The last time StrongSide editor Mike Piellucci and StrongSide Rangers writer Jamey Newberg talked baseball, the Rangers were heading into the season heavy underdogs in the American League West, Corey Seager was searching for a comeback year, Jacob deGrom had a functioning pitching elbow, and there was plenty of concern about the bullpen.
A lot has changed since then … well, not so much the last part. But with a third of the season in the rearview, it was time for Mike and Jamey to circle back for another chat about the rotation after deGrom, the surprisingly productive outfield, and the arrival of heralded pitching prospect Owen White.
Mike Piellucci: Jamey, these are bittersweet times in Texas. The Rangers are thriving: at 41-25, they have the third-best record in baseball, and no team has a better run differential than Texas’ plus-142. Marcus Semien and Corey Seager are living up to every cent of their contracts. Josh Jung is blossoming—and, as you noted on Friday, may deliver Texas a nice bonus next season. Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray are following the path laid down by Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, and Kyle Gibson before them, by leveling up as thirtysomethings from upper mid-rotation guys to second or third starters.
And none of that resonates the way it would virtually any other year because Jacob deGrom is done for the season, and probably much longer. StrongSide readers got my thoughts last Wednesday. They got Sean Bass’ earlier this week. But we haven’t heard yours yet.
So, my friend, where are you in the aftermath of deGrom going down?
Jamey Newberg: I guess bittersweet is the right word for it, but it hasn’t crushed my energy for a few reasons. First, obviously, this sort of thing was always a risk with the deGrom signing, plus the Rangers have done just fine without him. But also, and this is probably a function of half a century of learned helplessness as a Rangers fan, it’s never going to be easy. Nothing close to what has happened in terms of wins and losses was supposed to happen, certainly not in 2023. Any franchise would inevitably have some sort of significant setback to deal with, and that certainly goes for one that has scuffled for a few years and, even when it was great, couldn’t record the final out in the World Series. The best teams overcome. I’m not betting against Bruce Bochy’s charges.
The one part of all this that’s most deflating for me is the dashed vision of deGrom, Eovaldi, and Gray going 1-2-3 and then 4-5-6 in an October series, with deGrom coming back for Game 7 if needed. Martin Perez is surely capable of fitting in that mix and would have been even with a healthy rotation. I have no doubt that Eovaldi could be that 1-4-7 guy himself. But, man, you sure would feel good about any playoff series against any team if deGrom and Eovaldi were in place to start as many as five of seven games.
MP: It’s gone from “best Rangers playoff rotation of all time” to something more akin to the Aaron Sele-Rick Helling-John Burkett unit from 1998. That is to say: this still profiles as one of the better groups in franchise history and one that can hold its own in a playoff series. It’s just no longer fronted by a guy who could go pitch for pitch with Shane McClanahan or Gerrit Cole. The Rangers don’t need one of those to win, per se. After all, look at the rotation that took this team all the way to that final, squandered out. But it would make things a hell of a lot simpler, especially when a healthy chunk of payroll that could otherwise be earmarked for an upgrade is tied up in a pitcher who won’t step foot on the mound for a long time.
Here’s the rub, though. Let’s cut Texas a break and say Eovaldi maintains this level of performance and Gray keeps the regression to a minimum. There’s still the matter of the two spots behind them—the third, especially. And I’m just not where you are with Perez. His ERA is up to 4.67 after the shellacking he took in Tampa on Sunday. His FIP is 4.90. As you noted on Twitter, he hasn’t been locating well since April, which is the sort of systemic problem that derails everything.
Except even in that first month, when his ERA was a sparkly 2.41, his FIP was a run and a half higher. The cold reality is last year’s success was built on just 6.5 percent of his fly balls turning into home runs—the fifth-best mark in baseball. That’s terribly difficult for anyone to sustain, let alone a guy who had only kept that number below 12 percent once in a full season of work. Lo and behold, the number has shot back up to 12.5 percent this season. You can work around that if you’re Atlanta ace Spencer Strider, who has a virtually identical rate (12.3) but strikes out plenty of batters along the way. But Perez has never been that sort of guy, and pitchers who don’t miss bats have struggled in the post-shift era, from Perez to the Dodgers’ Julio Urias to Miami’s Cy Young-winning Sandy Alcantara, whose ERA was even higher than Perez’s entering the week.
So while Perez still has his uses at the back end of a rotation, I don’t think Texas can count on him to figure prominently in its playoff rotation in a post-deGrom world. I’d put Dane Dunning in the same boat, too, even if the surface-level numbers remain strong for the time being. That leaves Andrew Heaney; you’re a wiser man than me if you somehow know what to expect from him the rest of the way, either in terms of health or results. All of which leads me to believe Texas’ best shot at another difference-making postseason starter isn’t in the organization right now.
JN: I’m with you on Perez, especially after this last start in St. Pete. He looked a lot like the guy from his first Rangers tenure, unable—unwilling?—to come inside to keep hitters uncomfortable and missing off the plate the way he did when he’d nibble himself into big innings.
I’m also with you on the task at hand, especially with Gray now dealing with a blister. He’ll be fine, but those things have a way of resurfacing once they’ve entered the picture. I have very little doubt that Chris Young is waking up every day thinking about ways he can go get a pitcher to start games and another one to close them, preferably from the same team.
MP: I feel like you already have an idea or three in mind.
JN: Geez, it’s almost as if you think I’m waking up every day cooking up trade ideas myself. (No comment.) The problem, certainly not unique to the Rangers, is that trades this early on the baseball calendar are monumentally expensive to make. There are simply not enough teams less than halfway into the season who have lost belief in 2023. And unlike in fantasy baseball, there’s a potentially damaging cost to raising the white flag prematurely: as a front office, you never want to demonstrate a lack of belief in the guys in your clubhouse.
There are a few teams that are unquestionably out of the 2023 mix—Oakland, Kansas City, Washington, Colorado—but aside from the lack of frontline pitching those teams have to trade, every one of them should feel emboldened right now to ask the 20 teams considering midseason additions for more than they should. It’s a tough spot.
MP: It is, but the good news is Texas has some cushion both in the standings and in the run differential department (one of the strongest indicators of a quality team) should they need to bide their time for reinforcements.
The biggest upset is that we’re not putting an outfielder on the shopping list. Because those plate discipline gains by Adolis Garcia look real (I still don’t get him, though), and so does some of the hard contact Leody Taveras is meting out. Zeke Duran is a borderline phenomenon. And while I’m not holding my breath on Travis Jankowski being this effective all season long, if nothing else he eliminates the need to go to market for a fourth outfielder.
I don’t think this is the Rangers’ outfield of the future, per se. But in the present? It’ll more than suffice, especially compared to what we got accustomed to seeing out of that unit in Arlington for the past decade.
JN: It certainly doesn’t pave the way for The Evan Carter (or Aaron Zavala) Watch, which is a good thing. As distinguished, perhaps, from what the combination of the Gray blister and the seven bullpen innings in Monday’s brutal loss to the Ohtanis led to: top-five prospect Owen White debuting sooner than planned. The 23-year-old looked the part last night in relief of Cody Bradford. Had he not been squeezed on a two-strike pitch to Brandon Drury that umpire Lance Barrett had been calling a strike all night, and had Corey Seager not then fumbled the ball while trying to complete a double play, the three runs White allowed don’t score. Those are breaks of the game, not excuses, but the point is White flashed some really good stuff in tough circumstances to make a debut.
MP: I have no idea what role White ultimately fills, but given the state of the bullpen and the fragility in the rotation, he won’t lack for opportunity.
We can check back in on him when we do another one of these later in the season.
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