- X-rays were negative on Josh H. Smith’s left foot after he was hit by a pitch in today’s game. Smith remained in action for another inning before being replaced in left field, though it appears as though he avoided a worst-case scenario. Smith has been a productive and versatile part-time bat for the Rangers, hitting .210/.388/.355 (122 wRC+) over 81 PA this season while seeing time as a left fielder, shortstop, and third baseman.
Rangers Rumors
Latest On Corey Seager
Rangers fans have been anticipating the imminent return of star shortstop Corey Seager from his hamstring injury for some time now. As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, the club appears to have a clear plan in place for Seager’s rehab, which began yesterday, and return to action in the majors. After playing five innings at shortstop as planned last night, Seager is expected to start as the DH for the club’s Double-A affiliate in Frisco before playing seven innings at shortstop on Sunday. If all goes well, manager Bruce Bochy indicated that Seager could be activated from the injured list in time for Monday’s game against the Braves.
Should Seager indeed be ready to return early next week, the Rangers would return one of their best hitters to a team that has taken control of the AL West with a 23-14 record in the early going. Seager was off to a torrid start through 11 games this season, slashing .359/.468/.538 in 49 plate appearance prior to his stint on the IL. As the Rangers have indicated a desire to keep Ezequiel Duran in the lineup going forward, Seager’s return could cut into the playing time of players like Brad Miller, Robbie Grossman, and Bubba Thompson.
- Mariners star Julio Rodriguez moved down to the sixth spot in the batting order in yesterday’s game against the Rangers, marking the first time this season the young outfielder batted outside of the leadoff spot. Manager Scott Servais told reporters, including The Athletic’s Corey Brock, that the move was designed to take pressure off of last year’s AL Rookie of the Year, who has scuffled to a .205/.270/.384 slash line, good for a wRC+ of just 85. Rodriguez, for his part, expressed support for the decision, noting that he believed it was the best thing for the team.
The Rangers’ Quietly Excellent Catcher
A five-player trade between the A’s and Rangers in February of 2021 grabbed immediate headlines due to the recognizable names at the top of the deal. Texas sent stalwart shortstop Elvis Andrus to the division-rival A’s in a swap that brought baseball’s most consistent .247-hitting, 40-homer slugging designated hitter, Khris Davis, to Arlington. It was an exchange of players who’d become lineup fixtures but also had seen their respective contract extensions turn sour for their organizations. The Rangers kicked in $13.5MM to make the trade happen. They also sent backup catcher Aramis Garcia to the A’s and received minor league righty Dane Acker and a catching prospect of their own.
Fast forward two years, and that prospect, Jonah Heim, has become a centerpiece of the Rangers’ roster.
Heim’s development certainly wasn’t immediate. A fourth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2013, the now-27-year-old backstop was traded twice — first for Steve Pearce, and second for Joey Wendle — before making his debut seven years later, during the shortened 2020 season. Heim hit .211/.268/.211 in 41 plate appearances as a rookie and was ranked between eighth and fifteenth in Oakland’s system at the time he was traded to Texas.
That shaky age-25 debut could certainly be attributed to a small sample and the general strangeness of the 2020 campaign, but Heim received a heftier 285 plate appearances with the Rangers in 2021 and turned in a dismal .196/.239/.358 batting line. He managed to swat 10 home runs, but Heim rarely walked and even though he struck out at a better-than-average 20.4% clip, he rarely made great contact (87.1 mph average exit velocity, 37.3% hard-hit rate). Defensively, he was excellent, but Heim’s lack of offense made him look like a backup or part-time option behind the dish.
The Rangers seemed to agree, as they entered the 2021-22 offseason in search of catching upgrades and, just after the lockout ended, swung a deal to acquire slugging catcher Mitch Garver from the Twins. Heim started 12 of the Rangers’ first 28 games behind the plate, but an injury to Garver opened up the door for a larger role. Even when Garver returned relatively quickly from a flexor strain, the Rangers kept him at designated hitter. Prospect Sam Huff came up from Triple-A and saw some of the workload at catcher, but Heim’s early performance at the plate and his excellent defense earned him the larger portion of playing time.
From May 9 through season’s end, Heim started 70% of the Rangers’ games behind the plate. He didn’t sustain the torrid .342/.457/.658 line he’d compiled through his first 12 games, of course, but he finished out the year with a .227/.298/.399 batting line and 16 home runs. His walk rate jumped from 5.3% to 9.1%, and he cut his strikeout rate by a percentage point (19.3%). Heim also upped his average exit velocity by more than two miles per hour and increased his hard-hit rate by two percentage points. It was a series of small gains, but when paired with Heim’s defense, it resulted in a highly valuable all-around player. Heim trailed only the Yankees’ Jose Trevino in pitch-framing value, per Statcast, and Defensive Runs Saved (which doesn’t include framing) credited him with a plus-8 mark. Baseball-Reference pegged him at 2.5 wins above replacement. FanGraphs had him at 2.8 WAR.
That’s enough to consider Heim a starting-caliber catcher in and of itself, but the switch-hitter is in the midst of an offensive breakout that’s further elevating his profile in 2023. Through his first 123 trips to the plate, Heim has turned in a ridiculous .318/.382/.555 batting line with six home runs — already 37.5% of the way to his 2022 total despite having accumulated just 27% as many plate appearances.
Heim has undoubtedly benefited from a .354 average on balls in play, but there’s more than just good fortune at play. Heim has upped his contact on pitches in the strike zone from 88% to 90.1%. His average exit velocity has jumped another 2.2 miles per hour, and he’s seemingly made a more concerted effort to elevate the ball. After posting a 40% grounder rate in 2021 and a 39.1% rate in 2022, he’s hitting the ball on the ground in just 29.5% of his plate appearances this season. Heim has improved his launch angle in each of his big league seasons, and he’s nearly doubled last year’s barrel rate. Statcast ranks him in the 94th percentile or better in “expected” batting average, slugging percentage and wOBA.
Whether Heim can sustain that pace is up for debate. He had similarly encouraging batted-ball metrics during last year’s hot start to the season, though that came in a smaller sample of plate appearances by virtue of the fact that he was playing less often. By the time Heim had reached his current number of plate appearances, he was sitting on roughly average exit velocity and hard-hit rates. At the very least, he’s maintained a high-caliber batted-ball profile over nearly double the sample of his hot start in ’22 — and he’s done so while again grading out as a premier defender at his position.
Dating back to the 2021 season, Heim is now a .246/.312/.426 hitter — about 12% better than league-average by measure of wRC+. The league-average catcher hit .226/.295/.367 in 2022 (89 wRC+) and is hitting .242/.314/.389 (94 wRC+) so far in 2023. Heim is comfortably ahead of that pace even if he reverts to a mirror image of his 2022 production for the remainder of the season, and if he can sustain any of his new flyball-oriented approach and hard-contact gains, he’ll cement himself as one of the best catchers in the league.
Heim isn’t even eligible for arbitration yet — that’ll come this offseason — and the Rangers control him all the way through the 2026 season. Three different organizations have felt comfortable trading him to this point in his career, and never in exchange for a marquee player. Heim never ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects and never climbed higher than 13th on any of his four organizations’ top-30 rankings at Baseball America.
Despite that lack of fanfare in the minors, Heim has emerged as an everyday option on an ascendent Rangers club and improbably looks like one of baseball’s best all-around catchers. Texas doesn’t have a catcher in its top-30 prospects at Baseball America or MLB.com right now. They control Heim for another four years, so there’s hardly any urgency to explore an extension, but if he’s willing to sign on for a team-friendly deal right now, it’d be worth looking into the possibility of securing a core piece whose affordable salaries could help balance out the huge sums they’ve paid to their recent free-agent signings.
On that note, critics of the Rangers often like to scoff at the team’s efforts to buy a championship. They spent more than half a billion dollars in the 2021-22 offseason when they signed Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray. They followed up with nearly a quarter-billion more this past offseason when adding Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney in addition to re-signing Martin Perez (among other, smaller-scale moves).
There’s little denying that a large portion of the team’s core has been acquired via free agency, but that’s only been a piece of the puzzle. They hit the jackpot in simultaneously acquiring Heim and shedding some of the Andrus contract, and they’ve done well to land both breakout slugger Nathaniel Lowe and Brock Burke in separate trades with the Rays over the past four years. The Rangers haven’t drafted well — Josh Jung’s excellent start to the 2023 season notwithstanding. Perhaps that played a role in the team moving on from longtime president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, but several of Daniels’ trade acquisitions have panned out, and Heim’s breakout has been a large part of that.
Rangers Designate Ian Kennedy For Assignment
The Rangers announced that they have recalled left-hander John King from Triple-A Round Rock while right-hander Ian Kennedy has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move.
Kennedy, 38, spent many seasons as an effective starter for the Diamondbacks, Padres and Royals. He’s moved to a relief role in recent years with inconsistent results. He posted an ERA of 3.41 with the Royals in 2019 but saw that figure spike to 9.00 in the shortened 2020 season. He got back on track in 2021 with a 3.20 ERA between the Rangers and Phillies, then parlayed that into a $4.75MM deal with the Diamondbacks for 2022. That led to another downturn, however, as he had a 5.36 ERA with the Snakes last year.
With his recent seasons alternating between good and bad, it would have seemed superficially like Kennedy were due for a rebound this year. He returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal and cracked the Opening Day roster but has a 7.20 ERA through his first 11 outings and has now lost his roster spot in Texas.
Looking under the hood, things might not be quite as bad as that ERA seems. Kennedy has struck out 28.3% of batters faced against a 6.5% walk rate. He’s allowed a .357 batting average on balls in play and has a 36.8% strand rate, both of which are on the unlucky side of average, particularly the latter figure. The league averages for those stats this year are .295 and 71.6%. Advanced metrics feel Kennedy deserved much better, including his 3.21 FIP, 3.36 xERA and 3.22 SIERA.
The Rangers will now have a week to trade Kennedy or pass him through waivers. There will likely be clubs willing to overlook the 7.20 ERA in a small sample, especially with many teams around the league dealing with various injuries amid their respective pitching staffs. Though in the event Kennedy clears waivers, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency.
Latest On Jacob deGrom
The Rangers placed Jacob deGrom on the injured list on April 29 with inflammation in his throwing elbow. The two-time Cy Young winner had left his previous start early with some forearm discomfort, the second time this season he’d been forced to depart an outing for health reasons.
While deGrom is technically able to return to action this weekend, he won’t be reinstated when first eligible. Manager Bruce Bochy estimated this evening the four-time All-Star could be two to three weeks away (relayed by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). According to Grant, deGrom will meet with team physicians next Monday to determine whether he can start to ramp up the intensity.
The Rangers are understandably going to be cautious with deGrom’s arm health. He’s battled forearm and shoulder issues over the past couple years, resulting in an extended chunk of missed action between 2021-22. deGrom returned at peak form in last year’s second half and the Rangers made him the highest-paid pitcher of the offseason, inking him to a five-year, $185MM guarantee.
Through his first six starts in a Texas uniform, the star hurler has tossed 30 1/3 innings of 2.67 ERA ball. Among pitchers with 30+ frames, only Spencer Strider has a superior strikeout rate to deGrom’s 39.1% clip. It’s exactly the kind of rate production for which general manager Chris Young and his front office had hoped, though the longstanding question has been how many innings they can expect deGrom to shoulder.
With deGrom out, Dane Dunning has stepped into the final rotation spot. Dunning was a solid back-of-the-rotation arm for Texas between 2021-22 and threw five scoreless innings against the Angels last week. He’s a capable fill-in, though his move to the rotation puts added pressure on a bullpen that has been shaky of late. Dunning was arguably Texas’ best reliever for the first month, tossing 20 1/3 frames of 1.77 ERA ball.
Rangers Sign James Marvel To Minor League Contract
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.
Corey Seager Scheduled To Begin Rehab Assignment On Thursday
The Rangers look as if they’ll soon welcome back their star shortstop. Corey Seager is tentatively scheduled to begin a minor league rehab assignment on Thursday, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). That’d be a month to the day from when Seager strained his left hamstring while running the bases on April 11. The injury came with an initial four-week timeline and it seems that estimate will more or less be borne out.
Seager had been off to a fantastic start to the season. He was hitting .359/.469/.538 with more walks than strikeouts through his first 11 games. While it’s certainly unfortunate to lose a player of that caliber, the Rangers’ lineup has picked up the slack in his absence. Texas leads the majors in runs since Seager went down. That’s in part thanks to Ezequiel Durán, who seized the interim shortstop job with a .343/.378/.521 line in that time. While Seager is sure to return to shortstop after his minor league tune-up, Durán is likely to get plenty of run at designated hitter and in left field given that offensive outburst.
Red Sox Acquire Zack Littell, Select Him Onto MLB Roster
TODAY: As expected, the Red Sox selected Littell’s contract and he is now part of their active roster. In corresponding moves, Ort was optioned to Triple-A and Adam Duvall was shifted to the 60-day injured list. Duvall was placed on the 10-day IL just under four weeks ago due to a fractured wrist, and since it will still be a couple of weeks before Duvall is even able to start swinging, his move to the 60-day IL opens up a 40-man roster spot for Boston.
MAY 5, 11:38pm: Littell’s contract with the Rangers contained an upward mobility clause requiring the Rangers to trade him or promote him to the majors if another club was willing to add him to the MLB roster, reports Alex Speier of the Boston Globe (Twitter link). The Red Sox expressed a willingness to do so, leading to the trade. While Littell was initially assigned to Triple-A Worcester, he’s expected to be formally promoted to the major league roster shortly.
5:30pm: The Red Sox have acquired right-hander Zack Littell from the Rangers, reports Kennedi Landry of MLB.com, with cash considerations going the other way. Littell wasn’t on the club’s 40-man roster, so no corresponding moves will be necessary.
Littell, 27, was with the Giants the past two years but was outrighted off their roster at the end of last season and elected free agency. He signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in the winter and had been pitching well in Triple-A. Through 12 innings for the Round Rock Express, he had a 2.25 ERA, striking out 33.3% of opponents against a tiny walk rate of 4.2%.
That’s a stronger performance than he’s managed in the big leagues recently. With San Francisco in 2021 and 2022, he tossed 106 innings with a 3.82 ERA, 23.1% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate. It seems the Red Sox were encouraged enough by the small sample improvements to take a shot on him, while the Rangers were seemingly content to let him go and pocket some cash.
Littell is out of options, meaning that he’d have to stick in the big leagues if he gets back there, or else be designated for assignment. But in the event he does back to the bigs and sticks, he could be retained for future seasons. He came into this season with three years and 67 days of service time, meaning he could get to the four-year mark in 2023 if called up soon. Even in that case, he’d have a couple more arb years before getting to the six-year mark and automatic free agency, though a delayed call-up could push that back.
The Sox have dealt with a handful of injuries to their relief corps this year, as Zack Kelly, Joely Rodríguez and Wyatt Mills are all on the injured list. Right-hander Kutter Crawford joined them today when the Sox put him on the IL with a left hamstring strain, recalling righty Kaleb Ort to take his place. Littell will give the club a bit of extra non-roster depth and try to work his way back to the majors.
Robinson Chirinos Announces Retirement
Veteran catcher Robinson Chirinos announced on Twitter today that he is retiring from professional baseball. “With a happy, yet heavy heart, I am announcing my retirement from professional baseball,” the statement reads. “After much contemplation and reflection, I have decided to close this chapter of my life. It has not been an easy decision, but I feel that it is the right one for me as I have given my heart and soul to this sport over so many years.” He then goes on to thank his family members, teammates, coaches, fans, team staff and many others who he crossed paths with over the years.
Chirinos, now 38 years old, originally signed with the Cubs as an amateur out of Venezuela back in 2000, shortly after his 16th birthday. An infielder at that time, he would toil away in the Cubs’ minor league system for a decade, starting his move to the catcher position in 2008. He was added to the club’s 40-man roster after 2010 but was traded to the Rays a few months later, going alongside Chris Archer and others as the Cubs acquired Matt Garza.
It was in that 2011 season that Chirinos was able to make his major league debut, getting into 20 games, but he had to miss the entire 2012 campaign due to a concussion. He was traded to the Rangers in April of 2013 for a player to be named later and would eventually spend six years with that club. His role was initially limited but gradually grew over time as he provided some pop behind the plate. From 2013 to 2018, he hit 67 home runs in 442 games, slashing .233/.325/.443 during that time for a wRC+ of 104. That coincided with a good stretch for the club as well, as Chirinos was able to get into four postseason games with the Rangers between 2015 and 2016.
He reached free agency for the first time after 2018 and he eventually signed with the Astros for one year and $5.75MM. He had a nice season in Houston, launching 17 home runs and hitting .238/.347/.443 for a wRC+ of 112. He would get into 14 more postseason games that year as the Astros went to the World Series, ultimately falling to the Nationals in seven games.
He would go into journeyman mode for the next few years. He returned to the Rangers for 2020 on a one-year, $6.75MM deal but ultimately hit just .162/.232/.243 in the shortened season, which included a trade to the Mets. He signed a minor league deal with the Yankees for 2021 but fractured his wrist after being hit by a pitch in Spring Training. He was released and eventually got into 45 games for the Cubs after returning to health, then got into another 67 contests with the Orioles last year.
All told, it was an unusual career for Chirinos, who seemed to do everything a little later than normal. He didn’t start playing his primary position until his mid-20s, then didn’t make it to the majors until his age-27 season and didn’t really become a regular until he was 30. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference consider his best season by wins above replacement to be 2019, his age-35 campaign.
Despite that delayed trajectory, he still managed to get into 714 major league games and make 2,457 plate appearances. He tallied 480 hits, including 95 home runs, scoring 275 times and driving in 306. MLBTR congratulates Chirinos on a fine career and wishes him the best in the next stages of his life.
Dominic Leone Opts Out Of Rangers Deal
Veteran right-handed reliever Dominic Leone has opted out of his minor league contract with the Rangers and will formally become a free agent later today, reports MLBTR’s Anthony Franco (Twitter link).
The 31-year-old Leone has gotten out to a terrific start in Triple-A this season, pitching to a 1.59 ERA with a 15-to-2 K/BB ratio in 11 1/3 innings of work. He’ll shop that strong start around the open market as he looks for a path back to a big league bullpen.
A veteran of nine big league seasons, Leone spent the 2021-22 seasons with the Giants, pitching to a combined 2.71 ERA with a roughly average 23.1% strikeout rate and higher-than-average 10.4% walk rate in 103 innings of relief. His fastball sat at 95.5 mph during that two-year stretch, and he turned in huge marks in terms of swinging-strike rate (15.7%) and opponents’ chase rate (38.4%).
Leone debuted with Seattle in 2014 and has since spent time in Arizona, Toronto, St. Louis and Cleveland in addition to his two years in San Francisco. Overall, he’s logged 356 innings at the Major League level, all coming in relief or as an opener, with a composite 3.69 ERA, 24.4% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate, 1.06 HR/9 and 43.8% ground-ball rate. That ERA is backed up by matching 3.91 marks from both FIP and SIERA. Leone has 53 career holds and seven saves, including 26 holds and five saves over the past two seasons with the Giants, so he’s accustomed to working in high-leverage spots.
The Rangers rank tenth in the Majors with a 3.46 ERA out of the bullpen, though the final few spots in the Texas relief corps are hardly set in stone. Veteran Ian Kennedy and lefty Cole Ragans have both struggled so far in 2023 (although Kennedy is still missing plenty of bats), while newcomer Yerry Rodriguez has just one inning under his belt so far. The Rangers have gotten solid bottom-line results from Jose Leclerc, Jonathan Hernandez, Will Smith, Josh Sborz, Brock Burke and long man Dane Dunning thus far, though Leclerc’s 18.4% walk rate is a cause for concern.
Texas apparently remains bullish enough on that group that they’ll allow the veteran Leone to return to the market and quite likely latch on with another club. There are numerous teams around the league seeking ’pen help, and with a nice start to his season in the minors and a solid track record at the MLB level, Leone ought to find another opportunity in short order.
