Texas Rangers: Who will win the fifth starter’s spot this spring?

Texas Rangers’ fifth starter competition: Any in-house lefty

This is definitely the least specific slide of the bunch, but it goes to illustrate just how wide-open this competition is for the final rotation spot in Arlington.

Any one of in-house southpaws Wes Benjamin, Kolby Allard or Joe Palumbo stand an outside chance of clinching this final spot.

As we mentioned with Yang, the Rangers lack a credible left-hander in their rotation. Right now, the entire rotation projects to be right-handed.

This isn’t uncommon, but a lack of balance isn’t ideal either (it can swing in the other direction too, as the division rival Mariners allegedly have four lefty starters!)

None of Benjamin, Allard or Palumbo are particularly intriguing at the moment given their recent lack of combined success.

Each one has upside, though, especially Allard, a prized acquisition from Atlanta in 2019 for reliever Chris Martin and Palumbo, the organization’s 10th-best prospect in 2020 who has a great curveball.

Still, despite not expecting to win many games in 2021, the Rangers should at least try to put out their most respectable product possible, and that probably means shying away from either of these three, for now.