Reviews, Previews, and Ranks: Texas Rangers
Introduction & Glossary Post Here
The Rangers were one of the more disappointing teams in 2022, as they did a lot in the offseason to try to build a contender, but fell short and won just 68 games.
The problem was on both sides of the ball, as their 4.21 team ERA was ninth-worst in the league and their team OPS of .696 ranked 18th in the league. On paper, their lineup looks much better than their starting rotation, but let’s just go ahead and get into it.
Notable Players Likely Departing Via Free Agency
Martin Perez
Pitchers
Jon Gray
Gray missed all of August and half of September, and finished the season with just 127.1 innings pitched. He struggled a bit after returning from the IL with a 4.13 ERA despite a strong 0.92 WHIP but a discouraging 19.4% K%. Prior to the IL stint, however, he did this
19 GS, 3.83 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 27.1% K%, 7.9% BB%, 31% CSW%, 13.3% SwStr%
And if we want to be really, really generous with Gray and also take off the slow start to the year he had (he had a blister and knee thing going on in April), we see that he did this from June through July
12 GS, 2.99 ERA, 1.10 whip, 29.6% K%, 7.4% BB%
That’s a dozen consecutive starts with a 22% K-BB% - a really great run.
Gray was really tough to rank for 2022 since all the data we had on him was from him as a Rockie, and suddenly he was not going to be a Rockie any longer at the age of 30. Now he will be 31 next season and we have a bit more confusion given the mixed and inconsistent results we got from him in 2022.
He’s a bit dependent on the four-seamer, which overall was an average pitch for him. Good to see him keeping the fastball away from the barrel and on the ground. It’s not typical to have a ground-ball rate near 50% on a four-seamer, but Gray has done that exact thing two years in a row now - so I suppose we can trust it.
The slider is great with the 21.1% SwStr%, which came up from 18.9% in 2021 which isn’t surprising - we did expect some more whiffs as he didn’t have to deal with the thin air of Coors Field so much.
Here are the movement numbers:
Lots of horizontal movement from Gray, but not a ton of insight to be taken there.
All-in-all, I think Gray is just a good pitcher with a strong floor but a mediocre ceiling. I do like the thought of him as an SP4 or so on a fantasy team. For awhile there last year he was pitching like an SP1, and I don’t want to forget that. I’ll be higher than the field on Gray, I think - but he’s not a ‘must have’.
Comps/RankArounds: Hunter Greene
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