New Rangers ace Jacob deGrom threw 35 pitches while facing several of his teammates in a simulated game setting yesterday, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The two-time Cy Young winner sat 98-99 mph with his heater and reached triple digits on his final pitch of the day. It’s possible that’ll be the only tune-up he needs before stepping into a Cactus League game sometime next week. Whether that’s the next step or whether deGrom needs to face live hitters once more, it’s good news that the righty came away from the session without incident. Rangers fans were holding their breath when deGrom had some tightness in his side and had his throwing program slowed early in camp, but it seems he’s now progressing without restrictions.
Signed to a five-year, $185MM contract over the winter, deGrom has pitched just 156 1/3 innings over the past two seasons due to a forearm injury and a stress reaction in his right shoulder blade.
A bit more on the Rangers…
- Texas still isn’t sure whether center fielder Leody Taveras will be ready to start the season, as he was been diagnosed with a low-grade oblique strain earlier in the week and won’t even attempt to resume baseball activities until next week, at the earliest. If Taveras is to open the season on the shelf, there are three fairly clear alternate plans in center field: give fleet-footed Bubba Thompson the bulk of the workload while Taveras mends, move Adolis Garcia over from right field, or select the contract of a non-roster player like Travis Jankowski to begin the season (which would require a corresponding 40-man move). Of the bunch, MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry writes that GM Chris Young implied Thompson is the likeliest short-term solution, noting that he’s “ready for the challenge” even if his offensive approach still needs further refinement. It’s a different tone than he struck with regard to the possibility of moving Garcia, on which he stated: “…we’ll have to work through how much it makes sense to move Adolis over at all.”
- One player who’s not under consideration for an Opening Day roster spot at this time, unsurprisingly, is 20-year-old top prospect Evan Carter, manager Bruce Bochy confirmed to Levi Weaver of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 2020 second-rounder erupted with a combined .295/.397/.489 batting line between High-A and six games at Double-A last year, vaulting himself onto to top prospect rankings at Baseball America (No. 25), MLB.com (No. 41) and Baseball Prospectus (No. 22). However, advanced as Carter’s approach at the plate is — he walked in 13.5% of his plate appearances last year despite facing far older and more experienced competition — Bochy indicated that a leap right to the Majors “would be pushing a kid too much.” Carter has all of 28 plate appearances above A-ball and isn’t on the 40-man roster, so he never seemed a particularly likely option, but it’s still of some note that Bochy confirmed as much. It still stands to reason that if Carter opens the year in Double-A, he could play his way into consideration for a call to the big leagues later in the 2023 campaign.
This stupid app won’t let me comment on the website. Did someone suddenly hijack my account? Or, did someone try to get me banned?
Yeah
Banned
I know. Whenever I try to put up the first post, it never seems to come up so I wait and piggyback onto someone else’s post.
Apparently, that’s because you have to say, “wow”
Always a good idea to reach back and let it fly on 8 March.
It won’t let me either. On my phone to see if this works. I hope it gets fixed soon. Only baseball affected somehow. Happened to me before when I subscribed, cost me my original screen name.Somebody is playing games.
I contacted them but judging what happened before( Nothing), I’m not expecting a whole lot. Anybody know how to get ahold of someone there by direct email or phone?
The comment box is for comments on how great this year’s Texas Rangers will be, not for troubleshooting the app. Texas Rangers win the world series?
Why not include both subjects with one comment?
The Texas Rangers are not app to go to the World Series this year!
The Texas Rangers like to eat apples
Then it wouldn’t have many comments. LOL
Texas Ranger fans should delight in the fact that deGrom threw 100 mph on March 9. It might be the only time they see it. This guy needs someone who cares about him to tell him he’s ruining what could have been a hall of fame career. No one can withstand that kind of punishment to their arm and avoid injury. If he only learned to dial it back and pitch smart instead of hard. If he pitches more than 100 innings total for the Rangers (not this year but the life of that contract), I will be surprised.
Another Verlander/Mets fan? Smh. Get a life.
“One player who’s not under consideration for an Opening Day roster spot at this time, unsurprisingly, is 20-year-old top prospect Evan Carter, manager Bruce Bochy confirmed to Levi Weaver of The Athletic (Twitter link).”
Don’t understand why you’d write it so choppily when this works better, for an already convoluted sentence:
“Unsurprisingly, one player who’s not under consideration for an Opening Day roster spot at this time is 20-year-old top prospect Evan Carter, manager Bruce Bochy confirmed to Levi Weaver of The Athletic (Twitter link).”
Degrom takes a lot of crap for durability, but in his first 7.5 years, he only missed the 6-7 starts at the end of 2016. Then he missed last half of 2021 and first 2/3 of 2022, but does this mean he’ll be habitually injured now? He was one of the most durable sp there was from 2014-20. Darvish missed all of 2015 and most of 2018, but has pitched four straight full seasons since. To assume degrom is automatically injury prone now may not be valid
@Ma4170 – Earlier in his career he sat between 95-96.5 mph on his fastball. He won two Cy Youngs doing that. Then in 202o, he came out throwing close to 100 mph—one of the first times a pitcher’s velocity increased after his age 32 season. His average fastball velocity in 2020 was 98.6. He then upped the anty in 2021 and 2022 and increased it to 99.3. His slider averages almost 93 mph.
While corrlelation is not causation, it’s hard not to conclude that his significant uptick in velocity for all his pitches is a contributing factor to him staying healthy.
Yeah, I don’t doubt that and often wonder why he’s being what seems to be stubborn in not dialing back to his former velocity. Agree it carries more risk, but I think many just assume he’ll always be hurt from here on out, and I’m not so sure.