Rangers News: Texas signs a pair of arms for much-needed bullpen depth

The Texas Rangers' bullpen certainly could use a helping hand after a rough start to the season. The Rangers' presumed late-inning guy in Jose Leclerc has been pretty brutal, and Texas' relief corps has had to deal with injuries to guys like Josh Sborz, Brock Burke, and Jonathan Hernandez. To be fair, the emergence of Kirby Yates, who has looked like an absolute bargain, has helped a lot, but the Rangers lack the depth you'd want from a title contending bullpen.

The good news is that it sounds like Sborz is close to returning from a rotator cuff injury, but the Rangers are clearly still looking for more bullpen options as they went out and signed two arms, Collin Wiles and Shaun Anderson, to minor league deals and stashed them away at Triple-A.

Texas adds Shaun Anderson and Collin Wiles on minor league deals

These signings may not pay dividends right away. Anderson looks like a guy who should be an imposing reliever, and the Rangers are familiar with him as they claimed him off of waivers back in 2021, but his results in the minor leagues as well as in Korea have been fairly middling. Texas actually drafted Wiles back in 2012, but he hasn't been able to stick in the majors as a reliever despite the fact that he does throw a lot of strikes.

What this move could do, though, is give the Rangers some bullpen lottery tickets that they could really use right now. Texas' bullpen ranks 13th in the league by fWAR so far in 2024, but a lot of that value has come from Yates and Jose Ureña. Obviously that isn't a sustainable bullpen model, especially since Ureña's performance thus far may be difficult for him to replicate over a larger sample.

If just one of these guys can turn into a passable middle relief option for the Rangers, it would go a long way toward preserving their top bullpen arms down the stretch and prevent the need for Texas to completely remake their bullpen at the trade deadline. Just hold serve until players start returning from injury -- that's all that's needed.

More Texas Rangers News from Nolan Writin'