Rangers Starting Pitching: 'Clear Top Priority'

After making only made one deal at the trade deadline, Texas plans to address the rotation during the offseason.

Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young said that starting pitching will be our “clear top priority,” per a report by MLB.com on Tuesday.

Young made the comments to the media after the trade deadline came and went with the Rangers making just one deal, as relief pitcher Matt Bush was shipped to the Milwaukee Brewers for two players.

It also came on the same day that the Rangers put right-handed starting pitcher Jon Gray on the 15-day injured list after suffering a left oblique strain on Monday. He is expected to miss the next four-to-six weeks.

In the meantime, the Rangers have to figure out what they’ll do with Gray’s opening in the rotation for Saturday. The Rangers don’t have that answer yet, though they did call up both Taylor Hearn and Josh Sborz from Triple-A Round Rock. Hearn, who has started this season, will remain in the bullpen. The Rangers haven't named a probable starting pitcher beyond Wednesday.

In the longer term, the Rangers appear to have a mandate to pursue starting pitching, both in free agency and within its own organization.

Within the organization there is the team’s top starter, Martín Pérez, who is coming off his first All-Star Game appearance and was, to some, the club’s most tradeable asset heading to the deadline. The same went for reliever Matt Moore, who has been one of the Rangers’ best left-handed relievers this season.

The Rangers have already expressed an interest in keeping Pérez, who will start on Wednesday. The Athletic reported that by not trading both players, the Rangers get an exclusive negotiating window with the pair this offseason.

It’s not clear what it would take to keep Pérez or Moore.

But if the Rangers were able to retain both, Pérez would give the Rangers a solid 1-2 punch, along with Gray, to start 2023, while Moore would be the backbone of the bullpen.

From there, there would be much less clarity.

The Rangers’ current rotation — Spencer Howard, Glenn Otto and Dane Dunning — have been inconsistent, though Howard is starting to round into form after spending most of the season at Triple-A. Still, all three are relatively inexperienced and have something to prove.

On the farm, the Rangers are brimming with potential. Thirteen of their Top 30 prospects are pitchers, led by last year’s first-round pick, Jack Leiter. But he isn’t the only one with starter potential. There’s Cole Winn, Owen White, Antoine Kelly,  acquired in the Bush trade, and Cole Ragans.

Rangers president Jon Daniels said after the Bush trade that the team felt it had arms that were getting close to promotion, but he was talking more about the bullpen.

The closest to starting this year may be Ragans. Even though he’s the Rangers’ No. 29 prospect, he’s probably thrown the best all season. The former first-round pick in 2016 missed three seasons due to two Tommy John surgeries and the 2020 minor league shutdown. But since 2021, he’s burned through every level of the Rangers system and is currently at Triple-A.

There is also Dallas Keuchel, who made his first minor-league start with Round Rock on Tuesday. The Rangers are trying to see if the former Cy Young winner has anything left to give them this season. If he can turn things around and earn a promotion, and pitch well with the Rangers, he could become a low-cost option in 2023.

The Rangers have assets in their minor-league system to swing a trade this offseason. The Rangers could also seek a starting pitcher in free agency. There could be plenty of potential options, none of which would loom larger than Los Angeles Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw, who is from Dallas and is 34 years old. The Rangers were linked to Kershaw before he re-signed with the Dodgers. But he only signed a one-year deal.

Young and Daniels reiterated on Tuesday the team has every intention of contending in 2023. How they solve their starting pitching problem for next season will go a long way toward determining how close they come to accomplishing that goal.

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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard

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