T.R.'s Memoirs: These two pitchers are the most underrated players in Texas Rangers history (Part I)
Rick Helling and C.J. Wilson were major contributors to the best teams in club history.
Editor’s note: T.R. Sullivan covered the Texas Rangers over 32 years for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and MLB.com and is sharing his “memoirs” with this newsletter. In this two-part installment, Sullivan looks back at the Rangers careers of right-handed pitcher Rick Helling and left-hander C.J. Wilson. What they did for the Rangers is fading in club history but deserves to be remembered by those who followed the team.
Rick Helling and C.J. Wilson are the two most underrated and underappreciated players in Rangers history.
Their time in the Arlington spotlight was relatively short, and recognition of their accomplishments is fading with time. Just go into any DFW sports bar and ask who was the last Rangers pitcher to win 20 games in a season and see how many people have the correct answer.
If any at all.
How many people remember Helling was the last Rangers pitcher to win 20 games. Probably as many who know Wilson had the best ERA-plus of any left-handed pitcher (minimum 500 innings) in club history. No, it was not Kenny Rogers or Cole Hamels.
Helling and Wilson were at the top of the Rangers’ rotation for four of the club’s seven division champions, and it is not a stretch to say the Rangers don’t win without them.
Yet the history of the Rangers over the past 30 years is far more filled with laments and bewailing about the lack of pitching rather than recognizing those pitchers who were instrumental in getting Texas into postseason. Helling and Wilson are on the top of that list.
There are multiple reasons for their lack of recognition.
For one, they weren’t spectacularly overpowering. Fans didn’t keep track of their strikeout totals by posting K signs on the outfield walls. Helling barely topped out over 90 mph on his best days. Wilson could hit 94 and set a personal best with 206 strikeouts in 2011. But he was still a pitcher perceived to be more reliant on guile than power, and there is no doubt Wilson had a great feel for pitching. So did Helling.
Secondly, they were not overly successful in postseason. It’s not that they were bad but …
Helling was done in by a lack of run support more than anything. Unfortunately, what Rangers fans remember both about the two 1998-99 division championship teams was that they 1.) were swept by the Yankees in the division series and 2.) scored just one run over three games in each of their three series.
Wilson has just one win over nine postseason starts for the Rangers. Some of those starts were better than others, and there was some tough luck mixed in as well. But his postseason work was easily eclipsed by Cliff Lee and Colby Lewis.
Helling and Wilson were replaced by high-priced, high-profile free agents, signings that were deemed momentous for the Rangers and all but assured Helling and Wilson’s departure would not cause any gnashing of teeth.
Then there were their unique personalities.
Helling was from North Dakota and possessed a strong trait of Midwest stoicism. He took the ball every fifth day, pitched his guts out and was always accountable afterward. He was modest when he won and not prone to making excuses when he lost. Helling was also not prone to popping off in the media.
Wilson was never hesitant about expressing his opinion about anything and it didn’t have to be about baseball. Wilson had plenty of insights and opinions about almost any subject.
Unfortunately, he would do so in a manner that was often perceived — fair or not — as being condescending, irritating or downright abrasive. Know it all? Oh, yeah, plenty of people considered him just that.
Long after Wilson left Texas, whenever his name came up in conversations — especially the manager’s pregame media sessions, somebody would invariably say.
“C.J. Wilson … the guy who thinks he’s the smartest guy in baseball.”