Texas Rangers final 2025 trade deadline addition has rocky history with franchise

Phil Maton, yes that one from the Astros, is now going to be playing the rest of 2025 in Texas once again, but not in Houston. He will be joining one of the best bullpens and pitching staffs in all of baseball in Arlington with the Texas Rangers.

Acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals in the final minute of the deadline, the 32-year-old Maton has a 2.35 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and 48 strikeouts in 40 games this season with the Cardinals. He will join newly acquired Danny Coulombe as fresh faces in the back of Texas's pen.

If you are not familiar with Maton's game, get ready to start spinning. There are not many if any pitchers that can spin it better than Maton.

He has been in controversies before with Texas with him hitting Josh Jung early last season and basically costing him all of 2024. Seeing how he fits in to the clubhouse will be interesting but will likely be pretty easy.

He has been one of the most valuable relief pitchers in all of baseball in 25 and has a dream for a baseball savant page. He strikes out a lot and limits hits to a high degree. His K/BB ratio is 3.2 and his overall K/9 ratio is a high level 11.3.

He will be spinning a curveball, cutter, sweeper, and sinker all over the strike zone with his velocity in the 80-84 MPH range for off speed and 90-95 range with his fastballs.

He uses the curveball and cutter primarily at 37% and 34% rate. He will mike in his sweeper adn sinker seldomly at a 16% and 13% rate. This slides in perfectly to the bullpen that is in desperate need of groundouts and strikeouts.

He will be in Texas in short time and will get high leverage looks. He might not win the closer role but if a guy gets in pinch or its close in the 8th, look for Maton to come in.