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Rangers Notes: Rocker, Eovaldi, Langford

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Rangers righty Kumar Rocker made his Spring Training debut today against the Royals. The results weren’t good — he allowed four runs in his inning of work — but that’s inconsequential this early in camp.

As Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News writes, manager Bruce Bochy and GM Chris Young have left open the possibility for Rocker to break camp. That might require an injury elsewhere in the rotation, however, as it seems Rocker enters Spring Training sixth on the depth chart. Texas has a veteran top four: Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle and Jon Gray. The fifth spot could come down to a battle between Rocker and left-hander Cody Bradford — with the latter potentially having the leg up.

“We’re going to see where we come out of camp, where we are from a medical standpoint, who’s healthy, how guys have thrown the ball, but (Rocker is) certainly one that is in our plans,” Young said. “We just can’t tell you exactly how at this point.” The third overall pick in the 2022 draft, Rocker earned a brief debut last September. He started three games, allowing six runs (five earned) through 11 2/3 innings. The 6’5″ righty recorded 14 strikeouts with an excellent 13.3% swinging strike rate. It’s an exceedingly small sample, but he looks capable of missing bats at the highest level.

Rocker averaged 96 MPH on his heater, while opponents had few answers for his slider. The latter pitch may already be one of the game’s top breaking balls. Baseball America graded the slider as a plus-plus offering (70 on the 20-80 scale) while ranking Rocker among their top 20 prospects. The 25-year-old will certainly be a factor at some point this season, though it remains to be seen how the Rangers want to handle his workload. Rocker underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023 and has all of 19 professional appearances under his belt. He has tallied fewer than 30 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. Rocker carved up minor league hitters upon returning from the surgery, working to a 1.96 ERA with 55 strikeouts in 36 2/3 frames over 10 appearances.

The 27-year-old Bradford has almost the polar opposite approach. He’s a soft-tossing lefty who relies on a plus changeup and elite command. Despite lacking huge stuff, Bradford turned in a 3.54 ERA with a solid 22.7% strikeout rate over 76 1/3 innings last season. A back injury cost him three months, but he was a quietly productive starter when healthy. Both Rocker and Bradford have minor league options remaining. While Dane Dunning remains on hand as well, he’s likelier to pitch in long relief after a rough ’24 season.

There’s no doubt about Eovaldi’s role. He’ll be back in the top half of the rotation after re-signing on a three-year, $75MM free agent deal. The 13-year MLB veteran has been incredibly consistent, turning in a sub-4.00 ERA in five straight seasons. That hasn’t stopped him from using exhibition play to tinker with his arsenal.

Eovaldi told reporters last week that he has been working on a two-seam fastball throughout the offseason (link via Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). The righty confirmed that he used it a few times in his Spring Training debut on Friday against Kansas City. Brooks Baseball tracked five of his pitches as sinkers (which is the two-seam fastball) over two innings. Eovaldi has had a five-pitch mix for most of his career: four-seam, splitter, cutter, curveball and a slider that he only throws against right-handed hitters. He told Landry and other reporters that he’ll continue to work on the two-seam, which he wants to run up and in against righty batters to keep them off the splitter lower in the zone.

One player who has yet to get his exhibition season underway: second-year left fielder Wyatt Langford. Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports was among those to report last week that Langford was being held back from baseball activities for a few days after being diagnosed with a mild oblique strain. Bochy maintained that the Rangers consider this a minor setback and anticipate that Langford will be ready for Opening Day. He’ll look to build off a solid rookie season in which he hit .253/.325/.415 with 16 homers across 557 plate appearances.

Rangers Prospect Alejandro Rosario Likely To Miss 2025 Season With Elbow Injury

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Right-handed Rangers pitching prospect Alejandro Rosario is likely to miss the 2025 season due to an elbow injury, president of baseball operations Chris Young told reporters (including Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). Rosario will require surgery, though Young was reluctant to offer any concrete details.

“It’s likely UCL,” Young said, as relayed by Landry. “I don’t want to officially say, but yeah, it’s elbow and will probably require Tommy John.”

The 23-year-old was a fifth-round pick by the Rangers in the 2023 draft. It’s a brutal blow for the righty, who was nothing short of sensational in his first season as a pro in 2024. He split the year between Single-A and High-A, pitching to a sterling 2.24 ERA overall with 88 1/3 innings of work. He struck out an incredible 36.9% of opponents faced in total last year while walking just 3.7% of batters. It was a massive leap forward for a player who never posted an ERA below 5.00 during his collegiate career.

Unfortunately, that incredible breakout will be put on hold for the 2025 campaign. While specifics of what exact procedure Rosario will undergo have not yet been made public, even an internal brace procedure comes with about a year of rehab time, with full Tommy John requiring a longer rehab that would likely stretch into the 2026 season. Rosario appeared on track to either start 2025 at Double-A or earn a promotion to the level early in the campaign, but those plans will have to be scuttled for the year. That seems likely to delay his big league debut until 2027 at the earliest, surely a disappointing development for both the Rangers and the righty himself.

Fortunately for Texas, they’re hardly short on starting pitching options for the 2025 campaign. Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, and Cody Bradford currently project as the club’s starting five on Opening Day, with Dane Dunning also on the roster as a potential swing man. That roster is supplemented by a handful of young prospects, including former first-round picks Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Both of them made their big league debuts in 2024; Leiter struggled through 35 2/3 innings of work with an 8.83 ERA, though he did pitch to a 3.51 ERA in 77 innings of work at the Triple-A level. That’s a particularly impressive figure given the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League and his excellent 33.3% strikeout rate.

Rocker, meanwhile, showed out in a three-start cup of coffee late in the year with a 3.86 ERA and 3.68 FIP. He was even better in the minors, with just three earned runs allowed across seven starts between the Double- and Triple-A levels last year after returning from Tommy John surgery earlier in the year. The presence of Leiter and Rocker, as well as other youngsters like Emiliano Teodo, should help the Rangers to weather Rosario’s delayed big league timeline even as Gray and Mahle head for free agency after the 2025 season.

Rangers Sign Kevin Pillar To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced this morning that they’ve signed outfielder Kevin Pillar to a minor league deal with an invite to big league Spring Training.

Pillar, 36, is a veteran of 12 MLB seasons. After getting his start as a 32nd-round pick with the Blue Jays back in 2011, he made his big league debut in 2013 and has fashioned a solid career for himself as a glove-first outfielder who can provide some offense against left-handed pitching. His peak seasons as Toronto’s everyday center fielder where he posted 8.2 fWAR and 14.0 bWAR from 2015 to 2018 are long behind him, but in more recent years he’s transitioned into being a serviceable fourth or fifth outfielder for a variety of MLB clubs.

In 2024, Pillar started the season with the White Sox but struggled badly through 17 games. The veteran was cut by Chicago but managed to find a job with the Angels in Anaheim after Mike Trout went down for the year due to a meniscus issue. Pillar joined the club’s outfield mix and did fairly well for himself, appearing in 83 games for the club while primarily playing center field. In 282 trips to the plate for the Halos, Pillar slashed .236/.291/.378 with a decent 88 wRC+ that suggested he was a touch below league average as a hitter. That’s perfectly serviceable for a depth piece, but Pillar notably crushed left-handed pitching with a .310/.352/.500 slash line against southpaws last year.

That seems to suggests he could be more productive on a team with a deeper outfield mix who can offer him more platoon protection against right-handed hitters, and that makes the Rangers a decent fit for his services despite their full outfield mix. Wyatt Langford and Adolis Garcia are expected to be the club’s regular outfielders in the corners, with Evan Carter getting regular reps in center field and Leody Taveras serving as the club’s fourth outfielder. Taveras is a somewhat imperfect complement to the lefty-swinging Carter in center, however, as he’s just a .231/.291/.320 hitter for his career against southpaws including a dismal .189/.270/.244 showing against them last year.

Taveras, who is controlled through the end of the 2027 season and is making just $4.75MM this year, has been bandied about as a potential trade candidate throughout the winter thanks to his questionable fit on the Rangers’ roster and the club’s desire to stay under the first threshold of the luxury tax this year. The club was reportedly receiving interest in Taveras as recently as the end of January, though now that Spring Training has begun the odds of any trade getting done have gone down significantly. Even so, bringing Pillar into the fold offers the Rangers insurance against injury following a season where Carter was limited to just 45 games by back issues while also potentially giving them the flexibility to listen to offers on Taveras more seriously than they would have if trading him would’ve forced them to rely on Garcia or Langford as their backup center fielder.

Rangers Sign Luke Jackson

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The Rangers announced Monday that they’ve signed righty Luke Jackson to a one-year, major league contract. Righty Josh Sborz was placed on the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot. Sborz is recovering from November shoulder surgery. Jackson, who is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council, is reportedly guaranteed $1.5MM plus performance bonuses.

Jackson, 33, returns to the organization that originally selected him with the No. 45 overall pick in the 2010 draft. Texas traded Jackson to the Braves in 2016, receiving pitchers Brady Feigl and Tyrell Jenkins in return. Neither wound up throwing a major league pitch for the Rangers, while Jackson eventually emerged as a valuable setup man for the Braves, with his best year coming during the team’s 2021 World Series campaign.

Tommy John surgery cost Jackson the 2022 season — his final year of control with Atlanta before becoming a free agent. He landed a two-year, $11.5MM pact with the Giants in free agency, pitching well in year one of the deal (33 1/3 innings, 2.97 ERA in his return from surgery) before struggling in year two. He went back to the Braves alongside Jorge Soler in a salary-driven deadline swap. Jackson posted a 4.50 ERA in 18 innings with the Braves but also walked 13% of his opponents.

Jackson’s 5.09 ERA in 53 innings last season isn’t encouraging, but he posted a 1.98 ERA and that 2.97 mark on either end of his elbow surgery. Between those two seasons, he totaled 97 innings with a 2.32 ERA, 28% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate. He worked plenty of high-leverage spots, particularly with Atlanta in 2021, when he racked up a career-best 31 holds.

That’ll be the form the Rangers hope to capture in 2025. Jackson’s 94.7 mph average fastball this past season was down noticeably from his 96.1 mph peak, but he averaged only 94.4 mph in 2023, so there’s evidence to suggest he can succeed even if his heater never quite bounces back to pre-surgery levels. Jackson also induced chases off the plate at a solid 31.8% clip and recorded a strong 13.5% swinging-strike rate. His command has never been great and has been particularly problematic since his elbow troubles arose, but he can still miss bats and pile up grounders — as evidenced by last year’s 50.7% clip.

Jackson becomes the incredible seventh new addition to a completely rebuilt Rangers bullpen this offseason. Texas saw Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc and Andrew Chafin become free agents at season’s end. With the team’s priority being to re-sign Nathan Eovaldi and add some bats who could help remedy last year’s struggles versus fastballs, the bulk of their offseason spending went to a three-year deal, $75MM for Eovaldi and a two-year, $37MM deal for Joc Pederson. Ownership has been steadfast in its desire to drop back under the luxury tax, leaving president of baseball operations Chris Young to take a volume-based approach to rounding out the relief corps rather than doling out pricey eight-figure deals to keep Yates, Leclerc and Robertson (who’s still unsigned but will presumably land an eight-figure deal himself, or at least close to it).

Chris Martin’s $5.5MM guarantee is the most expensive commitment Texas has made to a reliever this winter. The Rangers have also signed Hoby Milner ($2.5MM), Jacob Webb ($1.25MM), Shawn Armstrong ($1.25MM) and Luis Curvelo ($750K) to big league contracts. Lefty Robert Garcia was acquired from the Nationals in a trade that sent first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and his own eight-figure salary to Washington, thereby creating some flexibility for relatively big-money signings of Eovaldi and Pederson.

Texas was only about $7MM from the luxury tax threshold before agreeing to terms with Jackson. It stands to reason that he’s inking a similarly cost-effective deal to the ones signed by Milner, Webb and Armstrong. Unlike that trio, he does have a fair bit of high-leverage experience, which could give him a leg up when it comes to auditioning for setup or even closing work. If the Rangers want to leave some powder dry for in-season acquisitions, they might not have much capacity left for adding further big league free agents between now and Opening Day.

Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 reported the $1.5MM guarantee.

Joc Pederson Taking First Base Reps In Rangers Camp

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The Rangers intend to get Joc Pederson work at first base this spring, manager Bruce Bochy said (link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). While the Rangers still plan to use him primarily as a designated hitter, they could get him occasional first base work over the course of the season.

Pederson was a full-time DH with the Diamondbacks last season. He’s never been a good defender, but that was the first time in which a team kept him off the field entirely. Pederson had played regularly in the outfield before that. He broke in as a center fielder with the Dodgers but had moved more or less to a corner role by 2019.

Bochy downplayed the chance of using Pederson in the outfield at Globe Life Field. “I would imagine he could go out there, but I think the focus is more at first base right now, to help out a little bit. I don’t envision needing more depth in the outfield,” the veteran skipper told Grant and other reporters. “He hasn’t been over there very much, so I imagine he’s got a little rust on him. But he’s taken some ground balls already and we’ll make a call later. We think it’s going to work.”

Pederson has played 154 major league innings at first base. He made a pair of late-game appearances there for the Giants two seasons ago. His only 19 career starts as a first baseman came with Los Angeles back in 2019. He committed six errors in 149 innings, leading to very poor defensive metrics in that tiny sample. It’s an unfamiliar position, but it’s not uncommon for corner outfielders to log occasional first base action.

Texas should have a strong defensive outfield. They’re lined up with Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter and Adolis García as their starting trio. Leody Taveras is on hand as a quality fourth outfielder who can step into everyday center field work if Carter has any kind of recurrence of last year’s injury issues.

First base is a little less established. The Rangers traded Nathaniel Lowe to Washington for reliever Robert Garcia. That came on the heels of acquiring corner infielder Jake Burger from Miami. He’s lined up for the majority of playing time at first base. Burger doesn’t have great on-base skills but brings a lot of right-handed pop. He has respectively hit 34 and 29 homers over the past two years. While he divided his playing time equally between the corner infield spots for the Fish, he’s unlikely to play much third base on a team that has Josh Jung and Josh Smith.

Pederson will work primarily as a designated hitter against right-handed pitching. Burger has had neutral platoon splits for his career. He’ll play frequently against righties, but there’s little harm in testing if Pederson can adequately step in on occasion. That’d also give Bochy some flexibility to get García or Langford off their feet at times, potentially drawing Taveras into the lineup on days when Texas wants a stronger defensive outfield.

Rangers Notes: Gray, Martin, Garcia

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Last weekend, reports surfaced that the Rangers had some “internal discussions” about moving Jon Gray from the rotation to the closer’s role, in a creative way to address both their need for a closer and an on-paper surplus of starting pitchers.  However, it doesn’t appear as though the concept advanced beyond the speculative phase, as both manager Bruce Bochy and president of baseball operations Chris Young told reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News) that they both viewed Gray as assuming his usual starter role this season.

Gray said that he also hadn’t been approached about the idea, even if he was broadly open to closing if it meant helping the team.  But, he also set some lofty targets for his 2025 season, saying that he was “looking to eat a lot of innings.  I’d hopefully like to get to that 200-strikeout mark.  That would be cool.  The swing-and-miss and strikeout rate is something I really want to improve and I think it’s headed in the right direction.”

Gray’s career high in strikeouts is 185, set back in his first full MLB season in 2016 when the righty was still with the Rockies.  His personal best for innings is 172 1/3 frames in the 2018 season, and he has topped the 150-inning threshold in four of his 10 big league seasons.  Most recently, Gray tossed 102 2/3 innings last year, as he twice hit the injured list due to groin strains, and he underwent season-ending surgery in early September to remove a neuroma on the middle toe of his right foot.

“I’m happy with the way the surgery went and had a really good offseason,” Gray said, noting that the neuroma had been bothering him for almost a year, and likely contributed to his groin problems.  The injuries clearly hampered Gray’s performance, as he posted a 4.47 ERA and the lowest full-season strikeout rate (19.6%) of his career.

Beyond his natural competitive spirit in rebounding from a down year, Gray has even more incentive to bounce back since he is set to hit free agency next winter.  Gray is in the final season of the four-year, $56MM deal he signed with Texas during the 2021-22 offseason, and there was some speculation that the Rangers could look to trade Gray this winter in order to clear some money off the books.  No such deal happened, and thus the 33-year-old Gray is now looking for a nice platform year as he approaches the open market once more.

If Gray isn’t the closer or another reliever isn’t brought into the fold, Chris Martin looks like the favorite for saves, assuming that Texas even sticks with a set ninth-inning option.  Bochy told MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry and other reporters that “it can be by committee…So by no means are we getting locked in on any roles right now.  I think we’re going to stay flexible with that.”

To this end, Bochy said he hasn’t talked to Martin specifically about working in a closing capacity, but the skipper feels his relievers are “fine with not having a defined role.  They’re used to it, including Chris….They all have great attitudes.  They’re like, ’Hey, we’re there to get outs and use us where you need us to help win a ballgame.’ And that’s how that works.”

Martin has amassed only 14 saves over his nine MLB seasons, though he pointed out to Landry that he had 22 saves over his two seasons in Japan with the Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2016-17.  Getting some sustained run as a closer might be a fun way for Martin to wind up his career, but he plans to take the same approach no matter how he is utilized out of the Rangers’ bullpen.

“With closing, you still gotta get three outs,” Martin said.  “It’s just the last three of the game, so it can be a little more nerve wracking, but I’ve been around a bit now and I understand it’s just another three outs, whatever the run situation is.”

Robert Garcia is another newly-acquired reliever ticketed for high-leverage innings, as the Rangers acquired Garcia from the Nationals in return for Nathaniel Lowe in December.  The left-hander has yet to properly kick off his first Spring Training with his new team, however, due to some nerve irritation in his forearm.  The issue doesn’t seem too serious, as Bochy told Landry that Garcia is slated to throw his first bullpen session of the spring on Tuesday.

Rangers Sign Joe Barlow To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced this morning that they’ve signed right-hander Joe Barlow to a minor league deal. The contract includes an invitation to big league Spring Training.

Barlow, 29, was an 11th-round pick by the Rangers back in 2016 and spent parts of three MLB seasons with the club from 2021 to 2023. He shared closing duties with veteran Ian Kennedy in his rookie season and took over as primary closer for the club the following year, though he ultimately lost the role midway through the 2022 campaign. His removal with the closer role coincided with a severe nosedive in performance. The righty sported a phenomenal career 2.15 ERA with a 22.6% strikeout rate and a 3.79 FIP across 54 1/3 innings when he recorded his final save as the Rangers’ closer in June of 2022, but since then he’s struggled badly with a 5.59 ERA, and 5.96 FIP and a strikeout rate of just 14.6% in 19 1/3 big league innings.

Given those disastrous numbers over the course of nearly a year between him losing the closer job and the trade that brought Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton to Texas at the 2023 trade deadline, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when the Rangers designated Barlow for assignment to make room for the incoming duo on the 40-man roster. Barlow was claimed off waivers by the Royals shortly thereafter but did not make an appearance with the club, pitching in the minors until he was once again designated for assignment in early September. He was eventually outrighted to the minors and signed a minor league deal with the White Sox last year, though he did not receive a call-up to the major leagues.

Barlow’s struggles after being removed from the closer role may have been health-related. He made multiple trips to the injured list due to blisters on his right index finger during the 2022 campaign after losing his job in the ninth inning, and ultimately ended up undergoing offseason surgery to correct two tendons in his right wrist that were causing the blisters. Barlow then made a trip to the IL in early 2023 due to kidney stones. Upon joining the White Sox last season, Barlow spent nearly the whole 2024 campaign on the injured list with just 12 total appearances at Triple-A. In 30 innings of work at Triple-A with Chicago and Kansas City since departing Texas, Barlow has been torched to the tune of an 8.40 ERA with a 10.7% walk rate against a 23.1% strikeout rate.

Barlow will now have the opportunity to prove he’s healthy and work his way back towards the majors in a familiar environment. The Rangers, meanwhile, will hope he can recapture the form he flashed early in his big league career. Even that wouldn’t be enough to close on a team with playoff aspirations like the Rangers have become, but Barlow could still join the deep group of arms the club has added this winter to help in the middle innings like Jacob Webb and Shawn Armstrong.

Rangers Sign JT Chargois To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced this morning that they’ve signed veteran reliever JT Chargois to a minor league deal and invited him to spring training. The Wasserman client will compete for a spot in a vastly overhauled Texas bullpen. Just Baseball’s Aram Leighton first reported the agreement.

Chargois, 34, has pitched in seven big league seasons, appearing for five different clubs. Originally a second-round pick by the Twins in 2012, he’s also bounced to the Dodgers, Mariners, Rays and Marlins. The Rice University product is coming off a nice 2024 campaign between Miami and Seattle, wherein he pitched 36 1/3 innings with a combined 2.23 earned run average. That mark overstates his effectiveness, as it was buoyed by a microscopic .189 average on balls in play and colossal 98% strand rate.

Chargois’ 20.5% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate were both passable but a bit worse than league average, and he gave up plenty of hard contact. He averaged 94.9 mph on his sinker, which is certainly above-average — but also a notable dip from the 96.3 mph he’d averaged across the five prior seasons. That may have been tied to the neck spasms that plagued him in 2024 and at one point landed him on the 60-day IL.

The Mariners could’ve retained Chargois this offseason via arbitration, as he’s only at 5.101 years of MLB service. They opted to non-tender him despite a reasonable $1.7MM projected salary, however (courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz).

Looking at the broader scope of Chargois’ career, he’s frequently been an effective reliever but has also too often been hobbled by injuries. In the past three years alone, he’s missed time with neck spasms, a ribcage strain and two separate oblique strains. He’s also had nerve and elbow injuries in his right arm.

Chargois has only reached 50 innings in one of his seven MLB campaigns. He’s also posted an ERA of 3.61 or better in five of those seasons. On the whole, he’s tallied 231 1/3 innings with a 3.35 ERA, 23.3% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate and 50.2% grounder rate. He’s usually kept the ball in the yard (0.97 HR/9), though last year’s 1.49 HR/9 mark is a bit of a red flag.

The Rangers have already formally bid farewell to Kirby Yates and Jose Leclerc. David Robertson and Andrew Chafin remain unsigned but seem likely to sign elsewhere as well. In place of that quartet, Texas has traded for Robert Garcia and signed free agents Chris Martin, Hoby Milner, Jacob Webb and Shawn Armstrong to major league deals. Chargois joins Jesse Chavez as the most experienced non-roster arm in camp and will compete for a spot in Bruce Bochy’s new-look relief corps.

Rangers Have Had “Internal Discussions” About Jon Gray As Closer

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The Rangers are poised to enter Spring Training this year with a dilemma that they haven’t had in recent years: no experienced closers on their roster. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, and Jose Leclerc had a combined 313 saves under their belts when they departed Texas for free agency back in November after serving as the Rangers’ late-inning relief corps in 2024, and the year prior to that lefty Will Smith closed games for the Rangers despite a shaky 4.40 ERA thanks in part to the two 30+ save seasons he had under his belt before he arrived in Texas. This year, however, the club has no such experienced closer to lean on in the ninth inning.

Veteran reliever Chris Martin has the dominant relief numbers often associated with the closer role, but has just 14 career saves and has not recorded more than four in a single season before. Those 14 saves are still enough to make him the most experienced ninth-inning arm in the Rangers’ new-look bullpen, which added interesting pieces like Robert Garcia, Hoby Milner, and Jacob Webb who have pitched well in the past but never been used as a closer. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News noted that it’s possible the club won’t have clearly defined roles in the bullpen entering the season due to the lack of a clear top closing option, though he added that there have been at least “internal discussions” about the possibility of using veteran starter Jon Gray in the ninth inning.

Grant emphasizes that as things currently stand, Gray appears to be more valuable to the club as a starter given the innings he can provide. 2024 was the first 162-game season of Gray’s career where he posted less than 20 starts and 110 innings of work since his nine-start cup of coffee with the Rockies as a rookie back in 2013, and with 1216 2/3 innings of work (including 387 1/3 in a Rangers uniform) under his belt Gray is valuable source of steadiness in a Texas rotation mix filled with aging, oft-injured, or young and unproven arms. Given that, it would hardly be a surprise to see the club simply stick with Gray in the rotation and use Martin for the lion’s share of save chances, or perhaps simply play matchups in the ninth inning without anointing a closer at all.

Even so, the idea of Gray as a reliever is a somewhat intriguing one. Gray was used out of the bullpen four times in 2024, the most he’s ever pitched in relief in his career to this point. While Gray’s seven innings of work out of the bullpen are much too small of a sample size to draw any major conclusions from, his brief work in the role was nothing short of dominant: Gray pitched to a 1.29 ERA in those four appearances with a phenomenal 37% strikeout rate against a 7.4% walk rate. Those are the kind of numbers that could be truly game-changing for a Rangers club that has struggled to find production in the bullpen in recent years, making a potential role change for Gray at least worth considering.

While it seems unlikely that the Rangers would move Gray to the bullpen to start the season, perhaps it could become a more feasible option as the season develops. The Rangers have very little certainty in their rotation, but huge amounts of upside. Top draft picks Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter figure to try and force their way into the rotation with the club this year, and healthy seasons from Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle would be able to turn the club’s starting five from a question mark to a major strength quite suddenly. If things are looking up for the club in the rotation this summer, perhaps Gray’s 4.70 ERA in 19 starts last year becomes less attractive as a steady, back-end option and the club decides to see what the 33-year-old can do as a full-time reliever.

Poll: Who’s Winning The Offseason In The AL West?

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The calendar has flipped to February and the start of spring is just a matter of days away. While some notable free agents (including seven of MLBTR’s Top 50) remain unsigned, most clubs have already done the heavy lifting in terms of preparing their roster for the 2025 season. In the coming days, we’ll be taking a look around the league at which clubs have had the strongest offseason to this point. After the Mets, Cubs, and Dodgers have decisively won the polls covering the National League’s three divisions, the focus now shifts to the American League starting with the AL West.

The junior circuit’s west coast teams have been busy for the most part, perhaps reflecting the division’s tightly contested nature. A three-way race for the AL West came down to the final day of the 2023 season, and despite the Astros’ division title, the Rangers were the ones to be crowned World Series champions. In 2024, Houston’s long reign over the division started showing signs of cracks as they struggled out of the gate, won “just” 88 games (down by their standards) and were bounced from the playoffs in the AL Wild Card Series.

Which team has done the best job setting themselves up for 2024? Teams are listed in order of their 2024 record:

Houston Astros

The winds of change are blowing through Houston, and they’ll enter 2025 with a significantly reshaped roster. The most notable move this winter was to ship star outfielder Kyle Tucker to Chicago ahead of his final season under team control. Losing a player of Tucker’s caliber is always a brutal blow, but Houston did fairly well in the trade. They not only added a new top prospect in third baseman Cam Smith, but they also managed to bring in All-Star third baseman Isaac Paredes and bolster their rotation depth with right-hander Hayden Wesneski.

The additions of Paredes and Wesneski have patched holes left by the departures of Alex Bregman and Justin Verlander in free agency, though the club has apparently not completely closed the door on a reunion with Bregman. Meanwhile, the need at first base caused by Jose Abreu’s dramatic decline was filled by the addition of three-time Gold Glove winner Christian Walker. Solid as those moves have been, though, the Astros have subtracted more than they’ve added. Ryan Pressly, Yusei Kikuchi, and Jose Urquidy are no longer with the club, and the Astros’ replacement for Tucker as a left-handed outfield bat to this point appears to be a reunion with journeyman Ben Gamel.

Seattle Mariners

Seattle has had the quietest offseason in the division despite typically being one of the most active teams on the trade market. Rumors of a Luis Castillo deal have not come to fruition, and trade targets to bolster the club’s lackluster infield such as Nico Hoerner, Alec Bohm, and Triston Casas have all remained with their current teams. The Mariners’ lack of activity on the trade market has led them to make mostly ancillary moves. As ownership has scaled back the budget substantially, the Mariners have re-signed Jorge Polanco and added Donovan Solano for a combined $11.25MM. Their only other additions have been minor trades for players with minimal big league experience like Austin Shenton and Miles Mastrobuoni.

Texas Rangers

The Rangers’ front office has had a tall order placed in front of them this winter: navigate under the luxury tax while supplementing an offense that struggled last year and completely rebuilding a pitching staff that saw seven major pieces reach free agency. They’ve most succeeded in those goals. Robert Garcia, Chris Martin, Jacob Webb, Shawn Armstrong, and Hoby Milner were all brought in to help patch up one of the league’s weaker bullpens. The club parted with first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to bring Garcia into the fold, but his bat has been effectively swapped out for free agent pickup Joc Pederson and trade acquisition Jake Burger in trade.

Meanwhile, the club added some pop behind the plate by pairing Kyle Higashioka with Jonah Heim after Heim struggled through a down season offensively last year. The Rangers managed to keep Nathan Eovaldi on a three-year deal despite the soaring cost of starting pitching. Whether these additions will be enough to make up for the losses of Lowe, Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc, Andrew Heaney and Max Scherzer remains to be seen.

Athletics

After shuttering the Coliseum and departing Oakland for a temporary stay in West Sacramento, the A’s have begun to spend more aggressively than they have in years. The club locked up breakout slugger Brent Rooker for the next five seasons on a $60MM extension and has been active both the trade and free agent markets. The A’s signed Luis Severino to a club-record three-year, $67MM deal while also agreeing to deals with third baseman Gio Urshela, former Rangers closer Jose Leclerc and lefty T.J. McFarland. On the trade market, they added southpaws Jeffrey Springs and Jacob Lopez in a deal with the Rays that saw them surrender Joe Boyle, their Competitive Balance Round A pick, and two prospects.

Los Angeles Angels

After narrowly avoiding the first 100-loss season in franchise history, the Angels were heavily active in the early stages of the offseason. They acquired slugger Jorge Soler in a trade with the Braves on day one of the offseason, surrendering only non-tender candidate Griffin Canning. They added Scott Kingery in a cash swap with the Phillies shortly thereafter. The early days of free agency brought deals for Yusei Kikuchi, Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Hendricks, and Kevin Newman.

Things have been mostly quiet in Anaheim since that flurry of moves back in November, and it will surely take a strong, healthy season from Mike Trout in addition to steps forward for multiple youngsters if the Angels are going to contend for the postseason in 2025.

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The AL West appears to have moved towards parity somewhat this winter. The Astros have sacrificed maximizing their immediate odds at continued dominance in the name of longer-term stability. The Mariners opted to keep their elite rotation together rather than risk breaking up the group to strengthen a mediocre lineup. The Rangers have been very active in reshaping their roster in hopes of recapturing the glory of 2023, while the fourth- and fifth-place A’s and Angels have been surprisingly aggressive in their efforts to separate themselves from the AL’s cellar dwellers.

Of the five AL West clubs, which one has had the strongest offseason so far? Have your say in the poll below:

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