Texas Rangers: Starting pitching Hot Stove

The Hot Stove season is starting to get underway and the Texas Rangers will be looking for some pitching. There are several top choices that will hit free agency such as Jon Lester, Max Scherzer, and James Shields.

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Do the Texas Rangers need to target some of the high value starting talent available this offseason? In my opinion they should at least try find some starting pitching during the offseason. The 2014 season was one of the worst, but it was mainly due to injuries. Derek Holland, Matt Harrison, and Martin Perez were all supposed to be huge players in the Rangers rotation, but all 3 barely played this season.

Besides for Yu Darvish, the starting rotation struggled most of the season. The starters had an combined ERA of 4.75 to rank number 28 overall this season. Sometimes the pitching staff did do well an managed to shutout opponents 17 times.

They’ll still have Yu Darvish and Derek Holland in their rotation. That means they’ll be looking for 3 other starters during the offseason. Jon Daniels has already had several talks with Colby Lewis and his agent and it seems that a deal will get done. That means they’ll still need 2 starters.

One thing that Daniels seems to acknowledge now is that they won’t be looking to convert bullpen pitchers into starting pitchers again. They manage to convert C.J. Wilson over a few years ago, but it hasn’t worked well since then.

That means they’ll need to target some kind of starting pitching during the offseason. Will be one of the big three with Jon Lester, Max Scherzer, and James Shields? It would be nice seeing one of those guys come to Texas. My order of choices would be Lester, Shields and then Scherzer. Will it happen? Here’s what Jon Daniels has to say about it.

"“I like a lot of them,” Daniels said. “But I don’t expect to play at the top end of free agency this year for a variety of reasons. I also think there are other ways to acquire quality innings in the rotation.” (Evan Grant – Dallas News)"

That doesn’t mean the Rangers won’t sign one of those 3 pitchers, but it does make it seem unlikely. Do they need one of those 3 guys, yes they do. Almost in a bad way if they want to compete for a playoff spot next season.

At some point next season they will have Martin Perez back in the rotation, and might use Nick Tepesch or Nick Martinez again. All three of those pitchers are decent and during the 2014 season Tepesch and Martinez both showed signs on improvement. Between the two Martinez should be come a top tier pitcher, once develops a bit more.

Overall, the Rangers will have to do something this offseason. Hopefully what ever move they make will have better results than last year. Which they should, because it’s doubtful they’ll see that many injuries again for a long time.

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