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Rangers Claim Kyle Dowdy From Mets

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The Rangers announced that they’ve claimed right-hander Kyle Dowdy off waivers from the Mets, bringing their 40-man roster count to a total of 38 players. Dowdy was New York’s selection in the 2018 Rule 5 Draft, meaning he’ll need to stick on Texas’ big league roster or else be exposed to waivers for a second time. If he clears, he’d need to be offered back to the organization from which he was originally selected: the Indians.

Dowdy, 26, posted unsightly results in a combined 124 innings between Double-A and Triple-A last year: a 5.15 ERA with 8.7 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9. However, as Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser examined in depth earlier this spring, Dowdy caught the attention of scouts last season after an enormous velocity jump. Once regarded as a “pitchability” right-hander, with a fastball in the upper 80s and low 90s, Dowdy began working out on a weighted-ball program and altered his arm angle during the 2017-18 offseason. A fastball that previously topped out at 94 mph began sitting in the 94-96 range and even scraped 99 mph on radar guns.

The results weren’t there last season in the minors, and it was a similar tale for Dowdy this spring (seven runs on 15 hits and seven walks with seven strikeouts through 11 1/3 innings), but the rebuilding Rangers will at least take a look at the sudden hard-thrower in hopes of refining his newfound velocity.

Rangers Release Zach McAllister

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The Rangers announced that they’ve given right-hander Zach McAllister his unconditional release. It’s a somewhat surprising development given that McAllister had signed a Major League contract with Texas in the offseason and enjoyed a solid Spring Training to date. In a dozen Cactus League innings, he’s allowed four runs on 12 hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts.

With McAllister now out of the fold, the locks for the Texas bullpen include Jose Leclerc, Jesse Chavez, Shawn Kelley, Chris Martin and Jeffrey Springs (the latter of whom was informed last week he’d made the team). Right-hander Jeanmar Gomez is also in line to make the roster following the sudden retirement of Jason Hammel. Out-of-options righty Connor Sadzeck, presumably, is a candidate to open the year in new skipper Chris Woodward’s bullpen as well, though offseason acquisition Kyle Bird is also still in camp.

McAllister, 31, struggled through an awful 2018 campaign with the Indians and Tigers, posting a combined 6.20 ERA in 45 innings of relief between the two clubs. He did turn in a quality 39-to-10 K/BB ratio in that time, though, and McAllister’s 95.3 mph average fastball velocity was as strong as ever. Prior to that ugly season, McAllister was a mainstay in the Cleveland bullpen from 2015-17, where he worked to a 2.99 ERA with 10.0 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9 through 183 1/3 innings of relief.

Rangers Return Rule 5 Pick Jordan Romano To Blue Jays

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The Rangers have returned Rule 5 selection Jordan Romano to the Blue Jays after the right-hander cleared waivers, tweets Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. Having been placed on waivers Thursday, the 25-year-old Romano was offered to his previous club today and will rejoin the Blue Jays after failing to make the Rangers’ Opening Day roster.

Despite a respectable 3.86 spring training ERA, Romano has posted an unimpressive 6:5 K:BB ratio in 9 1/3 spring innings with the Rangers. Romano had been selected in December’s Rule 5 Draft after a solid 2018 season at the Double-A level, in which he posted a 4.13 ERA while striking out 125 batters in 137 1/3 innings. Upon returning to the Blue Jays, Romano will not be required to be placed on the 40-man roster.

Jason Hammel Announces Retirement

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In a surprising development, veteran right-hander Jason Hammel has told the Rangers that he is retiring after 13 Major League seasons.  Hammel had signed a minor league deal with the Rangers this winter, and was informed yesterday that he had made the team’s Opening Day roster.

Hammel’s decision doesn’t come entirely out of left field, as he recently stated that he had no interest in pitching in the minor leagues, and would hang up his spikes if he didn’t remain in the Show.  As per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (Twitter link), Hammel simply “decided he needed to go and be with his family, something you could tell was weighing on his mind this spring.”

Rangers GM Jon Daniels told The Athletic’s Levi Weaver and other media that Hammel “was very apologetic about the timing” of his decision, coming so soon after the team decided to include him on its 25-man roster.  With Hammel now out of the picture, Jeanmar Gomez (another minor league signing) will break camp with the team.

Originally a 10th-round pick for the Rays in the 2002 draft, Hammel rose from that unheralded draft position to pitch 1810 1/3 Major League innings from 2006-18, starting 298 of his 377 career games.  Never a big strikeout pitcher or a particularly hard thrower, Hammel relied on solid control and durability to become a rotation piece for six different teams over the course of his career.

That skillset resulted in just shy of $60MM in career earnings for Hammel, including a pair of multi-year free agent deals with the Cubs and Royals.  Hammel’s stint with the Cubs from 2014-16 was the productive stint of his career, as he posted a 3.59 ERA, 8.5 K/9, and a 3.62 K/9 rate over 446 innings (all of them in 78 starts) for Chicago.  Unfortunately for Hammel, a late-season elbow injury kept him from participating in the Cubs’ historic playoff run in 2016, though his 166 2/3 frames of 3.83 ERA pitching in the regular season netted him a well-earned World Series ring.

We at MLBTR congratulate Hammel on a fine career, and we wish him all the best as he embarks on his post-playing endeavors.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Rangers, Giants Discussed Shin-Soo Choo Trade

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  • The Giants and Rangers discussed a trade that would have sent Shin-Soo Choo to the Bay Area, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (subscription required), though “the talks failed to gain momentum and at this point are barely active.”  Choo would’ve been something of a curious add for the Giants, given that he has moved into more of a DH role in recent seasons.  Choo’s bat is still potent (.264/.377/.434 with 21 homers in 665 PA last season), and while his glovework was below-average (-5 DFS, -3.9 UZR/150 in 507 1/3 innings as a corner outfielder) in 2018, the Giants might have felt the tradeoff was worth it, even if Choo’s defense would have likely further fallen off in Oracle Park’s larger outfield.  The Giants could also have possibly seen the trade as something of a bargain, since Rosenthal notes that the Rangers “would have included significant cash” to cover the $42MM remaining on Choo’s contract through 2020.  The talks didn’t revolve around the idea of dealing Choo for one of the hefty contracts (i.e. Jeff Samardzjia, Mark Melancon) on the Giants’ payroll.

Minor MLB Transactions: 3/22/2019

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Here are a few minor moves to round out the day’s transactions …

  • The Brewers announced that they inked reliever Michael Tonkin after he was released by the Rangers earlier today. Tonkin has pitched in parts of five seasons with the Twins and threw last year in Japan. The 29-year-old allowed just two hits and one earned run in his 4 2/3 innings this spring, though that’s obviously quite a limited sample. Tonkin threw 51 innings last year for the Nippon Ham Fighters, carrying a 3.71 ERA with an unsightly (and uncharacteristic) combination of 5.8 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9.
  • Righty Christian Bergman was cut loose by the Cubs, who had signed him in early February. The 30-year-old reliever was knocked around in limited spring action. He carries a 5.59 ERA in 215 2/3 total innings in the big leagues, compiled over the past five seasons.

Hunter Pence Makes Rangers’ Roster; Willie Calhoun Optioned To Triple-A

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The Rangers have informed veteran outfielder Hunter Pence that he’s made the Opening Day roster, tweets MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan. Young outfielder Willie Calhoun, meanwhile, will be optioned to Triple-A Nashville. Sullivan also adds that Rule 5 pick Jordan Romano has been informed he will not make the roster.

While many fans may have hoped that Calhoun would seize the outfield opportunity in front of him and realize the offensive potential that long provided him with top prospect status, Pence emphatically outplayed him this spring. The pair leads the Rangers in spring at-bats, but while Pence has impressed with a .356/.431/.667 batting line, Calhoun has mustered just a .217/.296/.261 output.

Beyond the raw spring stats (which should always be taken with a grain of salt), the Rangers simply don’t have everyday at-bats for Calhoun in the big leagues right now. Joey Gallo, Delino DeShields Jr. and Nomar Mazara are lined up in the outfield, with Shin-So Choo slotted in for regular DH work. At this stage of their respective careers, Pence is better-suited for a bench role, as Texas surely still wants Calhoun to log regular plate appearances to continue his development.

Pence, who spent the offseason making significant alterations to his swing, will seek to reestablish himself as a credible big league outfielder on the heels of that excellent spring. The three-time All-Star finished up a five-year, $90MM contract with the Giants last season and managed just a .249/.297/.368 slash over the final two seasons of that contract.

The 24-year-old Calhoun, acquired as the centerpiece of the trade that sent Yu Darvish to the Dodgers in 2017, saw his bat take a step back both in Triple-A and in the Majors in 2018. After hitting a combined .300/.355/.572 between the Triple-A affiliates for Texas and L.A. in ’17, Calhoun hit a solid but diminished .294/.351/.431 in Triple-A with the Rangers this past season. In 108 big league plate appearances, he hit .222/.269/.333 with a pair of home runs. Calhoun’s glovework has been questioned in scouting reports over the years, but he’ll also look to get his swing back in track in his latest minor league assignment. He has an option remaining even beyond the current season, so the Rangers still have ample time to help him tap into his upside.

Romano, 26 in a month, was selected out of the Blue Jays’ organization in this year’s Rule 5 draft and pitched 9 1/3 innings with the Rangers this spring. He allowed four runs on seven hits and five walks with six strikeouts in that time. Romano logged a 4.11 ERA with 8.1 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 142 1/3 innings last year (nearly all at the Double-A level). He’ll need to be placed on the waivers and offered back to the Blue Jays if he clears.

Yohander Mendez Diagnosed With UCL Sprain

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Rangers lefty Yohander Mendez has been diagnosed with a grade one sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm, as Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. He’s expected to miss approximately half of the coming campaign.

Though Mendez avoided the worst-case outcome of Tommy John surgery, he’ll still need to take a slow path back to competitive pitching. Per Grant, the current plan is for a six-week rest period followed by a full ramp-up back to top speed.

If all goes to plan, the 24-year-old southpaw will miss about ten weeks of the coming season (along with the final two weeks of camp). With a potential mid-June return, there’s still every chance that Mendez will throw significant innings in 2019. It’s likely he’ll open up back at Triple-A once his rehab assignment is up, though it’d be foolish to attempt to predict what the Texas pitching staff will look like by the middle of the summer.

Mendez cracked the majors in his age-21 campaign and has seen action in each of the past three seasons. The results have not been promising. Through 43 big-league innings, Mendez has allowed thirty earned runs on 46 hits with 25 strikeouts against 20 walks. He also coughed up 64 earned in 122 1/3 minor-league frames last year.

The Rangers will hope that they can otherwise emerge from camp without dings to a pitching unit that has quite a few health risks. Mendez will presumably be a candidate for a 60-day injured list placement, which would open up a 40-man roster spot to utilize on any late-spring claims or other roster decisions.

Yohander Mendez Leaves Game Due To Elbow Tightness

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  • Rangers southpaw Yohander Mendez left today’s Cactus League start due to tightness in his throwing elbow (MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan was among whose to report the news).  “Anytime a pitcher comes out saying it’s their elbow, it’s never a good sign. We’ll find out as soon as we can,” manager Chris Woodward said, adding that Mendez would undergo tests on Monday.  The 24-year-old Mendez has a 6.28 ERA, 5.2 K/9, and 1.25 K/BB rate over 43 career MLB innings from 2016-18, but was fighting to win a job within the Rangers’ righty-heavy bullpen.

Offseason In Review: Texas Rangers

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This is the latest post of MLBTR’s annual Offseason in Review series, in which we take stock of every team’s winter dealings.

Even though they’re in a rebuild, the Rangers are entering the 2019 season off an active winter. The club welcomed a new manager (former Dodgers third base coach Chris Woodward) and a bevy of free agents, lost the iconic Adrian Beltre to retirement and put an end to the Jurickson Profar era.

Major League Signings

Trades And Claims

Extensions

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

[Texas Rangers Depth Chart | Texas Rangers Payroll Outlook]

Needs Addressed

Few teams’ rotations were worse off in 2018 than the Rangers’, whose starters posted a bloated 5.37 ERA with a similarly horrid 5.18 FIP. Among their regular rotation possibilities, only Mike Minor and Cole Hamels, the latter of whom went to the Cubs in a midseason trade, offered passable production. Consequently, the rotation was an area of major emphasis for general manager Jon Daniels during the offseason.

Daniels swung yet another deal with the Cubs, landing southpaw Drew Smyly in a November trade that amounted to a cost-cutting move for Chicago, and then signed fellow veteran starters Lance Lynn and Shelby Miller in free agency. Smyly, Lynn and Miller are now penciled into the Rangers’ season-opening rotation alongside Minor, who frequented trade rumors during the winter but ultimately stayed put, and Edinson Volquez. It’s not the most inspiring group on paper, especially considering Smyly, Miller and Volquez are each coming off back-to-back injury-wrecked years; still, it does look like a clear improvement over last year’s rotation – one that received flat-out awful numbers from almost every member of an eight-man crew consisting of Bartolo Colon, Yovani Gallardo, Martin Perez, Doug Fister, Matt Moore, Ariel Jurado, Yohander Mendez and Drew Hutchison. Of that octet, which combined for 99 starts in 2018, only Jurado and Mendez are still members of the Texas organization.

When enemy offenses chased Rangers starters from games last season, they turned to a mediocre bullpen that got worse when the team dealt Keone Kela, Jake Diekman and Jesse Chavez at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. The Rangers followed those deals by trading yet another key reliever, Alex Claudio, in December, acquiring a top 40 draft pick from the Brewers for his three years of control. It’s anyone’s guess whether that selection will bear fruit for the Rangers, but it’s a worthwhile return for what the non-contending team believed was a superfluous reliever.

To help make up for their departed relievers, the Rangers are turning back to the 35-year-old Chavez, whom they reunited with in free agency on a reasonable contract. Chavez was terrific last season, though more so with the Cubs than the Rangers, while fellow veteran addition/inexpensive signing Shawn Kelley logged quality numbers between Washington and Oakland. The same wasn’t true for the Rangers’ other major league bullpen signing, Zach McAllister, who bombed in Cleveland and Detroit. But the hard-throwing McAllister entered 2018 with a nice track record, and on a $1MM salary, he’s worth a try for Texas. The Rangers’ hope is that Chavez, Kelley and McAllister will help form a capable bridge to lights-out closer Jose Leclerc, who tore through opposing lineups during a jaw-dropping 2018 en route to a team-friendly contract extension.

Leclerc and the other holdovers from the Rangers’ 2018 staff are adjusting to a new regular catcher, free-agent signee Jeff Mathis, who’s succeeding Robinson Chirinos. The swap may be a boon to the Rangers’ pitchers, as Chirinos – whom the club cut in November – is nowhere near Mathis’ level defensively. Whereas Chirinos has been a minus defender throughout his career, particularly in 2018, Mathis has been regarded as a top-notch backstop during his long tenure in the majors.

Defense has been the main calling card for Mathis, but it was only part of the all-around greatness of Beltre, who closed the door on both an eight-year Texas tenure and a Hall of Fame career in November. In the wake of Beltre’s exit, Daniels was tasked with trying to replace a Rangers legend, one who was a cornerstone on the field and a revered leader in the clubhouse. Stepping in for Beltre is an unenviable gig, then, and veteran free-agent signing Asdrubal Cabrera and largely untested trade pickup Patrick Wisdom figure to get first dibs.

Once the crown jewel of the Rangers’ farm system, Profar saw plenty of action with Beltre in the Rangers’ infield in recent seasons. It took the 26-year-old Profar until 2018 to turn into a real major league asset, though, and once Beltre left, he looked like the in-house favorite to man third base. Instead, unable to extend Profar, the Rangers decided in December to send him and his remaining two seasons of control to the division-rival Athletics for a futures package. Of the players Texas landed in the trade, two – righty Brock Burke (No. 9) and infielder Eli White (No. 16) – are now among their top 20 prospects at MLB.com.

While it appears the Rangers’ post-Beltre and Profar infield will consist of Cabrera and Wisdom at third, Logan Forsythe could also see time at the hot corner, among other spots. Forsythe was a valuable player with the Rays from 2015-16, an 1,182-plate appearance span in which he totaled 6.7 fWAR, but he faded with the Dodgers and Twins between 2017-18 (1.6 fWAR over 855 PAs). As a result, Forsythe had to settle for a minor league contract. He’s one of several well-known veterans who accepted minors pacts from Texas, which also signed outfielder Hunter Pence, infielder/pitcher Matt Davidson and righty Jason Hammel in recent months. Pence is back in Texas, where he stood out with the Astros from 2007-11, and trying to put two straight horrendous seasons with the Giants in the rearview. It seems he and Hammel will make the Rangers’ Opening Day roster, while Davidson’s battling with Forsythe to do the same. As a league-average, high-strikeout hitter who offers little defensive value, Davidson’s unexciting in a conventional role. However, the ability to serve as a mop-up man makes Davidson unique and could help him earn a spot over Forsythe.

Questions Remaining

As a club coming off a 67-win season, questions unsurprisingly abound in Texas. For one, there isn’t a surefire star in their position player group, as only three returnees (Joey Gallo, Rougned Odor and Shin-Soo Choo) posted at least 2.0 fWAR in 2018. Meanwhile, fellow holdovers Elvis Andrus, Nomar Mazara, Ronald Guzman and Delino DeShields are all back in starting roles after notching below-average production in 2018, and the newcomers bring their own question marks.

As good as he is behind the plate, Mathis has never resembled a big league-caliber hitter, which means the Rangers will miss Chirinos in that regard. At $4.5MM, it was surprising the Rangers jettisoned the offensively solid Chirinos, defensive shortcomings be damned. Then there’s the 33-year-old Cabrera, who only has 67 third base appearances on his resume and has become a defensive disaster in the middle infield as he has aged. To Cabrera’s credit, he has been well above average as a hitter over the past few seasons, which is more than can be said for most of the other Rangers slated for prominent roles this year.

On the pitching side, it’s up in the air whether the Rangers’ starters can hold up and perform effectively. Lynn has generally done both, though the 31-year-old did have an up-and-down 2018 split between the Twins and Yankees. Smyly was quite promising during his tenures with the Tigers and Rays earlier in his career, but he hasn’t pitched since 2016 and is returning from 2017 Tommy John surgery. Miller’s a former standout prospect who prevented runs at an excellent clip with the Cardinals and Braves from 2012-15, but he has been awful since then and, like Smyly, underwent Tommy John surgery in 2017. He then missed nearly all of last season on account of elbow problems. And Volquez, yet another TJ patient from 2017, sat out all of last year. That aside, the 35-year-old journeyman has never been the picture of consistency in the majors.

With the Rangers unlikely to contend in 2019 and all of their starters (with the exception of Lynn) under control for two or fewer years, any of them could turn into midseason trade chips if they stay healthy and turn in respectable production. No one else on the roster – not even Leclerc – looks untouchable either, though Choo would be especially difficult to move because of the $42MM coming his way through 2020. It’s also possible the Rangers would rather extend players like Gallo and Mazara, whom they hope are true linchpins, than part with them. There may be less urgency with the power-hitting Gallo, who has four years of control left (including one more pre-arb season) compared to Mazara’s three. But the 25-year-old Gallo has unquestionably been the better major leaguer to this point. Mazara, 23, is teeming with upside, yet he has managed an unspectacular 92 wRC+ with 1.5 fWAR in 1,720 plate appearances.

Given that neither Mazara nor anyone else in Texas has come to the fore as a franchise player, there’s a case that the team should have pursued Bryce Harper and Manny Machado during their months-long trips to free agency. Both players recently ended up with historic contracts – the Phillies gave $330MM to Harper, and the Padres committed $300MM to Machado – but it’s possible the Rangers could’ve afforded either. After all, the franchise has been an above-average spender since Ray Davis and Bob Simpson purchased it in 2010, and Andrus and Odor are the lone pricey long-term commitments on its books. Moreover, either Harper or Machado could have generated further excitement for the Rangers as they gear up to open a new ballpark in 2020. Ultimately, though, the players’ high asking prices scared off the Rangers, who – like the rest of baseball – won’t have a chance to bid on a pair of 26-year-old superstar free agents again in the near future. It seems like a missed opportunity for Texas, which is devoid of a headlining major leaguer and, per ESPN’s Keith Law, only has the game’s 20th-best farm system.

2019 Season Outlook

If the Rangers are going to push for a playoff spot in 2019, a ton of things have to go exactly right, including health and effectiveness from their rickety rotation and high-caliber performances from position players such as Gallo, Odor, Andrus, Mazara and Willie Calhoun. More realistically, a third straight lean year seems to be in the offing for Texas, which hasn’t sniffed the .500 mark since 2016. That said, it could still be a productive campaign for the Rangers if some of their young players prove to be legit building blocks and expendable veterans boost their stock leading up to the trade deadline.

How would you grade the Rangers’ offseason moves?  (Link for app users.)

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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