Jon Gray

Injury Notes: Gil, DeJong, Gray

By Anthony Franco | April 16, 2025 at 11:40pm CDT

Luis Gil has not thrown since being diagnosed with a lat strain during the first week of March. The Yankees righty was shut down for at least six weeks at the time of the injury. While Gil has hit the six-week mark, he’s still not ready to begin throwing. Manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including Bryan Hoch of MLB.com) that Gil will remain shut down for at least another 10 days. Recent imaging hasn’t revealed sufficient healing for last year’s Rookie of the Year winner to resume throwing.

Gil will remain more than a month away from returning to MLB action even after he begins throwing. He’ll need a full ramp-up period after missing all of Spring Training, progressing through multiple sessions before he’s ready for a minor league rehab assignment. The Yankees welcomed Clarke Schmidt back from his own season-opening injured list stint on Wednesday, but they’re still down three starting pitchers. Gerrit Cole will miss the entire season, while Marcus Stroman went on the IL with knee inflammation over the weekend.

A couple other injury updates around the game:

The Nationals placed Paul DeJong on the 10-day injured list before Wednesday’s loss in Pittsburgh. The veteran infielder suffered a broken nose during Tuesday’s contest. Mitch Keller lost control of a 93 MPH fastball that ran up and hit DeJong in the face. Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com relays that DeJong spent the night in a Pittsburgh-area hospital for observation and was released on Wednesday. Signed to a $1MM free agent deal, DeJong opened the year as Washington’s third baseman. He’d spent time at shortstop with CJ Abrams shelved by a hip flexor strain. Amed Rosario and Nasim Nuñez are handling the left side of the infield with both players out. DeJong has opened the season with a .204/.246/.278 showing in 57 plate appearances.
Rangers righty Jon Gray broke his right wrist when he was hit by a comebacker late in Spring Training. The veteran starter tells Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports that his injury has healed as hoped over the past month. Gray is hoping to begin throwing a couple weeks from now. He’s not expected to be ready for MLB game action until at least July. Gray owns a 4.16 earned run average in just under 400 innings over three seasons with Texas. He’s in the final season of his four-year free agent deal.

Rangers Sign Patrick Corbin

By Darragh McDonald | March 19, 2025 at 5:50pm CDT

March 19: Per the Associated Press, Corbin is guaranteed $1.1MM. As for the incentives, they are based on innings pitched and relief appearances. He’ll get $100K at 40 and 55 frames, $150K at 70 and 85, $200K at 100 and 115, $250K at 130, 145 and 160, then $350K at 170. That’s a total of $2MM. He’ll also get $100K for making 35 relief appearances, $150K for 40, $200K for 45, $250K for 50 and $300K for 55, a total of $1MM. There’s also a $250K assignment bonus if he’s traded.

Theoretically, Corbin could unlock $3MM of incentives by pitching 170 innings over 55 relief appearances, though that’s effectively impossible to do in today’s game. The incentives seem to give him a bit of extra earning power on top of his guarantee, whether he sticks in the rotation or gets bumped into a bullpen gig. Those incentives are potentially significant for a club that is so close to the CBT but wants to stay under.

March 18: The Rangers announced that they have signed left-hander Patrick Corbin to a one-year major league deal. The ISE Baseball client’s exact guarantee isn’t publicly known but Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports that it will be a slightly more than $1MM, with incentives worth around a million as well. Righty Jon Gray was transferred to the 60-day injured list as the corresponding move.

For the Rangers, this would appear to be a quantity-over-quality move. Corbin’s past few years haven’t been good on a rate basis, but he has been an effective innings-eater for the Nationals. The southpaw signed a six-year, $140MM deal with Washington going into 2019. He had just wrapped up a stellar season for the 2018 Diamondbacks, tossing 200 innings with a 3.15 earned run average. While his strikeout rate had previously hovered around 20%, he punched out 30.8% of opponents that year.

His first year as a Nat could hardly have gone much better. He logged 202 innings over 33 starts in the regular season with a 3.25 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 49.5% ground ball rate. He logged another 23 1/3 innings in the postseason as the Nats charged all the way to the World Series and won it all for the first time in franchise history.

But his results declined in 2020 and never really recovered. His strikeout rate fell to 20.3% that year and his ERA climbed to 4.66. In the four full seasons since then, he has a combined 5.71 ERA, 17.7% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. He didn’t post an ERA below 5.20 in any of those four campaigns.

But as alluded to earlier, he at least compiled bulk innings for the Nats. He has actually been about as reliable as a pitcher can be over the past decade. He missed the 2014 season due to Tommy John surgery. He was activated in July of 2015 and tossed 85 innings that year. The Snakes used him as a swingman in 2016, with Corbin logging 155 2/3 innings that year over 24 starts and 12 relief appearances. Since then, he has made at least 31 starts and logged at least 171 innings in every full season, in addition to making 11 starts in the shortened 2020 season. Any pitcher can get hurt at any time, but it’s hard to find a better track record of health in today’s game. From 2016 to 2024, Corbin’s 1,492 innings are second in baseball behind Aaron Nola.

A dependable back-end starter has some understandable appeal to the Rangers. The aforementioned Gray suffered a wrist fracture and is going to be out for a quite a while. Today’s transfer to the 60-day IL means a return in late May is the best-case scenario. Cody Bradford is shut down with some elbow soreness and faced an uncertain path back to health.

They could still have a competent rotation without those two, though there are questions with each candidate. Nathan Eovaldi has been largely healthy for the past few years but has two Tommy John surgeries on his track record and is now 35 years old. Jacob deGrom has missed most of the past two seasons due to Tommy John surgery and had plenty of issues before that as well. He hasn’t gone past 92 innings in a season since 2019 and turns 37 in June. Tyler Mahle also missed most of the past two seasons due to Tommy John surgery and has been battling forearm soreness in camp.

Prospect Kumar Rocker is a candidate to step up and take a job but he also missed most of the past two years due to his own TJS. Jack Leiter is impressing in camp but control still seems to be an issue, as it has been throughout his minor league career. Dane Dunning is coming off a rough year, as is non-roster invitee Adrian Houser.

A guy like Corbin taking the ball with regularity could be useful for a group like that with so many question marks. It’s also possible that he’s been better in recent years than it would appear. As mentioned, he has a 5.71 ERA over the past four years. However, his .328 batting average on balls in play and 67.4% strand rate were both on the unlucky side. His 4.99 FIP and 4.60 SIERA in that span suggest his ERA might have been inflated by about a full run. The Nationals had a team-wide -82 Defensive Runs Saved and -96 Outs Above Average during that four-year span, perhaps explaining some of the bad luck and extra runs crossing the plate.

If Corbin can take the ball and provide half-decent innings, that could be useful to the Rangers, especially at this price point. They are clearly trying to avoid the competitive balance tax in 2025, which has mostly limited them to fairly modest dealings this offseason. RosterResource projects their CBT number at $235MM, only about $6MM below this year’s $241MM base threshold of the tax. Corbin’s salary won’t move that very much, since he’s barely making more than the $760K league minimum.

Presumably, Corbin won’t be an option for the Rangers right away. He’ll need a few weeks to get himself into game shape, so he’ll likely start the season on the injured list, or perhaps he will consent to a brief optional assignment to start the year. President of baseball operations Chris Young tells Kennedi Landry of MLB.com that Corbin’s wife is due to have a baby in the next 24 to 48 hours, so he won’t even be joining the club in Arizona. He will instead join the club in Texas after they break camp.

Until Corbin is ready, the Rangers will likely give Rocker and Leiter some legit chances at locking down jobs. If those don’t work or other injury situations pop up, Corbin will slot into the rotation mix and ideally stabilize things.

Photos courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski and Geoff Burke of Imagn Images.

Jon Gray Suffers Wrist Fracture

By Anthony Franco | March 15, 2025 at 12:35pm CDT

TODAY: A clear recovery timetable hasn’t yet been determined for Gray, but president of baseball operations Chris Young told Kennedi Landry and other media that Gray will indeed be out for an “extended time.” It will be at least six weeks before Gray is even cleared to start throwing, so it seems like Texas will be placing him on the 60-day IL at some point before Opening Day.

MARCH 14: Rangers starter Jon Gray sustained a broken right wrist during this evening’s Spring Training appearance, manager Bruce Bochy tells Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News and other reporters. Gray was struck by a Michael Toglia line drive that had a 106.4 MPH exit velocity (video provided by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com).

Bochy didn’t provide specifics on a return timeline. Gray is obviously going to begin the season on the injured list and will probably be down for a while. It’s the worst of a handful of pitching injuries for Texas this spring. They announced just yesterday that presumptive fifth starter Cody Bradford was going to begin the season on the injured list after experiencing elbow soreness. An MRI came back clean, but the team is going to be cautious with any level of elbow pain.

Tyler Mahle was scratched from his start earlier this week with forearm soreness. Imaging didn’t reveal any problems and he’ll begin throwing in the coming days. Still, that may require a season-opening IL stint — especially since Mahle just returned from Tommy John surgery midway through 2024.

That placed a lot of emphasis on Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Gray to stay healthy. The season-opening rotation now likely comprises deGrom, Eovaldi, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Mahle would round out the group if he can avoid the IL. They otherwise could push expected long reliever Dane Dunning back into the rotation or turn to veteran ground-ball specialist Adrian Houser, who is in camp on a minor league deal. Houser has tossed eight innings of two-run ball with three strikeouts and walks apiece this spring. He allowed a near-6.00 ERA over 69 1/3 innings for the Mets last season.

The rotation’s durability is arguably the biggest question for Texas. deGrom and Eovaldi are 36 and 35, respectively. deGrom has made 35 starts over the last four years. Eovaldi has mostly been durable recently, but he has twice undergone Tommy John surgery in his career. Rocker underwent the same procedure in May 2023. He pitched fewer than 50 innings between the minors and his three-start MLB debut late last season.

Texas will probably look to add minor league rotation depth as veterans opt out of contracts with other teams in the coming weeks. It’s less likely that they’ll make an MLB signing. The Rangers were clear all offseason that they wanted to keep their luxury tax payroll below the $241MM base threshold. RosterResource projects them around $236MM at the moment. Salary acquired in-season via waivers or trade would add to that on a prorated basis. It’d be a surprise if ownership approves going beyond the tax line to sign a free agent starter like Spencer Turnbull or old friends Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn. With less than two weeks until Opening Day, none of those pitchers are likely to be game ready for the start of the regular season.

Rangers Notes: Gray, Martin, Garcia

By Mark Polishuk | February 16, 2025 at 10:17pm CDT

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 Have Had “Internal Discussions” About Jon Gray As Closer

By Nick Deeds | February 9, 2025 at 5:44pm CDT

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.

Rangers Aiming To Drop Beneath Luxury Tax Threshold In 2025

By Steve Adams | October 24, 2024 at 11:58pm CDT

The Rangers spent lavishly in free agency following the opening of their new stadium, inking Corey Seager (10 years, $325MM), Marcus Semien (seven years, $175MM), Jacob deGrom (five years, $185MM) to mega contracts. They also took on notable salary in trades (Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery) and doled out more modest but nevertheless notable guarantees for Jon Gray (four years, $56MM), Nathan Eovaldi (two years, $34MM) and Andrew Heaney (two years, $28MM), among others. Generally speaking, they were rewarded. Texas won the 2023 World Series — the first in franchise history.

The sheer magnitude of those expenditures added up, however, resulting in the Rangers paying the luxury tax both in 2023 and 2024. Texas has spent aggressively at times in the past, but not to this extent. As they face the potential of a third straight season as a luxury tax payor, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that one of owner Ray Davis’ top priorities this winter — perhaps even his No. 1 priority — is to duck under the $241MM luxury threshold in order to reset the team’s penalty level.

For those unfamiliar or simply in need of a refresher, the luxury tax is calculated based on the combined average annual salaries of the players on a team’s roster (plus player benefits and a mandatory payment into the league’s pre-arbitration bonus pool). The tax threshold climbs every season — at predetermined levels stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement — and carries escalating penalties for teams that cross the tax barrier in consecutive seasons.

First-time offenders pay a 20% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the threshold. They’re then taxed at a 32% rate for the next $20MM. If they cross into the third tier of penalty, that results in a 62.5% tax on the next $20MM and sees the team’s top pick in the following year’s draft dropped by 10 spots. Exceeding the tax threshold by more than $60MM results in being taxed at 80% or any dollars spent thereafter.

That’s just for first-time offenders, however. Each of those penalty levels increases by at least 10% for a team that crosses the tax line in a second season. For a club crossing the tax threshold in a third straight year, the penalties become more burdensome: 50% for the first $20MM, 62% for the next $20MM, 95% for the next $20MM (plus the same draft pick penalty) and 110% for any dollars thereafter. That’s the set of potential penalties the Rangers would be facing if they cross the tax line again in 2025.

To this point, the Rangers’ penalties they’ve paid have been light, relatively speaking. They paid just $1.8MM for their first year of penalty in 2023. This year’s total has not yet been determined, but RosterResource estimates they were a bit more than $13MM north of 2024’s first-tier threshold of $237MM. At a 30% tax hit as a second-time payor, they’d be looking at roughly $4MM in penalties based on that number.

In theory, the 50% tax isn’t all that daunting, so long as the club only modestly exceeds the threshold once again. But the Rangers have quite a bit of work to do this winter, with as many as 10 players reaching free agency — pending option decisions on Nathan Eovaldi ($20MM player option), David Robertson ($7MM mutual option) and Andrew Chafin ($6.5MM club option). Eovaldi is all but certain to decline his option, as he can command something close to (perhaps even above) that same salary on a multi-year deal. Robertson will turn down his end of that mutual option after a strong season. Chafin’s is a borderline call, but if Texas wants to be conscious about its spending levels, that will probably be bought out for $500K.

At present, RosterResource projects nearly $189MM of luxury commitments already in place for the 2025 season — $52MM shy of next year’s $241MM threshold. That ostensibly leaves a fair bit of wiggle room — at least until considering the fact that the Rangers are losing three starters (Eovaldi, Scherzer, Heaney), their three top relievers (Robertson, Kirby Yates, Jose Leclerc) and several role players. They’ll not only need to remake a significant portion of the pitching staff but also look for ways to augment an offense that was among the game’s best in ’23 before growing stagnant in ’24.

Young has already called re-signing Eovaldi and/or Heaney “a priority” this offseason. Eovaldi, in particular, would eat up a significant portion of the funds available to the club this offseason. In a separate mailbag column, Grant suggests that if another team were interested in taking on the remaining year and $13MM of Jon Gray’s contract, the Rangers would pursue such an opportunity and could conceivably reallocate some of those funds to a reunion with Eovaldi.

Gray has performed reasonably well since signing in Texas but has been injured each season and watched his strikeout rate drop in consecutive years. The 32-year-old righty (33 next month) made only 19 starts this season and pitched to a serviceable 4.47 ERA with a 19.6% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 40.1% ground-ball rate. In three seasons with Texas, the hard-throwing former No. 3 overall pick carries a 4.16 ERA in 387 1/3 innings. His contract is hardly an albatross, but there also isn’t much (if any) surplus value on the deal.

Speculatively speaking, the Rangers could look to free up money in other ways if they feel crunched. Righty Dane Dunning’s projected $4.4MM salary (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) makes him a potential non-tender or trade candidate after a rough season. Leody Taveras ($4.3MM projection) also had a tough year and could be moved with younger outfielders Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter both in the majors now (and hopefully healthier in 2025). Nathaniel Lowe’s $10.7MM projection isn’t unreasonable, but Texas could hypothetically move him and turn first base over to a prospect like Justin Foscue or Dustin Harris (or a cheaper first base option in free agency, such as Carlos Santana). It’d be hard to sell low on Adolis Garcia coming off a down season, and Grant suggests such a scenario isn’t likely.

Any of those trades would only open further holes, though the Rangers have the type of MLB-ready young players (Langford, Carter, Foscue, Harris) to try to address them internally. They also have some young arms on which they could lean in the rotation — Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter — but Leiter struggled in 2024 and Rocker will be on an innings limit in 2025 as he continues working back from Tommy John surgery. The need in the bullpen is arguably more acute, and the in-house options aren’t exactly plentiful.

It’ll be a challenging offseason for president of baseball operations Chris Young. The Rangers should have some money to spend, but the number of holes are as daunting as they are surprising for a team that’s just 12 months removed from hoisting a World Series trophy.

Rangers Place Corey Seager On Injured List

By Darragh McDonald | September 4, 2024 at 6:31pm CDT

6:31pm: Texas officially announced Seager’s IL placement and brought Fabian up. Jon Gray moved from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list in a procedural move to clear the necessary 40-man roster spot for Fabian. A foot injury ended Gray’s season yesterday.

3:40pm: The Rangers are placing shortstop Corey Seager on the 10-day injured list due to hip discomfort. Manager Chris Young informed members of the club’s beat today, including Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News (X links). Young said it’s too early to tell if Seager is done for the year or if he will require surgery. Outfielder Sandro Fabian will be selected to take Seager’s place on the roster and the club will need to make a corresponding move to open a 40-man spot for Fabian.

There’s not much information about Seager’s injury or how severe it is, but it makes sense for the club to be cautious at this point. At 66-73, the Rangers are 8.5 games back of a playoff spot, making them effectively done for the year. That gives the club little incentive to push Seager through any injury, even if it’s minor. Perhaps he can get into a few more contests before the season is out but it’s also possible that the club just decides to shut him down at some point.

The Rangers will need to cover the shortstop position until Seager returns or possibly for the remainder of the schedule. Josh Smith, Jonathan Ornelas and Ezequiel Durán have each received starts there in the past week as the club has already been backing off Seager’s playing time.

All three of those guys can play the outfield as well, so the club will add to their options on the grass by adding Fabian. The 26-year-old gets added to a major league roster for the first time. He was once a notable prospect in the Giants’ system, as that club gave him a $500K bonus when signing him out of the Dominican Republic in 2014.

He posted some good results at the lower levels of the minors and Baseball America ranked him #8 in the Giants’ system going into 2017. However, he struggled in subsequent seasons and fell off the prospect radar. By the end of 2021, he had topped out at Double-A and qualified for minor league free agency.

He has signed minor league deals with the Rangers in three straight years now and has generally been performing around league average at the Triple-A level. That includes 116 games for Round Rock this year with 17 home runs and a .270/.343/.462 batting line. In the strong offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, that line translates to a 99 wRC+. He can play all three outfield spots and will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.

Jon Gray Done For Season Due To Foot Injury

By Darragh McDonald | September 3, 2024 at 4:35pm CDT

Rangers right-hander Jon Gray is done for the season due to a foot injury. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News was among those to relay the news on X from manager Bruce Bochy. Gray is not yet on the injured list but will presumably be placed there shortly. Righty Tyler Mahle is also “pretty much shut down,” according to Bochy, per Kennedi Landry of MLB.com on X.

The Rangers are out of contention at this point, so there’s little reason for any individual player to push through an injury. They are 65-73 and 9.5 games back of a playoff spot with just a few weeks left to play. At this point, there’s nothing to suggest Gray’s foot issue will impact his 2025 campaign, but it seems he will sit out what’s left of the 2024 season. Mahle has already been on the IL for about two weeks due to shoulder stiffness, but it appears he may not have enough time to ramp back up before the schedule is done.

That doesn’t matter much in the short term because, as mentioned, the club is effectively done in the context of the current campaign. But taken in aggregate, the club may have some concerns with next year’s rotation. Both Max Scherzer and Andrew Heaney are slated for free agency this winter. Nathan Eovaldi is likely to be joining them. He needs to pitch 16 more innings this year to unlock a $20MM player option for 2025. But even if he does open up that player option, it would be logical for him to turn it down and head to the open market in search of a lengthier deal with a larger guarantee.

The core of next year’s rotation, on paper, consists of Gray, Mahle and Jacob deGrom. Gray has only thrown 102 2/3 innings this year as he made two separate stints to the IL due to a right groin strain. Now this foot injury will prevent him from adding to that total. Both Mahle and deGrom underwent Tommy John surgery last summer and have been working back to health this year. Mahle made three starts, logging 12 2/3 innings, before heading back to the IL with the aforementioned shoulder soreness. deGrom hasn’t yet pitched at the big league level but is currently on a rehab assignment and could be back in the majors before the season is out.

That leaves the club going into 2025 with a rotation nucleus consisting of three guys who will be coming off incomplete seasons due to injuries. Cody Bradford, Dane Dunning and Jack Leiter figure to be in the mix for jobs, but Bradford and Dunning also missed time due to injury this year. With Bradford, a low back strain limited him to 56 innings in the majors. Dunning made two separate trips to the IL due to shoulder problems and logged 90 1/3 innings. He’s currently on optional assignment. Leiter still has just five big league outings under his belt and an ERA of 11.78 in those.

Kumar Rocker is looking good in the minors but is also coming back from a 2023 Tommy John surgery, like deGrom and Mahle. His numbers have been great this year, a 1.71 ERA, but in just 31 2/3 innings. He’s at the Triple-A level now and is technically close to major league readiness, but it’s unclear how much the Rangers can realistically expect him to provide next year.

Taken all together, there’s plenty of rotation uncertainty going into 2025, so it should be a priority for the Rangers this winter. For the rest of the season, they will have a rotation of Eovaldi, Heaney, Bradford and Leiter. With Gray heading to the IL, perhaps Dunning will be recalled from his optional assignment. Or the club also has veterans José Ureña and Chase Anderson currently in their bullpen for long relief work, with either of them candidates to make some spot starts down the stretch.

Rangers To Place Tyler Mahle On Injured List

By Darragh McDonald | August 20, 2024 at 5:11pm CDT

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy informed the club’s beat today that right-hander Tyler Mahle is going to be placed on the 15-day injured list with some shoulder stiffness. Righty Jon Gray will be reinstated from his own IL stint in a corresponding move. Kennedi Landry of MLB.com was among those who relayed the news on X.

Mahle, now 29, underwent Tommy John surgery last summer just before hitting free agency for the first time in his career. The Rangers then signed him to a two-year, $22MM deal, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to count on him to join the club until some point in the middle of the 2024 season at the earliest. He was on the IL until two weeks ago and has since made three starts. He went five innings in the first of those, then four and two thirds, followed by just three innings in Sunday’s game.

It’s unclear if the shoulder was bothering him in his last outing or has been nagging at him since. While he was removed after just three innings, he also allowed four earned runs on six hits while recording just one strikeout, so his removal might simply have been about his performance rather than his health.

Shoulder issues have been a problem for him before, as he only made six starts after July 2 in the 2022 season due to a strain and some inflammation. Between those shoulder issues and his recent Tommy John layoff, it’s been three straight seasons of having a truncated workload.

The Rangers have fallen back in the standings lately and are now 11 games back of the Astros in the West and 12.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. Both the Playoff Odds at FanGraphs and the PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus give them just a 0.4% chance of cracking the postseason at this point.

With the club’s season on the ropes, they can make their decisions based on optimizing results next year. Ideally, Mahle would be building up his workload since he hasn’t pitched much in recent years, but pitching through an injury would run the risk of aggravating a shoulder that has given him problems in the past, so it seems the club has decided a breather is the best decision for now. Assuming the issue isn’t major, perhaps he can return for the final few weeks and log some innings in September.

Going forward, the club’s rotation could be facing notable changes. Jacob deGrom is starting a rehab assignment this week and Max Scherzer will be as well, per Landry on X. When those two come back, they will likely slot into the rotation with Gray, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney, with Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning also in the mix and perhaps Mahle coming back down the line.

Looking ahead to next year, Scherzer and Heaney are impending free agents with Eovaldi perhaps heading to the open market along with them. Eovaldi’s contract has a conditional $20MM player option that he unlocks if he totals 300 innings pitched over 2023 and 2024 or finishes in the top five in Cy Young voting this year. Even if he unlocks that option, which is possible since he’s at 271 innings since the start of last year, he might turn it down and elect free agency since he’s having a strong season and could look for a bigger guarantee in free agency.

Without those three, the Texas rotation for 2025 projects to include deGrom, Mahle and Gray. The latter two, as mentioned, are coming off lengthy Tommy John rehabs and could have workload concerns next year. Bradford has also missed significant time this year, due to a low back strain, and only has 14 big league starts to his name. Dunning has often been in the club’s swingman/sixth starter role, moving between the bullpen and rotation as needed. Prospects Jack Leiter and Owen White are on the 40-man roster but both have ongoing control issues.

The Rangers are still the reigning World Series champions for a few more months but the title defense has obviously not been what they had in mind. Perhaps that will lead them to shake up their rotation mix in the offseason, as there’s plenty of uncertainty in next year’s group.

AL Notes: Verlander, Garcia, Buxton, Paddack, Rangers, Skubal

By Mark Polishuk | August 18, 2024 at 10:34pm CDT

Justin Verlander “felt strong” during a bullpen session today in Houston, Astros manager Joe Espada told reporters (including Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle), which should line Verlander up to return to the rotation on Wednesday when the Astros face the Red Sox. A neck strain has kept Verlander from pitching in the majors since June 9, and he has amassed only 57 innings this season due both this current ailment and a bout of shoulder inflammation coming out of Spring Training. However, Verlander has completed two minor league rehab outings and today’s bullpen session looks like the final checkpoint on his path to recovery.

While things are looking promising for Verlander, Luis Garcia is more of a question mark. The Athletic’s Chandler Rome wrote (via X) that as of Friday, Garcia hadn’t yet resumed throwing since he was shut down due to soreness over two weeks ago. This is the second time Garcia has hit a setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery, and since Garcia went under the knife in May 2023, a normal rehab timeline would’ve had him ready to return to the majors by this point over 15 months past his procedure date. Though the Astros have said Garcia might return as a reliever rather than as a starter, he is running short on time to fully ramp up his readiness to rejoin Houston’s pitching staff in any capacity.

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