T.R.'s Memoirs: Future of Rangers' rotation not as bleak as things appear, if prospects get to Arlington
Cole Winn headlines a group of young starters in the system who could join Dane Dunning and Kolby Allard in upcoming seasons.
Editor’s note: T.R. Sullivan covered the Rangers for 32 years and is sharing his memoirs exclusively with readers of this newsletter. This week: a walk through history and how starting pitching could be the Rangers salvation.
Starting pitching wins.
It is far and away the single most important factor in deciding which team wins a baseball game and which teams wins championships.
All others — hitting, defense, fielding, speed, bullpen — are down the list behind starting pitching.
That should be the most important lesson learned from the Rangers’ 50 years in Arlington. It is also why the Rangers’ current outlook is not nearly as bad as it seems right now.
The Rangers are going through a miserable stretch. All right, a miserable season. Even if you can’t get the Rangers on your local cable or satellite dish and rely solely on Eric Nadel, Matt Hicks and Jared Sandler — works for me — it’s still pretty obvious this season is only going to get worse as July 30 trade deadline approaches.
There is no getting around it.
But the Rangers have been in worse spots before, most notably the Dark Ages of 2000-03 when the franchise appeared to be in a real mess.
The difference now is they have good young pitching in the system, maybe the best collection of arms the Rangers have had in a long time.
Start at the big-league level with right-hander Dane Dunning and left-handers Taylor Hearn, John King and Kolby Allard. There has been enough there — given what they went through with injuries and last year’s pandemic shutdown — to feel like there has been progress.
Take Allard. He is 2-8 with a 4.71 ERA, hardly reason to feel good about his season. But …
He has a 1.152 WHIP. In 2019, the last time MLB had a full season, that would have ranked 18th best in the American League. His 4.71 strikeout-to-walk ratio would have ranked 15th best.
Then there is Double A Frisco. They have the best record in their league because of the starting rotation of Cole Winn, A.J. Alexy, Hans Crouse, Yerry Rodriguez and Jake Latz. The RoughRiders lead Double A Central with a collective 3.62 team ERA and 1.19 WHIP.
Best news in the system? Left-hander Cole Ragans, the No. 1 pick in 2016, has come back strong from not one but two Tommy John surgeries.
Best news overall? Cooler heads prevailed when the Rangers took Vanderbilt right-hander Jack Leiter with the second overall pick in the draft. If a kid is rated that high and his dad is Al Leiter, draft him.
Now, all of this talent is great, but the Rangers still have to navigate them to Arlington and there is still much to do. There are still two months to go.
The ultimate determination on the success of the Rangers 2021 season is not their win-loss record, but where they stand at the end with their young pitching. Everything else is a distant second at best.
The season has not been a complete success, not with right-hander Kyle Cody on the injured list with a right shoulder injury. One still must wonder why the baseball gods seem to have it in for left-hander Joe Palumbo as much as they do outfielder Willie Calhoun. Right-handers Owen White, Mason Englert and Ricky Vanasco are among the pitchers who are just beginning to overcome major surgery, with Englert pitching a Low A Down East and White expect to return there soon.
Rangers history shows talent is not enough. You have to get the talent to the big-league level and keep it there. It was not by accident that it took 25 years for the Rangers to reach postseason and 39 years to reach the World Series.
The Rangers’ lack of success in the 1970s begins with David Clyde, the No. 1 overall pick in 1973, and Tommy Boggs, No. 2 overall in 1974, winning a total of eight games between them in Texas. Three other pitchers taken by the Rangers in the first round that decade — Jim Gideon (1975), Jerry Don Gleaton (1979) and Tim Maki (1980) — never won a game for the Rangers.
The Rangers fortunes in the 1980s also would have been better if they hadn’t traded away Dave Righetti, Walt Terrell and Ron Darling, lost Tim Henke the free-agent compensation draft and just plain mismanaged Dave Stewart.
Hitting’s the problem right now? The Rangers hit plenty in the early ‘90’s with Ruben Sierra, Rafael Palmeiro, Julio Franco, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez, but couldn’t get Kevin Brown, Bobby Witt, Nolan Ryan and Kenny Rogers to combine for one good season together behind them.
Good lineups can be assembled. Championship rotations are the ultimate challenge.
The Rangers had one in 1996 — put together general manager Doug Melvin — that included Witt, Ken Hill, John Burkett, Darren Oliver and Roger Pavlik, and combined for a club-record 75 wins. The Rangers were able to win division titles with Rick Helling and Aaron Sele because Melvin was able to trade for Todd Stottlemyre at the deadline in 1998 and Esteban Loaiza in 1999.
Want hitting? The Rangers averaged 846 runs per season from 2000-09, third best in the American League. The staff ERA was a combined 5.07, third highest over those 10 seasons. The Rangers could have used a No. 1 starter, but Chan Ho Park remains the biggest free-agent bust in club history.
If you don’t remember right-hander Jovanny Cedeno, well, you would have if he had stayed healthy after striking out 153 over 130 innings at age 20 at Class A Savannah in 2000. Left-hander Ben Kozlowski was 22 when he had a 2.07 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP in 21 starts and nine relief appearances at three levels in 2002. He ran into Tommy John the next year and disappeared.
The Rangers finally went to a World Series in 2010 when C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis entered the rotation and Cliff Lee proved a brilliant midseason trade acquisition. The 2011 rotation of Wilson, Lewis, Derek Holland, Alexi Ogando and Matt Harrison is the best rotation in club history. The unexpected and far-too-quick disintegration of that rotation was an enormous setback, just like taking Dillon Tate fourth overall in 2015 or failing to get more out of other top draft picks like Kevin Matthews, Chi Chi Gonzalez or Luis Ortiz.
Matthews, the Rangers’ No. 1 pick (33th overall) in 2011, is only 28. So is Blake Snell, another high school left-hander taken 19 picks after Matthews in 2011.
It’s easy to pick out the bad draft picks, unless they were good picks gone bad on the development side. Right-hander Cody Buckel, the Rangers second-rounder in 2010, looked like an excellent pick after winning the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year award in 2012. Then he fell apart after being invited to big-league camp the following spring.
The Rangers have proven it through the years:
Get the starting pitching right, you can win in Arlington. If you don’t get it right, don’t worry, there will be more high draft picks to follow in the ensuing years.
The Rangers are strong in young pitching. If they land it in Arlington, the future will be much brighter than it understandably seems right now.