The Rangers have claimed right-hander Roansy Contreras off outright waivers from the Angels, reports Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. The Halos added Contreras, once one of the game’s top pitching prospects, in a cash deal with the Pirates back in May. He’s controllable for another four seasons but is out of minor league options.
Now 24 years old (25 next week), Contreras was the headline prospect the Pirates received in the trade sending Jameson Taillon to the Yankees. At the time of the swap, Contreras was widely regarded among the sport’s 100 best prospects. He showed why with a very solid 2022 season, logging 95 innings of 3.79 ERA ball for the Pirates. His 21.1% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate were both worse than average, but not by a wide measure, and Contreras averaged nearly 96 mph on his heater and was only in his age-22 season at the time. It looked like he was well on his way to locking down a long-term spot in the Pittsburgh rotation.
The 2023 season told a very different story. Contreras was rocked for a 5.91 ERA across his first 11 starts. He lost 1.5 mph off his average fastball and saw his strikeout, walk, home run and ground-ball rates all trend dramatically in the wrong direction. A move to the bullpen didn’t pay dividends. Contreras was shelled for five runs in one-third of an inning in his first relief appearance following his final start of the season. He ultimately yielded 13 runs in 12 big league innings after losing his rotation spot.
Contreras’ 2024 season landed somewhere between his two prior campaigns. He posted a serviceable if unspectacular 4.35 ERA between the Pirates and Angels. His strikeout and walk rates remained worse than average, but he added a two-seamer to his repertoire and bolstered his grounder rate to 44.4% as a result. He still surrendered too much hard contact but did see his average exit velocity and hard-hit rate tick downward a bit from their 2023 levels (particularly following the trade to the Angels).
While Contreras is no lock to make it through the offseason on the Rangers’ 40-man roster — this type of former prospect is often bandied about the league via waivers as clubs spend the offseason months attempting to sneak him through in order to bolster their non-roster depth — he’ll give Texas a back-end rotation option or bullpen option if he indeed stays on the roster until next spring. Pitching injuries and shaky depth proved to be hurdles for the 2024 Rangers as they missed the postseason on the heels of their 2023 World Series win. Adding Contreras (and presumably others in this same mold as the winter wears on) is a first step toward cultivating some additional depth for the 2025 club.
Let’s go this dude is legit.
a Legit what? -angels fan
Halos should have protected this guy. He has potential.
I was jealous when the angels got him last year now the Rangers got him for free that’s legit Four years of control.
This guy is currently listed as closer on the Rangers depth chart. We need a lot of help
It’s a nice, easy start to the Rangers offseason. They’ll make moves, especially in the pen.
I like Roansy. Young with much potential.
Angels keeping the clown show alive. Directionless except for their hatred of all pitchers
This is disappointing, but its clear now that they’re planning on protecting a handful of pitchers they like in the rule 5 draft And there was that one draft where Minassian drafted nothing but pitchers… so clearly they don’t hate pitchers, they just don’t want to pay a lot for them.
#71 overall prospect in top 100 in 2022 Rangers make a great move starter or he can be a legit closer with four years of control.
Calm down buddy, damn near everyone is a top 100 prospect at one point, doesn’t mean anything. He’s ok, hasn’t really shown the potential to be light’s out.
They got him for nothing, this is an exciting all-upside move for the Rangers. Even if he is only an average reliever, that’s a win for Texas.
Idk if I’d use exciting to describe the move, but it’s an upside move.
I’m calming
calmer than you are
Don’t really know what happned to Contreras. He just all of a sudden lost velocity from 2022 to 2023. At one point, he looked like an upper-tier #3 type starter.
Feels like Roansy’s biggest problem is his 4-seamer doesn’t miss enough bats. Not sure if that’s more of an issue of pitch shape or location, maybe a bit of both. But he introduced a sinker this year likely with that in mind. And while it generated a lot of ground balls, overall it was an even worse fastball than the 4-seam.
The Rangers are a solid org for pitching development imo so maybe they can make some positive tweaks. If they can improve the hard stuff he might have something that pairs well with a slider that grades out well by Stuff+. Could be a pathway to being a solid reliever.
Another bad trade by Cherington but he still keeps his job.
Nutting saw the bottom line improve with Skenes so he thinks the club is doing well under Cherington and Skelton.