Jacob Degrom Who?

ARLINGTON, Texas – Just about everything that had to go right has worked out so far for the Texas Rangers. Except the big one. Rangers Beat Writer Evan Grant reported on Tuesday Afternoon that marquee free agent signing Jacob deGrom needs Tommy John Surgery and would be out for 12-18 months. At 34 years old, deGrom signed a 5-Year/$185M ($37M AAV) contract in December, and added to an already impressive offseason that had seen Texas hire 3-Time World Series Champion Bruce Bochy to be the teams next Manager. The oft-injured deGrom didn’t even make it to May. The Rangers placed him on the IL for the second time in 2023 on April 29 after throwing 6 starts over 30-plus innings. deGrom looked every bit the part, posting a 2.67 ERA with a trademark 13.4 K/9 rate. While the Rangers hoped for an eventual return around the All-Star Break, it was clear that the problem would continue to recur if not corrected.

Enter Manager Bruce Bochy.

Bochy has seen this movie before. The year he won his second ring was the first year that Giants Ace Pitcher Tim Lincecum showed signs of deterioration. After back-to-back Cy Young Award wins in 2008 and 2009 and four straight All-Star appearances between 2008-2012, Lincecum posted a 10-15 record and an ERA+ of 68, well below league average. Bruce Bochy made due. His pitching staff overperformed expectations without an Elite-performing Lincecum and went on to sweep the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. 2023 represents a similar, but familiar challenge for Bochy.

At 38-20, the Rangers have one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball and are pacing the AL West by 3.5 games. Their patchwork pitching rotation has blown preseason expectations out of the water while compensating for the absence of Jacob deGrom. The bullpen has been phenomenal and seems to continue adding effective pieces including recent call-up Grant Anderson. The Texas Rangers are competing in the AL West for the first time in seven years. The offense was always going to be there, but the value the pitching staff has provided has been the difference maker.

It starts with the Nathan Eovaldi signing. The current AL leader in Innings Pitched settled for a deal late in the process that placed him outside of the top-25 Starting Pitchers in terms of AAV. Eovaldi put up another more-than Quality Start this past weekend against Seattle, punching out seven Seattle Mariners on just one hit over six innings. Eovaldi is sporting one of the lowest walk rates, as well as one of the best xERA (Expected Earned Run Average) in baseball as of Tuesday. He showed flashes of brilliance in a borderline-elite 2021 with the Boston Red Sox that saw him finish 4th in Cy Young Award voting, but he wasn’t getting as deep into games as he is now due to an elevated barrel rate. In short, Nathan Eovaldi figured out how to pitch.

There’s another guy outperforming his pay grade in Texas by the name of Jon Gray. His potential has always been there for the former 3rd overall pick, but making half of his starts at Coors Field has held his numbers back. Gray is having a career year thus far in 2023, going 6-1 through 11 starts with Texas this season, posting a 2.51 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. He showed a bit of this potential in his first season in Texas, but a nagging shoulder issue held him to just 127 innings in 2022. The difference maker here has been the use of his arsenal, as he’s cut his fastball usage down from 50.5% in 2022 to 42% in 2023. On top of this, he’s now throwing three secondary pitches at 48% whereas last season he was essentially a two-pitch starter relying mainly on a 4-Seam Fastball/Slider combo. As a result, his strikeout rate is actually down 5% from 2022 to 2023. He’s trusting his defense and like Eovaldi, is pitching deep enough into games to keep the bullpen rested. We can expect a bit of negative regression from that 2.51 ERA clip as he’s slightly below league average in xwOBA, but the peripherals aren’t concerning enough to write off his performance just yet.

Dane Dunning on the other hand is an interesting case. Acquired in the Lance Lynn to the White Sox back in 2020, Dunning got lit up in his first two seasons in Texas posting an OPS-against in the high .700’s in both 2021 and 2022. This led him to begin 2023 in the bullpen where he didn’t allow a run until the end of April. Rangers Manager Bruce Bochy moved him into the rotation at the beginning of May after deGrom went down, and he has done nothing but get outs since. I started paying attention after a 6 inning, one-hit performance against the Atlanta Braves on the road back in Mid-May due to the manner in which he got those 18 outs.

Dunning’s Baseball Savant page shows that he isn’t exactly elite at anything…. Except arguably the two most important factors in getting outs– missing barrels and throwing the ball over the plate. Some would say Dunning is lucky. And sure, we probably can’t expect Dunning to continue to pitch to an ERA in the low twos, but he’s missing barrels and again, pitching efficiently. You say he’s lucky, I say he’s kicking it old school. In a league driven by doing everything harder and faster, Dunning’s fastball is effectively sitting around 90mph and he has been the unsung hero so far in the month of May for the Texas Rangers.

The Rangers are on pace to win 106 games and showing no evidence of slowing down. The team didn’t skip a beat after Jacob deGrom hit the Injured list on April 29. DH Adolis Garcia continues to mash while Catcher Jonah Heim has been a revelation behind the dish as an offensive force. Meanwhile, 2B Marcus Semien extended his hitting streak to 24 games last night against the St. Louis Cardinals. All three of those guys rank in the top-6 in RBI’s in all of baseball. They’re showing every sign of being a World Series contender, including an elite bullpen anchored by a dude in Will Smith who has already closed out one World Series-clinching game. The re-emergence of Jose Leclerc and the loud debut of Grant Anderson gives Rangers fans every reason to be hopeful for the rest of the way. If anybody can navigate a team through the weeds of injury and uncertainty, it’s Bruce Bochy.

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