The Rangers announced their signing of left-hander Andrew Heaney, making it official. To make room on their 40-man roster, they designated right-hander A.J. Alexy for assignment. Additionally, the club announced that they have re-signed catcher David Garcia, left-hander Lucas Jacobsen and right-hander Nick Snyder to minor league deals.
Alexy, 25 in April, was a Dodgers draftee who came to the Rangers via the Yu Darvish trade in 2017. He subsequently moved his way up the minor league ranks, but missed much of 2019 due to injury and didn’t pitch at all in 2020 due to the pandemic wiping out the minors that year. Regardless, the Rangers liked him enough to add him to their 40-man roster prior to the Rule 5 draft in late 2020.
He got back on track with a nice season in 2021, splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A. Over 65 innings on the farm in 10 starts and six relief appearances, he had a 1.66 ERA, 29.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. That was enough to get him a promotion to the big leagues late in the year. In 2022, Alexy made four MLB appearances but was torched for an ERA of 11.57. He tossed 96 innings in Triple-A but posted a 5.91 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 12.8% walk rate.
The Rangers have been aggressively upgrading their pitching staff this offseason, re-signing Martin Perez and trading for Jake Odorizzi before signing Jacob deGrom and Heaney. All those additions have pushed their other options down the depth chart and it seems that Alexy has been nudged out of their plans. It’s possible that he could garner interest from other clubs, as he’s still quite young and has shown flashes of quality in the past. He also still has an option remaining so he wouldn’t even require a spot on an active roster. The Rangers will have one week to work out a trade, place him on waivers or release him.
As for the three minor league signees, Garcia was selected to the club’s 40-man roster at the same time as Alexy but has yet to play at even the Triple-A level. Jacobsen has yet to crack a 40-man roster. Snyder has very brief MLB experience, tossing 4 2/3 innings over the past couple of seasons. He tossed 38 Triple-A innings in 2022 with a 4.97 ERA with a 30.9% strikeout rate but a 10.9% walk rate.