The Rangers agreed to a minor league deal with righty James Marvel over the weekend. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Round Rock, where he threw three innings of four-run ball in a start yesterday.
Marvel, 29, has a bit of big league experience. He started four games for the 2019 Pirates, allowing 16 runs in 17 1/3 innings. The Duke product has spent parts of eight years in the minor leagues. Including yesterday’s appearance, he’s now up to parts of four seasons in Triple-A. Marvel has allowed around five earned runs per nine at the top minor league level, though he posted a sub-4.00 ERA in both High-A and Double-A while coming up the ranks with Pittsburgh.
After qualifying for minor league free agency during the 2021-22 offseason, Marvel caught on with the Phillies. He spent the season with Triple-A Lehigh Valley, posting a 6.05 ERA through 93 2/3 frames in a swing capacity. He kept the walks to a decent 7.5% clip but only punched out 14.9% of opposing hitters. Marvel, who averaged 90.6 MPH on his fastball during his MLB look, has had a pitch-to-contact style throughout his professional career.
Texas has had to tap into their rotation depth in recent weeks. Jake Odorizzi will miss the entire season, while Glenn Otto has yet to pitch because of a lat issue. Most importantly, Jacob deGrom recently hit the 15-day injured list with elbow inflammation. The current starting five of Nathan Eovaldi, Martín Pérez, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney and Dane Dunning is still an effective group but they’re very thin beyond that quintet. Marvel joins Robert Dugger as non-roster rotation depth options who have some big league experience.
Always prefered him to Jim D.C.
He’s certainly no Thor, though.
Rangers started in DC but have finally switched to Marvel
Solid.
I am Marveled by how Texas signs so many of these guys and then let’s them go if they are good (Littel, Carpenter, and Leone). There is no point if you don’t plan on promoting the guy, regardless of performance.
Has “big league experience” is super nice way of describing him giving up 16runs in 17inns n he just gave up 4runs in 3inns @AAA
Welcome to the Marvel cinematic universe!
Here hoping that my Padres have won at least one title somewhere in the Multiverse…
The Rangers need to worry more about finding some bullpen arms than acquiring rotation depth.
Take away all the leads this bullpen has blown this season, and the Rangers would be right there with the Rays in the standings.
No they wouldn’t. Stop.
According to the records, they have 5 blown saves.So,their record would be 26 and 8. Not far from Tampa.
Wrong.
Blown leads, not blown saves.
Marvel = Wynnes
Marvelous.
“three innings of four-run ball in a start”
He’s no Ironman.
the nats missed out – it would have been fun to have marvel in D.C.
Tampa is 29 and 7. Texas ,if it had no blown saves, would be 26 and 8. How is this wrong?
Every team has blown saves. Tampa (6) has more than the Rangers (5). If you’re going to magically erase the Rangers blown saves, you’d have to erase Tampa’s too.
Tampa has more blown saves than Texas… magically removing blown saves doesn’t really work. That said, I agree the pen needs work.