texas knows Colby wants to eventually retire a Ranger, so they got him below market value. He has always out-performed his salary and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him land a 2 yr- $14-19 million deal through free agency.