The Rangers announced a series of roster moves today, reinstating right-hander Spencer Howard from the 60-day injured list. He will take the active roster spot of right-hander Jonathan Hernández, who has been optioned to Triple-A Round Rock. To open a spot on the 40-man roster, righty Jacob deGrom was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
At this point, it’s unclear if anything has meaningfully changed in deGrom’s timeline. He has already been on the injured list since April 29 due to inflammation in his throwing elbow and had yet to begin a rehab assignment. Today’s transfer officially rules him out until 60 days from that initial IL placement, meaning he could be reinstated as soon as June 28. Even if he were cleared to start ramping up his pitch count tomorrow, he likely would have needed a few weeks to get back to a full starter’s workload anyway. It’s possible that this is merely a procedural move and that his health status hasn’t changed. If there has been some kind of setback, that information has yet to be publicly revealed. He will have a follow-up MRI this week, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
Health has been the major question mark surrounding deGrom in recent years. Arguably the best pitcher on the planet when healthy, it’s been quite some time since he remained on the mound for an extended period of time. He logged over 200 innings in each season from 2017 to 2019, but then the pandemic-shortened 2020 season kept him to just 68 frames. In 2021, he went on the injured list with forearm tightness in July of 2021 and never returned. He then missed the start of 2022 due to a stress reaction in his shoulder blade, returning in August after missing over a year of action.
He was still excellent when on the mound, posting a tiny 2.05 ERA over that 2020 to 2022 stretch, striking out 42.4% of opponents against a 4.5% walk rate. The pandemic was obviously unrelated, but it nonetheless combined with the injuries to limit him to 224 1/3 innings over those three years. The Rangers made a bet on him by signing him to a five-year, $185MM deal this winter. He made six starts for his new club with a 2.67 ERA but has been on the shelf since then with an uncertain outlook.
Howard, 26, has been on the injured list all year after suffering a lat strain during the spring. He recently began a rehab assignment and pitched two scoreless relief outings. Howard had the #27 slot on Baseball America’s top 100 list in both 2020 and 2021 while with the Phillies. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to put it all together in the big leagues just yet. Coming over to the Rangers in a 2021 deadline deal, he has 111 1/2 major league innings between the two clubs with a 7.09 ERA.
The righty had a chance to establish himself as a future rotation building block last year, as he was one of several younger hurlers given a shot in the Texas rotation. Unfortunately, he spent much of the year either in the minors or on the injured list, only tossing 37 2/3 innings in the majors with a 7.41 ERA. The club then totally revamped their rotation this winter by re-signing Martín Pérez and acquiring deGrom, Andrew Heaney, Nathan Eovaldi and Jake Odorizzi to slot alongside incumbent Jon Gray.
Odorizzi is done for the year due to a shoulder procedure and deGrom is obviously not an option for a while, but it still seems as though Howard has been pushed out of the rotation mix, at least for now. His recent rehab assignment could have been as long as 30 days and allowed him to get stretched out but he’s instead been reinstated after just a couple of short outings. That doesn’t mean the book has totally closed on him being a starter but he is in his final option year. With the Rangers’ bullpen having posted a collective 4.47 ERA on the season, perhaps they would like to take some time to see if he can be of use to them in a relief capacity.
One of the struggling members of the relief corps has been Hernández. He posted a solid 2.90 ERA in 2020 but required Tommy John surgery in April of 2021, wiping out that entire season. He returned last year and was able to make 29 appearances with a 2.97 ERA. Unfortunately, his results have taken a big dip here in 2023, as he currently has a 6.65 ERA through 25 outings.
The remaining months of the season will be important for the righty as he has just one option year left, meaning he’ll be out of options next year as long as he spends at least 20 days in the minors this season. His trajectory for free agency could also potentially be impacted as he came into this campaign with three years and 41 days of service time. Spending roughly a couple of months in the minors would prevent him from getting to the four-year mark this season and delay his free agency by a year. He could also wind up as a non-tender candidate if he’s out of options and his results don’t improve.
Bruh, Wow!
And it seems like home!
Does Degrom need TJ? Get the surgery done if he does and hopefully a strong finish to his career. He was HOF bound.
HOF bound? Maybe he gets in with Kluber? Lol. No, sorry. Cooperstown does not have hallway space for flash pan boys. Also, injury prevention is a talent and skill. Many guys could have flash pan peak like deGrom if they whiz whipped it everytime out, no thought about tomorrow or health.
Clown comment
First of all, I donated $500k to erect a “Flash Pan Boy Hallway”. Me and all the FlashPan boys hang there in our stanzo brand fedoras, eating our sloppy steaks, and just being pieces of sh!!
Show some respect for the FlashPan boys. You wouldn’t ven know what sloppy steaks are without us.
So, are the FlashPan Boys in your Dangerous Nights Crew?
FlashPan Boys are more exclusive. We have to sneak both IN AND OUT of the bbhof with sloppy steaks. Practically triple the security of Trufonis.
You get it Bart. You know the struggle of even getting a rez at trufonis
He doesn’t even have 100 wins. A lot of that due to poor run support from his Mets days but no way is he going to be a HOF’r
No way DeGrom goes into the HOF.
84 wins and almost 35 years old, plus his career is winding down.
I don’t know how much longer it is until deGrom is back but I’ll help you
Spencer Howard has been designated for assignment, Jacob deGrom has been activated from the 60 day IL.
Great signing by the rangers lol
And by the Mets: Verlander and Scherzer.
At least win or lose they are still pitching.
Well if they perform bad then it’s actually worse than not playing at all because theoretically someone else could be in their place performing better
hahaha. mets.
lol. mets.
At least those are short deals.
Nocturnal – The best signing has been Eovaldi, by far.
Mostly lose though.
They probably aren’t bad enough to where you could assume someone would just come in and do better, but it’s interesting that they’ve provided less fWAR combined than deGrom has so far this year. The Verlander/Scherzer combo is probably still better than you could expect if the mets brought up two minor leaguers, but that production at ~$85m/yr…ouch.
Scherzer between this and last year has given the Mets 193 innings of 2.52 ERA, 10.3 K/9, 1.9 BB/9. Is that worth $43 million a year? It’s Steve Cohen’s money, not mine, and it hasn’t prevented him from spending more. I doubt they’re regretting it.
Jury is still very much out on Verlander, but comparing Max’s signing to deGrom’s makes absolutely no sense to me.
“it hasn’t prevented him from spending more”
This context is so important when judging a good contract from a bad one. So many players are labeled “over paid” as if their contract is some albatross that caused irreparable damage to the franchise. That’s definitely not the case with Scherzer.
Why are you using combined stats for 222 games and then $/yr? The Mets have paid Scherzer ~$60m for those 193 innings. He’s produced 5.2 fWAR in that time frame, so ~$11.5M/WAR. I think it’s debatable whether that rises to the level of regrettable, especially for a team with the Mets’ payroll capacity.
Yup both are pitching and pitching well.
If all he does is come back for the playoffs and he helps them win a championship then it’ll be worth the contract.
No it won’t.
With deGrom on the 60-day, that would remove the Rangers as a possible destination for Nido. If the Dodgers want to commit any resources to trying to turn around Thor’s season, Nido could be his “personal catcher” again.
why do the rangers need a catcher?
Tomas Nido has been DFA. The Rangers can’t use him. Nido couldn’t make the Texas farm.
100 percent.
Nice, interested to see if Howard can cut it in the bullpen. He has shown flashes of being really good for an inning or two, maybe this is his role instead of starting..
A huge chance taken by Texas which stinks worse than a fart in a sleeping bag. If you buy it than die by it…
Haha what chance? Hernandez has been awful… Howard can proabbly do better.
Dang. Hopefully, this doesn’t lead to deGrom becoming injury prone.
BOIS!!
My Rangers hit on Corey Seager, , Semien, nasty Natey!!
hell, they hit on martin perez and jon gray somehow too
we missed on JDG
ill take that winning% every day of the week
Rangers hitting on all the dudes! Weird they aren’t having a Pride Night with all the dudes they hit on.
How do you know the Rangers aren’t a cisgender woman?
Ted Cruz’ dad told me after he shot JFK
CLWT,
You’re killing it today! Much appreciated.
Thanks Bart Harley! I was actually worried about you after I saw this article. Hope you’re doing alright!
qcnews.com/crime-and-public-safety/man-arrested-fo…
But you can’t say you didn’t deserve it
Neither Seager nor Semien seemed like they were up to their salaries last year. 1/3 of this year doesn’t really get them back to even.
Semien was pretty good outside of the first month or so lazy year. And he’s an mvp candidate so far this year. He’s playing right up to his contract.
Oh come on. That’s the trend across the board- Look at the 4 mega dollar shortstops- Only Swanson has started out decently. They’ll all catch up at some point… I actually give props to the Rangers for having the nads to sign Degrom.
I give props to ownership and the FO for bringing in Bochy. A winner who’s seen it all. Rangers will stay in contention by Bruce being comfortable navigating thru the ups and downs of a season.
How can you say they hit on Seager and Semien when they’re ~1.4 years into 10 and 7 year contracts respectively? These early years are expected to provide surplus value to offset what is very likely to be negative value in the back end of the contracts. Having 3 less years for Semien makes it more likely that contract ends up being a hit, but celebrating less than 2 years into a 10 year deal seems incredibly premature.
So, how much is he paid for every game he doesn’t pitch?
A lot
All of it!
Given his history, it would be shocking if the Rangers didn’t buy insurance in case of injury, and his salary then wouldn’t be coming out of their pockets during the IL stays
Given his injury history the insurance price may have been prohibitive: the Nats didn’t or couldn’t get one on Stras’s contract.
That’s not how insurance works for MLB players. Go read about the Rangers and Prince Fielder’s case.
DFA him. He’s cooked. Worst. Pitcher. Evahhh…
on hernandez, i wonder if the struggles are pace of game related? big struggles out of nowhere and he has seemingly fallen into irrelevance, anybody know for sure how he likes the pitch clock?
This is complete mismanagement. Let the guy pitch and don’t let absurdly risk-averse fools take over. Yes, it would suck to take a risk and have it backfire, but there is no reward without risk. They need to teach him to throw 95-97 and then turn it up with 2 strikes instead of trying to hit 100 each time. Then, they wouldn’t have to worry about a million possible injuries.
DeGrom or Rondon…will Texas or the Yankees get more value out of their signinga?
Well, since Rodon hasn’t even pitched for the Yanks, I’d say that the Rangers won. Lol
I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Time for deGrom to switch to a closers role.
It’s like deGrom has a license to steal. Sign the gigantic contact and take the season off with pay. Have these teams ever heard of due diligence? His MO ought to get him into the H of F.
I know in ‘new baseball’ wins don’t really matter, with launch angle, xWOBAloney, et al. being all the craze. But I still wonder if deGrom ever gets to 100 wins.
How dare you talk about wins…..next you will want to talk about who leads the league in hits and fielding percentage.
Can you imagine if the sabremetricians were the ones to vote players into the HOF? Career babip, xFIP, dUZR, UZR, spin rate, WAR, OPS, etc are the only things taken into consideration and are displayed on their plaque. No mention of W/L, HR, RBI, BA, ERA, or saves. The techies don’t feel any of those old, outdated stats are relevant. So then we’ll have the Jordan Lyles, Bradley Zimmers, and deGroms of the world being elected because availability is NOT part of the equation. Rings, MVPs, and actual results mean nothing.
Wins do matter. Guys like Scherzer and Verlander get wins because they can pitched deep into games to get them. 4-5 inning starters can’t do that. Wins isn’t a huge stat but it’s not a meaningless one like people think if it’s viewed in proper context
It doesn’t matter how long deGrom is out, the Rangers still win without him. They lost Corey Seager for almost two months, they still mash. They could lose three starting position players and still win 10-3 instead of 14-3. I suppose part of it might be the Bruce Bochey voodoo magic or something. I bet Chris Woodward is sulking around in some corner wondering why the Rangers didn’t play like this for him.
What was the end goal of this signing to begin with? It’s like a half as bad version of the Strasburg signing
Wranglers will fade. As true as the Texas heat.
Anyone patting themselves on the back or taking a victory lap because they “called it,” grow up. That’s a person’s career and legacy in jeopardy. He’s not someone out there cheating, beating his wife, using performance enhancing substances.