Rangers' plan with Emiliano Teodo is confusing given team's bullpen concerns

The race to find the team's closer is one of the tightest races in camp this spring for the Texas Rangers.

The consensus is that veteran reliever Chris Martin will head into Opening Day in that role. However, a smattering of arms have entered the closer conversation during the first two weeks of spring training action.

Among those names is 24-year-old Emiliano Teodo, who enters the 2025 season ranked as the organization's sixth overall prospect. In fact, the right-hander leads the team in saves this spring converting both of his save opportunities. However, after gaining a lot of buzz as the team’s potential closer manager Bruce Bochy told reporters that Teodo's chances are small to make the Opening Day roster, let alone be the team's closer.

Instead they are opting to protect his health and continue developing him as a future starter. This doesn't rule out an mid-season callup this season but it does make for a confusing situation because the team's weak link is the bullpen, so why dismiss a fireballer who can make a real difference?

It’s not about the lack of talent and options because they have a handful of arms that could effectively get the job done day in and day out throughout the season. I guess what surprises me the most is they quickly dismissed the idea of using Teodo as a closer. Teodo has all the makings of a big league closer in MLB. The deadly two-seamer with the potential to hit 102 mph and the slider hat generated a swing and miss over 50% of the time he threw it as makings of a deadly combo for a hitter in the ninth inning. He has a changeup which is still a plus pitch but not as effective as the other two and you need multiple pitches to be a successful starter at the big league level.

It’s not a big surprise that they are aiming to keep developing Teodo as a starter. They’ve done that his entire career in the minor leagues, starting 50 of his 79 games. That includes starts in 19 of his 20 games last season in Double-A Frisco.

Either way you look at it, Texas will end up calling Teodo up to the big leagues and it will likely be in a relief role. Now someone who knows baseball and the inner workings way better than I do might have a great explanation to why it makes sense but it seems weird that they would say their development plan is as a starter then turn around and but him the bullpen to start their MLB career.

Now Texas will make me eat my words by calling him up to make starts, then I’ll properly say I was wrong. But I don’t see that happening. I think I just found it strange to make a pretty clear decision like that when Texas is still trying to find out what the makeup of their bullpen looks like.