Rangers GM Jon Daniels told reporters, including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (Twitter link), that he expects to finalize a deal with Colby Lewis this week.
The 35-year-old Lewis got back on a Major League mound for the first time since 2012 this past season after spending more than 18 months on the shelf with a torn flexor tendon and then undergoing a hip debridement operation. Lewis totaled 170 1/3 innings for the Rangers with 7.0 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in that time, but his ERA was an unsightly 5.18.
However, that ERA mark was higher than ERA estimators such as FIP and SIERA, which pegged him in the mid- to low-4.00s. Lewis was plagued by a sky-high average on balls in play for much of the season (he finished with a mark of .339). Over his final 13 starts, Lewis pitched to a much more respectable 3.86 ERA with a 60-to-22 K/BB ratio in 86 1/3 innings. For a team with several question marks in its rotation, Lewis makes for a nice depth piece that doesn’t figure to come with a prohibitive price tag.
