Injury Notes: Eovaldi, Musgrove, Callihan
Nathan Eovaldi‘s 2025 campaign ended in August when he went down with a rotator cuff strain. The veteran righty dealt with another health issue in October, undergoing surgery to repair a sports hernia. Eovaldi said on the SportsDay Rangers podcast that he’s recovered from both issues and expects to be ready for the 2026 season.
“I don’t expect to have any limitations coming into Spring Training,” Eovaldi said. “I’ve been throwing multiple bullpens, and my arm feels great, body feels great, and I’m ready for the season to get going.”
Eovaldi was phenomenal when healthy last season. His 1.73 ERA over 22 starts would’ve led the league if he had thrown enough innings to qualify for the crown. Injuries have plagued Eovaldi for the majority of his career, but he’s stayed relatively healthy in his three seasons with Texas. The 35-year-old has averaged more than 25 starts a year as a Ranger. He’ll form an imposing trio at the top of the rotation with Jacob deGrom and the newly-acquired MacKenzie Gore.
Fellow veteran starter Joe Musgrove is also getting back on track after multiple injuries. He missed all of last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Musgrove hit the IL multiple times in 2024 with elbow inflammation. He made it back for nine starts down the stretch, plus a postseason appearance, but ended up going under the knife in October of that year. Musgrove is expected to be good to go for Spring Training, per Kevin Acee of the San Diego Tribune. Acee adds that Musgrove was preparing to be available in the NLCS if the Padres made it that far.
“I feel really good right now,” Musgrove said. “I feel like I’m in a good position physically, mentally for the season.”
San Diego will need Musgrove to be a steady presence on a staff with minimal proven options beyond Michael King and Nick Pivetta. The 33-year-old righty hasn’t reached 100 innings or 20 starts since 2022. “We expect him to be a guy that can throw a lot innings for us this year,” president of baseball operations A.J. Preller told reporters back in December.
On the position player side, Reds utilityman Tyler Callihan said he’s a “full-go” for Spring Training. The 25-year-old missed much of the 2025 season after a brutal crash into the wall in Atlanta. He broke his left forearm and wrist while trying to reel in a Matt Olson drive. Callihan provided the update to reporters, including Pat Brennan of the Cincinnati Enquirer, at Redsfest last week.
An injury to Jeimer Candelario in late April opened up a spot on the MLB squad for Callihan to make his debut. He played in just four games before getting hurt. Callihan had been torching Triple-A pitching prior to getting called up. Given his experience in both the infield and outfield, Callihan could play a versatile role for the Reds this season. “He’s going to come in and compete for a spot on the club,” president of baseball operations Nick Krall said. “That’s a testament to him and his rehab and our rehab staff and him just putting in the work.”
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images
Rangers Sign Austin Gomber To Minor League Deal
The Rangers have signed left-hander Austin Gomber to a minor league deal, according to Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. Gomber’s deal includes an invite to MLB Spring Training next month.
Gomber, 32, was a fourth-round pick by the Cardinals back in 2014. He made his big league debut with the team in 2018 but was traded to the Rockies in the deal that sent Nolan Arenado to St. Louis and has spent most of his MLB career in Colorado at this point. At the time of the trade, Gomber had the look of a solid enough swing man who could potentially fit into a contending rotation. He posted a 3.72 ERA with a 3.89 FIP in his 104 innings of work for St. Louis, and at the time of his trade to Colorado the Rockies were surely hoping he could become a reliable #4 starter for the club alongside existing arms like German Marquez and Kyle Freeland.
The results of Gomber’s time in Colorado were mixed. His 4.53 ERA (good for a 106 ERA+) in 23 starts for the Rockies in his debut season with the club was perfectly solid, but he took a step back in 2022 and ’23 before creeping back up to roughly league average numbers in 2024. A big part of that step backwards was a drop in strikeout rate. Gomber punched out 23.2% of his opponents while walking 8.4% in 2021. Over his next three seasons, he’d manage to shave two points off that walk rate, lowering it to a tidy 6.3%, but that came at the expensive of a much greater dip in strikeouts. From 2022-24, Gomber struck out just 16.3% of his opponents, a nearly seven-point drop relative to 2021. Gomber’s ground ball rate also dipped from a strong 44.3% to a somewhat more pedestrian 40.5%.
While he’s struggled to live up to his solid 2021 season over the past few years, the wheels really came off in 2025. Gomber’s strikeout rate plummeted to just 12.5%, his ground ball rate dropped to 33.2%, and his barrel rate reached an untenable 14.5%. That left the southpaw to get shelled across 12 starts for the Rockies, and he surrendered a 7.49 ERA with a 6.50 FIP across his 57 2/3 innings of work. It was a disastrous display and led the Rockies to release Gomber back in August. He signed with the Cubs on a minor league deal for the stretch run and looked good at Triple-A Iowa for the club, posting an impressive 0.47 ERA in 19 innings of work across four outings (three starts).
That late season success in a new organization creates some reason for optimism, though Gomber was never going to land more than a minor league pact given the 2025 campaign he had at the big league level. That pact has now come in Texas, and Gomber should provide some much-needed rotation depth for a Rangers club in clear need of it even after trading for MacKenzie Gore. A rotation that could feature Gore, Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jack Leiter, and Kumar Rocker looks incredibly strong on paper, but Eovaldi and deGrom both come with substantial injury risk while Rocker has yet to prove himself as a capable MLB regular.
This spring, Gomber could compete with Rocker and swing man Jacob Latz for the fifth and final spot in the Rangers’ rotation. Gomber appears to be the least likely choice to emerge from that camp battle with a rotation spot, and other pitchers could be brought in who would further complicate matters. Even so, however, Gomber still appears fairly well positioned to enter the season with a real shot at breaking into the rotation, whether that comes by way of beating out other potential fifth starters or due to an injury creating an opening at some point during the season.
Hanser Alberto Announces Retirement
Veteran infielder Hanser Alberto announced his retirement via Instagram earlier this week, bringing a career that saw him spend parts of eight seasons in the majors to a close. He played for the Rangers, Orioles, Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox throughout his time in the big leagues.
Alberto, 33, signed with the Rangers out of the Dominican Republic as an amateur and made his pro debut back in 2010. He hit well out the gate in the Dominican Summer League and went on to slowly climb his way through the minors before making it to the majors in 2015. He struggled early on in his big league career and hit just .194/.204/.226 across 76 games in the majors as an up-and-down bench bat for Texas during his first two years in the show. After missing the 2017 season due to a shoulder injury, Alberto re-emerged with the Rangers in 2018 but once again struggled badly across a 13-game sample.
After being designated for assignment by Texas during the 2018-19 offseason, Alberto bounced around the league on waivers before finally landing in Baltimore ahead of the 2019 campaign. The Orioles were headed for a 108-loss campaign that year, but Alberto proved to be a major bright spot for the club as he took over a regular role with the team. He enjoyed a career year in Baltimore, slashing .305/.329/.442 in 139 games. That batting line was good for a 95 wRC+, and combined with strong defense at second base was enough to make Alberto a 3.4-win player according to Baseball Reference. He also struck out at a career-low 9.1% clip. Alberto took a step back during the shortened 2020 season, posting an 87 wRC+ with 13.1% strikeout rate, but still managed to appear in 54 of the Orioles’ 60 games that season.
Impressive as he had been in 2019, the Orioles opted to non-tender Alberto rather than carry him on the 2021 roster at his arbitration price tag. Over the final three seasons of his career in the majors, Alberto bounced between various clubs in a utility role. He joined the Royals on a minor league deal for the 2021 campaign, and his 83 wRC+ in 103 games for the rebuilding club was enough to convince the Dodgers to give him a major league contract for 2022. Alberto’s productivity took a step back as he neared his 30th birthday, however, and he slashed just .235/.259/.374 with a wRC+ of 74 over his final two years in the majors with L.A. and Chicago.
After being dogged by injuries during his time with the White Sox, Alberto missed most of the 2024 campaign and was limited to only playing winter ball. He returned to full-season play in 2025 when he joined the Mexican League’s Piratas de Campeche, and ultimately appeared in 26 games for them (plus an additional one for the Saraperos de Saltillo) before returning to winter ball. He appeared in 24 winter league games during the 2025-26 season for the Gigantes del Cibao but has now called it a career.
In all, Alberto made it into 488 games at the big league level. Along the way, he collected 378 hits, 22 homers, 12 steals, and 4.4 bWAR. He wraps up his career with a lifetime .269/.292/.381 slash line. MLB Trade Rumors congratulates Alberto on his career and wishes him the best in his future pursuits as his playing career comes to a close.
Rangers Acquire MacKenzie Gore
The Nationals have sent left-hander MacKenzie Gore to the Rangers for a package of five prospects, per announcements from both clubs. The five players are shortstop Gavin Fien, right-hander Alejandro Rosario, first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz, infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald and outfielder Yeremy Cabrera. Gore and Ortiz were the only players with 40-man spots, so the deal is 40-man neutral and no corresponding moves were required.
Gore, 27, has been one of the more obvious trade candidates of this offseason. Back at the start of November, MLBTR’s list of the top trade candidates of the winter had him in the #1 spot. That was partly due to Gore’s appeal as a potential budding ace and also the team’s situation.
The Nationals have been stuck in a rebuild for quite a while now. They won the World Series in 2019 but haven’t finished above .500 since then. They traded players like Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Juan Soto in 2021 and 2022. It was hoped that Washington could be back to relevance by now but the rebuild stalled out. Things dragged to such a degree that heads rolled. President of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez were both fired during last season.
Paul Toboni, previously an assistant general manager with Boston, was hired to replace Rizzo as the front office leader. The general expectation in the industry is that he will get some time to turn the ship around and get the Nats into contention again, as opposed to having the pressure of trying to win immediately. Gore is only two years away from free agency, making him a trade candidate in those circumstances. As a Boras Corporation client, a contract extension was probably going to be hard to put together.
On top of all that, there’s Gore’s track record and affordability. He was once a top prospect, getting selected third overall by the Pades in 2017. He was flipped to the Nats as part of the aforementioned Soto trade. Gore hasn’t quite lived up to his potential yet, with a 4.19 earned run average in 532 1/3 innings. However, he looked on the verge of a huge breakout for most of 2025.
Last year, Gore made 19 starts for the Nats through the All-Star break. He logged 110 1/3 innings in those with a 3.02 ERA. His 7.7% walk rate was a bit better than average and his 30.5% strikeout rate was quite strong. That strikeout rate was behind just four other qualified pitchers in baseball at that time. Tarik Skubal led the pack at 33.4%, followed by Zack Wheeler, Garrett Crochet and Hunter Brown.
Unfortunately, Gore wasn’t able to stick the landing. He went on the injured list at the end of August due to shoulder inflammation. He was reinstated about two weeks later but then returned to the IL late in September due to a right ankle impingement. Around those IL stints, he tossed 49 1/3 innings with a 6.75 ERA. That bumped his season-long ERA to 4.17.
Despite the poor finish, Gore remained an enticing player. The strong run to the All-Star break showed his ceiling and it’s an appealing arsenal. He averaged over 95 miles per hour with his four-seamer last year while mixing in a curveball, slider, cutter and changeup. He’s also quite affordable. He’s going into his second of three arbitration seasons and will be making $5.6MM this year. He’ll be due another raise in 2027 before he’s slated to reach free agency.
The trade market for starting pitching has been robust this winter. The Orioles sent four prospects and a draft pick to the Rays for three years of Shane Baz. The Cubs sent three players, including their top prospect, to the Marlins for three years of Edward Cabrera. Last night, the Mets sent two of their top prospects to the Brewers for one year of Freddy Peralta.
Gore’s track record of success isn’t quite as long as Peralta’s but Gore offers an extra year of control. Baz and Cabrera offered one extra year compared to Gore but haven’t shown the same kind of ace upside and both have checkered injury histories. Given the difficulty in evaluating the future outcomes of prospects, it’s impossible to say which package will provide the most long-term value.
For the Rangers, it’s understandable that they would prefer the trade route to free agency this winter, as there have been signs that money is tight. The team and manager Bruce Bochy parted ways at the end of last year with the club’s financial uncertainty cited as playing a role in that break-up. Pitching coach Mike Maddux departed for the Angels, with some suggestion that may have been financially motivated as well.
In terms of the roster, the Rangers traded three years of Marcus Semien to get five years of Brandon Nimmo, with Nimmo making less annually. Various reports from December suggested that the club couldn’t even afford mid-market free agents like J.T. Realmuto or Luis Arráez.
But upgrading the rotation was still on the to-do list. The club saw Merrill Kelly, Jon Gray, Patrick Corbin and Tyler Mahle all depart via free agency at season’s end. They went into the winter with a strong one-two of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, but a drop-off after that. Jack Leiter seemed to earn himself a rotation job with a 3.86 ERA last year but his strikeout and walk rates were only average-ish. Jacob Latz had a good season in a swing role but hasn’t been a full-time big league starter yet. Kumar Rocker is a former top prospect but hasn’t put it together in the majors yet.
Gore immediately upgrades the group, especially if he can get back to his first-half performance from 2025. He slots into the front three with deGrom and Eovaldi, bumps Leiter to a back-end role for now and perhaps creates a competition for a fifth spot between Latz, Rocker and others. There is a cliff over the horizon as Eovaldi and Gore are both slated for free agency after 2027. deGrom’s deal has a club option for 2028, with the value conditional on Cy Young voting and inning tallies, though he’ll be 40 by then. But for the next two years, the rotation has a strong core three.
To get that rotation upgrade while avoiding the free agent market, the Rangers have had to part with a notable pile of prospects. Fien appears to be the headliner here. The Rangers just took him 12th overall in the 2025 draft. They gave him a $4.8MM bonus to get him to forgo a commitment to the University of Texas. Still just 18, turning 19 in March, he’s a long-term play.
Baseball America lists him as the #3 prospect in the Texas system. He gets high praise for his offense but with bigger questions about his defense. Most evaluators expect him to be moved off shortstop in the long run, with third base or the outfield corners potential outcomes.
Kiley McDaniel of ESPN writes that the Red Sox really wanted Fien in last year’s draft but they didn’t pick until 15th, three spots behind Texas. Toboni was running Boston’s draft as assistant general manager at the time. Now that he is running his own front office, he apparently made Fien a priority and has used Gore as a means of getting his guy.
Fitz-Gerald, Rosario and Cabrera are a few spots behind Fien on BA’s list, coming in at #8, #13 and #14 respectively. Fitz-Gerald is a 20-year-old infielder who was drafted in the fifth round in 2024. He got into 41 games between the Complex League and Single-A last year, slashing .302/.428/.482. A left shoulder strain prevented him from taking on a bigger workload. He seems to do a decent amount of stuff well without a standout tool. BA suggests a future as a multi-positional player with a bit of pop and speed.
Rosario, 24, was a fifth-round pick in 2023. He had a strong season in 2024, posting a 2.24 ERA between Single-A and High-A, but has been on the shelf since then. He missed 2025 due to an elbow injury and is soon set to undergo Tommy John surgery, so he’ll miss the entire 2026 season as well. His strong 2024 campaign made him a top 100 prospect, with BA having him at #49 going into 2025, but he’ll be a long-term question mark after two entirely missed seasons. He’ll be Rule 5 eligible this coming December.
Cabrera, 20, was an international signing out of the Dominican Republic. He spent last year in Single-A with a strong walk and strikeout profile but only eight home runs. He’s considered a strong defender in the outfield and he stole 43 bases last year.
Ortiz, 24 next month, has the least prospect hype of this group but is the one closest to impacting the major league club. He split last year between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting 25 home runs and walking in 11.7% of his plate appearances. He had a combined line of .257/.356/.479 and a 124 wRC+. He was added to the Texas 40-man roster a couple of months ago to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.
Though his numbers in the minors look good on the surface, he has a propensity to chase breaking balls. Evaluators fear that will limit him to being a platoon bat in the majors. He’s also not a strong defender or baserunner, so he needs to hit to carry the profile. Washington has a pretty wide open first base/designated hitter mix, so he can force his way in there if he hits. He also has three option years and can be kept in the minors if he doesn’t.
With four of the five players being long-term plays, it would appear that Washington is just trying to grab whichever players it considers the most talented, as opposed to trying to rush a move towards contending in the near term. Perhaps that was isolated to this deal of their biggest trade chip but it could perhaps indicate that the club is generally operating with a long lens. For the Rangers, losing most of these players won’t hurt them in the short term but it does cut into the system more broadly. As of August, BA ranked them 26th in the league in terms of overall system talent.
CJ Abrams has also been floated as a trade candidate for Washington but with less certainty than Gore as he has three years of club control remaining. The Nats could now pivot to marketing him but his stock is also down a bit due to a poor finish to his most recent season, and in 2024 as well. Perhaps they will hold him for another season to see if he can raise his trade value.
It is clearly an offseason about loading up on future talent for the Nats. They also traded reliever Jose A. Ferrer to the Mariners for catcher Harry Ford and right-hander Isaac Lyon. This deal adds five more intriguing young players to the pipeline.
It also opens up more rotation chances for their other pitchers. As of now, they project to have Cade Cavalli, Foster Griffin, Josiah Gray, Brad Lord, Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker in the mix for starts. Arms like Jake Eder, Luis Perales, Riley Cornelio and Andrew Alvarez will be looking to push in there as well. Perhaps the Gore deal with be followed by the Nats signing a veteran to eat some innings but they could also leave space for the guys in that group.
Due to Gore’s appeal, he reportedly drew interest from half the teams in the league. Some of those clubs moved on to other trade candidates or signed free agents. For those still on the hunt for starting pitching, the market is drying up but they may still have options. As mentioned, a lot of the trade candidates have already changed hands. The Red Sox may have enough depth after their Ranger Suárez signing to flip someone else. The Royals may be willing to part with someone. Free agency still has Framber Valdez, Zac Gallen, Chris Bassitt and a few others.
Jon Heyman of The New York Post first reported Gore was headed to Texas. Jeff Passan of ESPN first laid out the five-for-one framework. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News first reported Fien’s inclusion. Spencer Nusbaum of The Washington Post first mentioned Rosario. Grant then reported Ortiz and Fitz-Gerald, followed by Andrew Golden of The Washington Post adding Cabrera.
Photos courtesy of Brett Davis, Eric Hartline, Kevin Jairaj, Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images
Rangers Re-Sign Josh Sborz To Minor League Deal
The Rangers announced today that they have signed right-hander Josh Sborz to a minor league deal. The McNamara Baseball Group client also receives an invite to big league camp in spring training.
Sborz, 32, returns to the team he has spent the past five years with. The highlight of that tenure was 2023. Sborz had an unimpressive 5.50 earned run average that season but the underlying marks were better. His 7.9% walk rate was a bit better than average and his 30.7% strikeout rate was very strong. A small 56% strand rate seemed to push some extra runs across, which is why his 3.75 FIP and 3.05 SIERA were much more optimistic.
Things corrected in a big way in the postseason. Sborz gave the Rangers 12 innings over 10 appearances, only allowing one earned run while striking out 13, making him one of most impactful players in the club’s championship.
Things have been a bit more rocky since then, however. Rotator cuff/shoulder issues hampered him throughout 2024 and he only pitched 16 1/3 innings that season. He underwent a debridement surgery in November of that year, a procedure that was expected to sideline him for the first two or three months of the 2025 campaign. His rehab from that surgery didn’t progress as quickly as hoped and he ended up missing the entire season.
The Rangers could have retained Sborz for 2026 via arbitration. Players usually see their salary hold steady when they miss an entire season. As such, MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Sborz for the same $1.1MM figure he made in 2025. Texas decided not to tender him a contract, sending him to free agency instead.
For the club, there’s no harm in bringing Sborz back via a non-roster pact. They can bring him into camp and see if he can get some of his velocity back. That was an issue for him last year but he’s now further removed from the surgery.
This is the second straight offseason wherein the Rangers have tried to build a competitive bullpen while working around budgetary issues. Last year, they gave one-year deals worth $5.5MM or less to Chris Martin, Hoby Milner, Luke Jackson, Jacob Webb and Shawn Armstrong. Most of those pitchers performed fairly well but they also became free agents, putting the Rangers back in a similar spot this winter.
So far, they have reunited with Martin and also signed Jakob Junis, Alexis Díaz and Tyler Alexander. All of those deals have been worth $4MM or less. Those guys will be in the bullpen alongside incumbents like Robert Garcia and Cole Winn, with Rule 5 pick Carter Baumler in the mix. Sborz will try to force his way into the picture and back onto the Texas roster.
Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images
Rangers Designate Dom Hamel For Assignment
The Rangers announced that right-hander Dom Hamel has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for right-hander Jakob Junis, whose one-year deal with Texas is now official.
Hamel, 27 in March, has never pitched for the Rangers. He was just claimed off waivers from the Mets in late September, during the final weekend of the regular season. He stuck on the roster for a few months but has now been squeezed off.
His major league track record is one of the smallest possible. He tossed one scoreless inning for the Mets on September 17th. He was then designated for assignment and claimed by the Orioles. Baltimore put him back on waivers a few days later, which is when the Rangers claimed him.
Hamel came up as a starting pitcher in the Mets’ system but struggled with control. He was primarily used as a multi-inning reliever in 2025 with some encouraging results. He tossed 67 2/3 Triple-A innings over 31 appearances. 11 of those were technically starts but were mostly of the opener variety. His 5.32 earned run average wasn’t especially impressive but his 25.2% strikeout rate was above average. Perhaps more importantly, given his past issues with control, he only walked 7.4% of batters faced.
He did allow 12 home runs in that time, which helped push more runs across the board. Despite those issues with the long ball, he generated enough interest to be claimed off waivers twice late last season.
The Rangers will now have a week to determine his next steps. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so they could field trade interest over the next five days. Hamel still has a couple of options remaining, which could help him land elsewhere as a depth piece. If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he would stick with the Rangers as non-roster depth since he does not have a previous career outright nor three years of big league service time.
Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images
Rangers Sign Jakob Junis
January 20th: The Rangers officially announced their signing of Junis today. Righty Dom Hamel has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.
January 18th: The Rangers have signed right-hander Jakob Junis to a one-year, $4MM contract, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News reports that the deal contains a mutual option for the 2027 season. The signing will become official once Texas makes a corresponding move on its 40-man roster. Junis is represented by Wasserman.
Rosenthal adds in a follow-up note that Texas will indeed use Junis as a reliever, coming off Junis’ first bullpen-only season of his nine-year MLB career. Junis has started 116 of his 249 career games, and still made some spot starts and swingman-esque appearances in 2023-24 even as he took on larger relief roles. In 2025, however, Junis signed a one-year, $4.5MM deal with the Guardians and worked only as a reliever over his 57 appearances and 66 2/3 innings.
The results were more than solid, as Junis posted a 2.97 ERA and an above-average 6.6% walk rate. Junis’ strikeout, chase, and whiff rates weren’t anything special, but in a reversal of career norms, he did a very good job of limiting hard contact. After posting a 1.4 HR/9 over his first eight seasons, Junis halved that number to 0.7 HR/9 during his lone season in Cleveland. Junis increased the use of his changeup, and throwing the pitch 20% of the time (up from 8.7% of the time in 2024) helped turn both Junis’ change and his primary slider into very effective out pitches.
Junis will look to keep things rolling as he enters his age-33 season, and the veteran has been pitching long enough that he broke into the majors with the 2017 Royals as a teammate of current Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young. Junis will become the latest new face to join Young’s total makeover of the Texas bullpen this offseason.
Chris Martin decided to forego retirement to return for another season with the Rangers, but Hoby Milner, Shawn Armstrong, Jacob Webb, and Phil Maton have all left in free agency. Texas has filled those gaps with Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander, Carter Baumler, Zak Kent, and now Junis, who had far and away the best 2025 season of any of this group. Junis’ ability to cover innings and take on some higher-leverage assignments should be a big help to the Rangers as they continue to figure out their ideal relief mix.
Rangers’ Cody Bradford Targeting Return In May From Elbow Surgery
Rangers left-hander Cody Bradford is working back from last June’s internal brace procedure. Reporting from the end of the regular season suggested Bradford could make an atypically quick recovery and be ready for the start of Spring Training, but it seems the Rangers are now planning for the southpaw to miss the first month or so of the season.
Bradford tells Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News that he’s scheduled to throw his first bullpen session this week. He’s hopeful of embarking on a minor league rehab assignment not long after the start of the regular season. That’d put him in line for a return to MLB action sometime in May.
A local product who attended Baylor, Bradford debuted in a swing role in 2023. He struggled as a rookie but showed more promise in year two. Bradford missed the first half of the ’24 season with a back injury but pitched well upon getting a rotation look once he returned. He took the ball 14 times and posted a 3.54 earned run average with a 23% strikeout rate against a 4.2% walk percentage. Bradford has always had elite command, but the solid strikeout stuff came as a little more of a surprise. He sits in the 89-90 MPH range with his fastball and managed to keep hitters off balance by playing the four-seam off his 81 MPH changeup.
Bradford had a good chance to open the 2025 season in the rotation. He reported elbow soreness while ramping up during Spring Training. Initial imaging came back clean but he was eventually diagnosed with UCL damage that required surgery. The internal brace doesn’t come with the same 14-16 month rehab window of the full Tommy John procedure.
Texas will open the season with an excellent top three of Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. The depth falls off sharply. Jacob Latz pitched well last year in a swing role but has never held a rotation spot. Kumar Rocker battled mechanical issues and spent most of the final two months of the season overhauling things at the complex. No one else on the 40-man roster has any kind of MLB starting experience.
President of baseball operations Chris Young said last week the team is focused on deepening the pitching before Opening Day. Some kind of addition feels inevitable, though there’s a decent chance they’ll wait out the market in hopes of grabbing a fifth starter/swing type for a few million dollars during Spring Training.
Several Teams Showing Interest In Miguel Andujar
Free agent infielder/outfielder Miguel Andujar is drawing widespread interest, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post, with the Rangers, Padres, Cardinals, Reds, Cubs and Athletics listed as some of the clubs in the mix.
Andujar, 31 in March, is coming off his best season in years. He missed a little over a month due to an oblique strain but got into 94 games, split between the A’s and Reds after a deadline trade. He generally puts the ball in play a lot, avoiding both strikeouts and walks, and that continued to be the case last year. In his 341 plate appearances, his 5% walk rate was quite low but he was also only struck out at a 14.4% clip.
He produced a .318/.352/.470 batting line, production which translated to a wRC+ of 125, or 25% better than league average. There was likely a bit of good luck in there, as his .348 batting average on balls in play was quite high, but it would have been a good showing even with neutral luck. He slashed .277/.315/.399 over 2023 and 2024 for a wRC+ of 103, with a decreased .306 BABIP in that stretch.
Andujar hits from the right side and has strong platoon splits. For his career, he has a .297/.332/.475 line and 121 wRC+ against lefties, compared to a .275/.307/.427 line and 101 wRC+ without the platoon advantage. It was even more extreme last year, as Andujar had a .389/.409/.578 line and 171 wRC+ against southpaws. Against righties, he held his own with a .290/.331/.429 line and 108 wRC+.
Defensively, he doesn’t play a premium position but does provide some versatility, as he lined up at the four corner spots last year. He doesn’t get great marks anywhere but the ability to move around is helpful when a club is looking to play matchups.
Andujar can therefore be of theoretical use to any club with a lefty in a corner somewhere. The A’s employed Andujar in 2024 and part of 2025 and could do so again. They have Nick Kurtz at first with the outfield corners manned by Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler. They could potentially be more competitive in 2026 but could also trade Andujar at the deadline again. Last year, they were able to get pitching prospect Kenya Huggins from the Reds.
The Rangers project to have Brandon Nimmo in left. Evan Carter is another lefty, with notable struggles against southpaws, and projects to be the club’s center fielder. There has been some suggestion that Wyatt Langford could take some center field playing time, which could make room for a righty bat in a corner. Joc Pederson projects to be the designated hitter. He is coming off a poor season but has crushed righties and flailed against lefties in his career.
Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom recently said the Cards have room for a righty-hitting outfielder. The club projects to have lefty Lars Nootbaar in one corner, with Alec Burleson at first base and Nolan Gorman possibly getting lots of playing time at third. The Cards are rebuilding but Andujar could help the club protect their current players and then perhaps be traded at the deadline, just as he was last year.
The Reds just had Andujar for the final two months of the 2025 season and could once again slot him in. They traded Gavin Lux to the Rays but project to have lefty JJ Bleday in one outfield corner. The Cubs have Michael Busch at first base and Moisés Ballesteros is probably the favorite to take over the designated hitter spot. The Padres project to have some combination of Jake Cronenworth, Sung Mun Song and Gavin Sheets covering first base, second base and designated hitter.
Andujar isn’t likely to command too much on the open market as a short-side platoon player. Guys like Austin Hays and Randal Grichuk are somewhat comparable players who each got one-year, $5MM deals last offseason. Rob Refsnyder just got $6.3MM from the Mariners on a one-year deal last month.
Hays and Grichuk are out there again now, alongside Andujar. Other similar players in this market include Austin Slater, Tommy Pham, Starling Marte and Chas McCormick. There’s also Harrison Bader, though he should be a tier above this group. Since he is a strong defender in center, he is a viable everyday player and may be able to secure himself a two-year deal.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Hanisch, Imagn Images
Rangers Focused On Pitching, Unlikely To Pursue Additional Bats
It’s been a relatively active offseason for the Rangers. That’s not true to the same extent as their infamous half-billion dollar offseason that saw them sign Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray, but Texas has still swung one major trade (Semien for Brandon Nimmo), signed four free agents to major league deals (Danny Jansen, Chris Martin, Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander) and made multiple waiver claims (Michel Otañez, Willie MacIver, Zak Kent).
Reshaping the team’s offense has been a focal point, but president of baseball operations Chris Young strongly suggested over the weekend that his club is unlikely to add further to its position player group. Meeting with the Texas beat, Young said that “pitching is the main focus” and that the Rangers “feel pretty good” about their group of bats heading into the season (link via Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News). Young didn’t expressly rule out another addition and noted that he’d continue to be “opportunistic” as the late stages of the market come together, but it was a pretty clear and candid description of where his baseball operations group’s focus currently rests.
On the one hand, it’s not entirely a shock. Texas has effectively plugged Nimmo into the non-tendered Adolis Garcia‘s spot in the lineup, resolving one position the team sought to upgrade. The aforementioned Jansen will get the bulk of the reps behind the plate, stepping in for another non-tendered veteran, Jonah Heim. Texas already signaled after trading Semien to the Mets that second base was likely to be filled internally; Josh Smith has been the favorite for reps there since that point.
Much of the remaining lineup is set. Seager and Wyatt Langford were the team’s two best hitters last year and will be back in the heart of the order in 2026. Evan Carter hasn’t replicated his brilliant 2023 rookie numbers but has been a solid hitter when healthy (a major caveat the past couple seasons). Young third baseman Josh Jung could’ve been a change-of-scenery candidate alongside sluggers Jake Burger and Joc Pederson, but it seems all three will get the chance to rebound. In Pederson’s case, there was likely little choice; he’s owed $18.5MM in 2026, and no team was going to pick up much of that salary after Pederson hit just .181/.285/.328 last season.
Given the struggles at the infield corners last year and the suspect composition of the current bench group, the Rangers very arguably could use at least one more bat in the infield/designated hitter mix. Anyone who could play some combination of first base, second base and third base would seemingly fit the bill. At the same time, it’s also been clear throughout the winter that the Rangers are working to scale back the payroll. RosterResource currently projects a roughly $176MM payroll, which puts Texas about $40MM south of the $216MM at which they opened the 2025 season.
[Related: The Rangers’ Wide Open Infield Mix]
It’s not clear exactly how much ownership is willing to spend on the 2026 group, but a major acquisition on either side of the ball certainly doesn’t seem likely. It’s plausible that teams missing out on free agents like Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette and others might check in on the Rangers’ willingness to sell low on Jung — perhaps in exchange for a former top pitching prospect in a similar change-of-scenery setup — but to this point, that seemingly hasn’t happened. Texas was said to be seeking a right-handed bat and some rotation help in mid-December after signing Jansen, Diaz and Alexander. That righty bat may still be on the wishlist but doesn’t appear to be a top priority at the moment.
It’s not all that hard to see why. The Rangers’ rotation features an impressive top three, with Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter claiming those positions. Left-hander Cody Bradford will be sidelined into the second half following June UCL surgery. As things currently stand, the Rangers would need two of Kumar Rocker, Jacob Latz, Jose Corniell and non-roster invitee Nabil Crismatt to step up in the rotation.
Rocker is a notable prospect but has yet to put things together in the majors. Latz pitched well in both a relief and starting role last year, but his 2.84 ERA isn’t supported by the rest of his profile (21.8 K%, 10.6 BB%, 4.37 SIERA). Both deGrom and Eovaldi, of course, have notable injury histories. The former bounced all the way back with 172 2/3 innings after making only nine MLB starts from 2023-24. The latter was limited to 22 starts thanks to elbow and shoulder troubles; he also underwent sports hernia surgery in the offseason.
It’s a top-heavy group with questionable depth. One injury to any of deGrom, Eovaldi or Leiter would leave the Rangers reeling. Two would put them on the verge of fielding an almost entirely untested rotation. Even reuniting with Patrick Corbin or a similar back-of-the-rotation veteran on a one-year deal (e.g. Chris Paddack, Aaron Civale) would give the Rangers some more stability.
Another reliever certainly wouldn’t hurt, either. Holdovers Robert Garcia and Cole Winn will be joined by free agent additions like Diaz, Alexander and Martin (who re-signed on a second one-year deal with the Rangers, his hometown club). Diaz and Alexander were signed as rebound candidates. Winn’s rate stats suggest his sub-2.00 ERA is due for some notable regression. The Rangers currently have two unsettled spots and arguably three, if you don’t assume that Rule 5 pick Carter Baumler has a spot locked down. There should be several seasoned arms looking for low-cost, one-year deals late in free agency.