The Rangers brought in some new additions to their rotation at the deadline, acquiring both Max Scherzer from the Mets and Jordan Montgomery from the Cardinals. One of them will replace Nathan Eovaldi, who recently landed on the injured list. Another opening will be created by veteran Martín Pérez getting bumped to the bullpen, reports Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News. “It doesn’t mean that’s where he’s going to stay,” manager Bruce Bochy said of the move for Pérez. “But for this time around, that’s the plan.”
Pérez, 32, has a long track of being a serviceable major league pitcher. By the end of the 2021 season, he had tossed 1102 2/3 innings, allowing 4.71 earned runs per nine innings. His 15.3% strikeout rate was well below average, but his 8.3% walk rate and 49.2% ground ball were both solid enough to allow him to be of use.
For 2022, he signed a one-year, $4MM deal with the Rangers and went on to have a career year. He made 32 starts and posted a 2.89 ERA over 196 1/3 innings, getting his strikeout rate up to a career high of 20.6% while still limiting walks and grounders. That earned him a well-deserved raise, as the Rangers issued him a $19.65MM qualifying offer, which he accepted.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to build off that late-career breakout. His strikeout bump has vanished, as his 14.4% rate this year is low even by his standards. The walk rate is still solid at 8.6% but he’s only getting grounders at a 41% clip, a huge drop from last year’s 51.4% rate. His ERA on the year is 4.98, with only five qualified pitchers worse than him in that department this year. It’s also been trending in a bad direction, as he had a 2.41 ERA at the end of April but a 6.15 mark since the start of May.
With those results, it’s not shocking that he’s been nudged out of the starting mix. This is a road he has travelled down before, as the Red Sox bumped him to the bullpen in 2021, though he was able to get back on track with the aforementioned breakout in 2022. Perhaps he will do so again at some point but the Texas rotation will now seem to consist of Scherzer, Montgomery, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney and Dane Dunning.
Dunning started the year in the bullpen but jumped into the rotation when Jacob deGrom landed on the injured list, later to require Tommy John surgery. In 16 starts since the start of May, Dunning has a 3.43 ERA. His 17.6% strikeout rate in that time isn’t especially impressive but he’s higher than Pérez in that department while also walking just 6.7% of hitters and keeping the ball on the ground at a 44.9% clip.
It seems those strong results will allow him to keep his starting gig, at least for the time being. As Bochy mentioned, the club could mix things up again in the months to come, though the group could get a bit more crowded. Bochy expects the club to have Eovaldi back after a minimum IL stint, per Kennedi Landry of MLB.com, which will make it harder both for Pérez to get back in the mix and for Dunning to keep his spot. Perhaps Eovaldi’s return would see Dunning hold his spot and Heaney get bumped to the bullpen since the latter has a lackluster 4.36 ERA on the season. But he has been trending better of late, with a 2.95 mark in his last four outings.
Of course, the final few months could also see some plot twists that change all of this, best laid plans and whatnot. The AL West is shaping up to be a fascinating race to watch in the final months, as the Rangers made their aforementioned rotation additions while the Astros got Justin Verlander and the Angels nabbed Lucas Giolito. The Rangers will undoubtedly be making whatever moves they feel give them the best shot at success in the weeks to come, with the large salary of Pérez not enough to keep him from the bullpen. He’ll return to the open market this winter while Dunning will qualify for arbitration for the first time.
This helps the team much more than acquiring Bednar or Hader. That’s because Pérez is as much of a downgrade in the rotation over a random guy off the street as those guys are upgrades over their current options. This is amazing news! He is 1 step close to being released now. I hope they don’t resign him and let him end up playing on a different continent (or planet where giving up runs is good).
New Math found: Subtraction from Addition … News at 11
Sounds like something Joe Maddon would say. In fact pretty sure he said something like this in his time in Tampa.
Peculiar calculatin’ there.
New math or new meth?
With Max, Degrom, Perez and others, the Rangers are probably paying 4x more than the Braves for each win; and when all the bills come due, it won’t last very long.
Degrom. Dont underestimate the impact of bullpen arms in the postseason. They are imo the separator of equal teams. Either way the Rangers will be formidable in the playoffs this year
I can definitely see that, but after being down so long, it would’ve been better if they’d done an organic rebuild, based primarily on the farm, not older free agents and trade acquisitions. We’ll see, but I do see them as formidable for this particular year, but not necessarily far into the future.
the Rangers kind of did this backwards but I don’t see any reason why they can’t be competitive for a long time. Seager isn’t old and they retained all of their big prospects at the deadline. Seager and Semien have been great but the real reason the Rangers have been good is that the young guys down lineup are hitting Jung, Leody, Duran. Those guys are going to be around for awhile
Clearly you aren’t aware that they have one of the best farm systems in all of baseball and traded exactly 1 of their 6 top 100 guys this year.
They are set up to be good for a long time to come.
I disagree but granted, am biased. The talent in the farm has me optimistic even when our older free agents and trade acquisitions are gone. Our longest contracts on the books being Semien, Seager, and deGrom. Every other “older” player is gone in 2-3 years. And going back to the farm, Rocker, Leiter, White, Porter could all potentially be ready by then. With Harris, Carter, Foscue and Walcott potentially contributing as well.
I feel like Bochy had to give the Lou Brown “Don’t read anything into this. You’re one of the guys that got us here” speeches to Perez.
That said, Perez pitched decent out of the ‘pen for the Sox in ’21 so it may not be a bad move
No Chan Ho money for Perez huh?
Heany found out how to pitch in Texas. He was horrible in NY.
We all knew this was going to be how his 2023 played out.
Even though Texas is paying Perez a lot of money this year, they actually lucked out by not agreeing to a 3 or 4 year deal with him. They had been talking extension for a while but Perez decided to bet on himself and take the one year, higher QO salary vs a 2-3 year deal with an option year. Texas can be free and clear of him after this season. Perez will be back to another $4M, 1 year contract with another team next season.
Yep
Big 10-4
Aside from last year, Perez is less than mediocre. He’s just not good, unless he eats innings while he gives up loads of runs.
He’s basically been an average to slightly below average pitcher for his entire career. That’s pretty much the definition of mediocre, but being mediocre at baseball can still earn you a fat paycheck, because being mediocre makes you better than about 80% of professional ballplayers. Truly terrible players don’t have 10+ year big league careers (unless they’re Jordan Lyles).