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Jake Odorizzi’s Readiness For Opening Day In Question

By Nick Deeds | March 7, 2023 at 7:33pm CDT

In conversation with reporters, including Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News, Rangers GM Chris Young provided an update on right-hander Jake Odorizzi, who has spent the beginning of the spring battling arm fatigue. Odorizzi has been throwing bullpen sessions, but has yet to face live hitters, which, Young notes puts his readiness of Opening Day into question.

Odorizzi, who is entering his age-33 season, was an All Star in 2019 as a member of the Twins, posting a 3.51 ERA (129 ERA+) and 3.36 FIP in 159 innings of work that season. Since then, however, the righty has struggled to reach those heights: a 4.45 ERA (93 ERA+) and 4.48 FIP in 224 2/3 innings split between the Twins, Astros, and Braves indicate Odorizzi could be more of a back-end option than the mid-rotation arm he appeared to be in 2019.

Odorizzi’s slow ramp up isn’t too significant of a concern for a Texas organization that managed to build up exceptional pitching depth this offseason. In addition to acquiring Odorizzi from the Braves, the Rangers signed Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, and Andrew Heaney while 2022 standout Martin Perez accepted a qualifying offer to stay in Texas for the 2023 season. Those signings, combined with the steady presence of Jon Gray in the Rangers rotation, had seemingly pushed Odorizzi out of the starting rotation headed into camp. Grant indeed notes the club was planning on using the right-hander as a long reliever entering the season.

With Odorizzi seeming likely to miss time, the Rangers are likely to turn their attention to the youngsters who’ve been pushed into depth roles by this offseason’s acquisitions. Each of Dane Dunning, Glenn Otto, Cole Ragans, and Spencer Howard made at least eight starts for the Rangers in 2022, with Dunning and Otto each taking on essentially a full season’s workload in the rotation. Each of those four hurlers, while pushed down the depth chart significantly this offseason, could make sense to replace Odorizzi as the long man in the club’s Opening Day bullpen, and that same group is surely where the next man up will come from should any member of the high-risk, high-upside big league rotation hit the injured list early in the year. Howard, it’s worth noting, is dealing with some arm fatigue of his own, but the club does not consider his situation to be a significant concern, per Grant.

Dunning appears to be the best of the bunch, even in spite of the weak 4.46 ERA (88 ERA+) he posted in 2022 across 153 1/3 innings of work. That’s because despite those mediocre numbers, Dunning actually led the quartet in ERA, FIP, and strikeout rate last year, and his overall career line is one of a roughly league average starter in the big leagues: the 28 year old sports a 4.43 ERA (94 ERA+), a 4.20 FIP and a 21.6% strikeout rate against an 8.9% walk rate in 305 career innings in he majors. With that being said, Dunning is held back from being a quality big league rotation option by a penchant for allowing too much high-quality contact. The right-hander was in the bottom 22% of qualified big leaguers at preventing barrels last year and sports a worrisome HardHit% of 39.6% for his career, numbers that help explain why 14.6% of his flyballs have left the yard for his career.

If Dunning’s contact quality issues concern the Rangers, they could turn to one of the other three options, though Otto ranked among the league’s worst in virtually every Statcast category last season and Howard has struggled to an ERA over 7.00 for the first 111 2/3 innings of his big league career, leaving Ragans as perhaps the best alternative. Though Ragans struggled in his first taste of big league action in 2022, with a 4.95 ERA (80 ERA+) in 40 innings, he pitched effectively in the minors last year, posting a 3.04 ERA in 94 2/3 innings of work split between Double-A and Triple-A.

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Texas Rangers Jake Odorizzi Spencer Howard

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13 Comments

  1. RGV84

    2 years ago

    Exceptional pitching depth? they’ll be lucky to get full seasons from degrom, heaney and eovaldi

    6
    Reply
    • Noah1005

      2 years ago

      DEPTH means having plenty of guys with experience that can start in the case of somebody getting injured

      8
      Reply
    • In Seager/Hader We Trust > the 70 MM DH Ohtani

      2 years ago

      They need a real man like Nolan Ryan to come in and force these guys to play through injury. Screw these overly cautious doctors. If it’s a top player, fine, but trashy guys like Spencer Howard should just be forced to play.

      1
      Reply
      • acoss13

        2 years ago

        The closest thing to Nolan Ryan these days are Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Some dudes are just built like a literal horse.

        8
        Reply
    • BaseballisLife

      2 years ago

      A full season combined?

      1
      Reply
  2. Longtimecoming

    2 years ago

    Can’t expect anything but a drop off from Heaney. Just a question of how far of a drop. DeGrom has an injury history that speaks for itself, just as his performance when healthy speaks for itself. Eovaldi and Odorizzi may be the most reliable of the 4 which is really scary.

    Sure, if DeGrom starts 33 games; if Eovaldi starts 33 games; if Heaney starts 33 games – and doesn’t drop off much, this could be an awesome rotation.

    A lot ifs and but – will it be a Merry Christmas or a Merry Mess?

    4
    Reply
    • No Soup For Yu!

      2 years ago

      You don’t even need 33 starts from them all for this to be a quality rotation. An average of 25 starts from each would be fantastic given the injury histories surrounding them. Put another way, if Dane Dunning and Glenn Otto start less than 15 games between the two of them, then this rotation has playoff potential.

      1
      Reply
  3. Rocker49

    2 years ago

    They’ll probably win more games without him pitching anyways, this is for the best.

    Reply
  4. etex211

    2 years ago

    How do you have arm fatigue in March?

    4
    Reply
    • Longtimecoming

      2 years ago

      There is a dirty joke in there somewhere but I’ll let you figure it out!

      3
      Reply
  5. kscheer

    2 years ago

    Does mlbtr not read the content they previously post?

    There was literally an article about Regeans uptick in velo and being impressive in his first outings….

    2
    Reply
    • BenBenBen

      2 years ago

      They’re a mess. Need an editor too.

      Reply
  6. BenBenBen

    2 years ago

    “Odorizzi has been throwing bullpen sessions, but has yet to face live hitters, which, Young notes puts his readiness of Opening Day into question.”

    What a disaster of a sentence. Learn how to use commas. Two extra ones here make this sentence incorrect.

    “Odorizzi has been throwing bullpen sessions but has yet to face live hitters, which Young notes puts his readiness of Opening Day into question.”

    Reply

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