The Rangers will skip Jacob deGrom’s scheduled start Wednesday, president of baseball operations Chris Young told reporters (link via Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). Young framed it as a workload management decision after the star righty experienced minor shoulder fatigue. Manager Bruce Bochy noted that deGrom has already visited team physician Dr. Keith Meister and been cleared of injury.
It doesn’t come as a huge surprise that deGrom is battling fatigue late in the season. He’s up to 24 starts and 140 1/3 innings. It’s a workload that he hadn’t come close to approaching since 2019. The truncated ’20 schedule limited him to 12 starts. deGrom was limited to 15 appearances the following year by elbow inflammation. Shoulder issues kept him to 11 starts in his final season with the Mets. His first two seasons in Texas were largely wiped out by Tommy John surgery.
That makes it all the more remarkable that deGrom has continued to dominate during his age-37 campaign. He owns a 2.76 ERA while striking out 27.3% of batters faced with a huge 14.3% swinging strike rate. His fastball is back into the 98 MPH range on average. deGrom did have his two worst starts in consecutive appearances on July 28 and August 3, but he has rebounded to toss 11 2/3 frames of three-run ball over his past two outings.
Texas has yet to announce a starter for tomorrow’s game. They don’t have a team off day until next Thursday, so even one skipped start won’t be easy to work around. A bullpen game would put a lot of stress on the pitching staff. Kumar Rocker is their only starter who is on optional assignment to Triple-A Round Rock. While there’s no indication that Rocker is dealing with an injury, he hasn’t pitched in the minors since August 7. Jacob Latz has made a few spot starts this season and could be recalled, but he hasn’t gone past two innings in an appearance in a month.
The short-term is less important than taking precautions with deGrom’s health. He’s signed for another two seasons with a club option for 2028. Meanwhile, this season increasingly looks like a lost cause. Texas lost again tonight to drop three games below .500. They’ve lost 10 of 12 and fallen six games back in the Wild Card race.
As their season appears to be slipping away, Opening Day third baseman Josh Jung finds himself on the bench. Bochy has left the former All-Star out of the lineup in each of the past three games. He did make a pinch-hit appearance midway through Tuesday’s contest. Young didn’t sugarcoat things when discussing Jung’s recent lack of playing time.
“There’s been a lot of volatility with Josh,” the front office leader said on Monday (link via Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News). “There are times when he’s dialed in and the performance is strong, but when it hasn’t been as dialed in, it’s been a little bit more undisciplined. And just inconsistent. Given the kind of team our team is and the way a lot of guys have struggled this year, you can only tolerate so much volatility.”
It’s clear Jung has fallen out of the lineup for performance reasons, not any kind of nagging injury. Rookie Cody Freeman started at the hot corner on Sunday and Monday. Tonight, Josh Smith moved into third base from the right field spot he’d manned of late, drawing Alejandro Osuna into the outfield.
Jung entered play with a .241/.290/.376 batting line over 372 plate appearances. As Young mentioned, he continues to chase would-be balls at a high rate and hasn’t taken many walks. Jung had nevertheless hit fairly well through the end of May, but an atrocious June (.158/.208/.221) led Texas to send him back to Triple-A for a reset. Jung recorded a 10-game hit streak with three home runs immediately after being recalled on July 21. He has dropped back into a slump over the past two weeks, batting .143 with 11 strikeouts in 10 games.
A former eighth overall pick, Jung is on track to surpass the three-year service threshold and will reach arbitration this offseason. The Rangers wouldn’t non-tender him, but it doesn’t seem out of the question that they could consider a change-of-scenery trade. They’ll certainly need to make some changes to a lineup that ranks 24th in MLB in scoring.
This signing obviously didn’t work out like the Rangers hoped.
A lot of “fans” will say that they told us so. They never tell us so when they are wrong.
It didn’t take a hell of a lot of foresight to see it coming, he’s struggled with injuries his entire career. All one has to do is check out how many games he’s pitched in his career
With the Rangers’ season pretty much over, it makes no sense to push deGrom. Expect lots of rest over the remaining weeks.
As for Jung, maybe it’s a psychological problem. He might need some Jungian analysis.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. The front office probably wants to see what Freeman can do. If he looks halfway decent, Jung is a nontender or trade candidate. You might say the same about Garcia and Heim.
Head to believe that Bochy will be back next year, either. Major changes are coming after a bitterly disappointing year.
So far the AAA players brought up to Arlington are drawing blanks at the major league level. Tells me that they are struggling with major league pitching. Osuna, Crim, Freeman, Harris are the latest casualties. Rangers do not have anyone ready to step in at the major league level. Its a reflection of one of the worst farm systems in baseball. The next five years of the franchise is dire to say the least.
People love to talk about the lavish spending of the Dodgers, but they ignore teams like the Phillies, Mets, and here, the Rangers, etc. The year they won the World Series, their entire staff was made up of free agents signings. And then there’s Seager and Semien… Apparently it’s ok for some teams to spend wildly, but if the Dodgers do it it’s bad for baseball. DeGrom’s contract is downright awful and bad for the game. You’d never see the Dodgers do something like that.
Your comment is stupid
as is yours
@bucsfan0004 his comment may be “stupid” but he ain’t wrong
“You’d never see the Dodgers do something like that.”
The Dodgers gave 4 years and $115 million to Tyler Glasnow, whose career high in innings to that point was 120, and he’d only topped 100 innings in one other season. Compare this to deGrom’s 5/$185 million that has you wringing your hands.
Okay I will compare: it’s 70M and 1 year longer to a pitcher who was 5 years older.
@CleaverGreene: You’re leaving out that he’s one of the best pitchers on the planet when healthy and has multiple seasons of 200+ innings. Even this season, he’s already surpassed Glasnow’s career high in innings pitched with another month and a half left. He is orders of magnitude better than Glasnow.
What is Trevor Bauer, Alex.
Kd
“DeGrom’s contract is…bad for the game. ”
How so?
There are a ton of markets that simply cannot compete in the same way as the upper tier revenue teams. As a Phils fan, I do not blame fans from the small markets for noting those differences. I feel very lucky to (finally) have a terrific owner that cares, and spends beyond what is “reasonable”, while also working to build a good backbone in the organization. The Phils are not an elite tier revenue team, but they are in the next one below and that gives them a real built-in advantage over many.
Certain small market teams outkick their coverage as a routine – Brewers, Rays etc. – but they are still at a large competitive disadvantage every year. The Dodgers deserve kudos for working to create a truly well-run organization, but a lot of the Dodgers fans on here are incredibly sensitive when it comes to their overt advantages being mentioned. They have the biggest revenue base and an ownership group that can afford almost anything and they leverage the financial might in ways that other teams can only dream of. It isn’t just about payroll – the money that they can spend on the rest of the organization is unreal as compared to others. The Yankees and Mets can come close, as well as the Red Sox but most organizations cannot afford to do much of what is pocket change for the elite revenue tier teams.
Some Dodgers fans should simply learn to man up and admit the reality. It is only the nature of the game itself that keeps the elite tier teams from winning it all more often, but the fact that those top markets can afford to spend what it takes to compete year after year after year is not simply due to their internal brilliance.
If Middleton owned the Brewers or Rays they would still be a “budget payroll” team?
Is it the owner(s) wealth/willingness to spend as you stated above or is it the revenue/ lack of that is detrimental?
Any team had the funds to over spend on Soto but only some are willing and others not.
@bwood – Read it again. It is actually more about the market – as I stated clearly, but certainly requires solid ownership in combination with the revenues to make it work well. E.g. Chicago – great market; Ricketts family has been pretty bad for a long time, and we won’t even bother talking about Reinsdorf.
Just a quick heads up, @Carver. The Dodgers are not the rockets team in the game – that’s the Mets where Steve Cohen is worth over 21 billion. Moving along, I admit the Glasnow contract will not pan out in the long run – but it’s nothing like deGrom’s (especially that he was 35 years old when it was given). No way the Dodgers would toss money on a one way player like Soto either. I mean, they could have had Stanton for free, but declined because it would have been a bad move.
@kewl – Honestly, I am not sure what your “heads up” is all about. That is, if you actually read what I wrote.
Lol. Knocking on Soto who currently has a 4.7 WAR. Didn’t the Dodgers spend wildly on Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates? How’s that going?
What amazes me about deGrom is his 45 WAR and less than 100 wins. No support whatsoever.
Inability to outpitch his competition? I know. Not a measurable.
In the previous 5 yrs degrom averaged 53 innings. This season he’s over 140
And he’s 37 yrs old
Would love to see him wear mets cap in hof 1 day
So, you think he’ll be wearing a Mets cap when he visits the museum?