Rangers addition of Zac Gallen’s favorite catcher may strengthen bid for ace

Whether you believe in coincidences or not, the Texas Rangers Jose Herrera deal could be a powerful tool to utilize in an effort to sign former Diamondbacks' ace Zac Gallen.

In case you missed it, Texas signed the the 28-year-old catcher on Monday to a minor league deal as the organization begins to formulate a plan for what their catching corps will look like minus Jonah Heim.

While it seems small in nature, that deal could give the Rangers are good marketing strategy if they attempt to make a run at Gallen, who is a free agent after seven most of his seven big league seasons with Arizona.

Gallen's performance aided with Herrera as his battery mate in 2025

In baseball, being comfortable and confident is arguably half the battle. If a pitcher feels good on the mound, his stuff is working well, his defense is lockdown and even the rapport with his catcher is top notch, it's hard to stop him.

When Herrera joined Arizona's roster in 2024, he caught 10 of Gallen's 28 starts that year and the right-hander from North Carolina put up a 2.82 ERA and limited hitters to a .220 average, .310 slug and a .609 OPS.

It wasn't Gallen's smoothest year, recording a career high 4.83 ERA, losing 15 games and walking a career-high 66 batters. While he did struggle with Herrera behind the dish during eight of his starts, the comfort zone is still there between the two.

What are Rangers' chances of landing Gallen?

Now all of that is a small factor to where Gallen will play in 2026 or even if Texas will sign the right-hander.

Texas does need to improve the back half of their rotation after losing key contributors to free agency, including Tyler Mahle and one of Gallen's old teammates in Merrill Kelly. President of Baseball Operations Chris Young is on record multiple times this offseason about the team's need to add to the rotation.

Young should be all over Gallen, who has a career 3.58 ERA in 176 career games, 1,060 strikeouts and a 20.7 WAR in 1,007.1 innings of work. The only issue would be if Texas can truly pay Gallen the price he is looking for.

Earlier this month, USA Today reporter Bob Nightengale sent the baseball world into a frenzy after falsely reporting that Gallen was headed to the Chicago Cubs on a multi-year deal that would pay him roughly $22 million a year.

While it did end up being reported incorrectly and he had not in fact had a deal in place with Chicago, that AAV is actually not that far off from his market value, which Spotrac has sitting at $18 million.