Texas Rangers 2025 Spring Training Thread

[Kelleyman]

I do not think the Rangers add a pitcher through free agency

 

[saddles]

Frim Shawn McFarland about the Spring Breakout Game between the Rangers top prospects and the Giants top prospects.

Hello, Winston Santos.

He pitched three perfect innings vs. the Giants with SIX strikeouts (four swinging, one looking, one via the pitch clock) and threw 26 of his 37 pitches for strikes.

His fastball ran 95-97. Great day of work for one of the Rangers’ best SP prospects.

Emiliano Teodo used a 98.5 mph sinker to induce an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in a tie game.

That’ll play.

 

[saddles]

I do not think the Rangers add a pitcher through free agency

Why not?

 

[saddles]

From The Prospect Times:

Josh Stephan's final line against the Giants prospects:

- 2 IP
- 1 H
- 0 BB
- 0 R
- 1 SO
- 2 groundouts
- 1 flyout

 

[Kelleyman]

Why not?

Money and doubt they move a contract

 

[Kelleyman]

Keep the powder dry. What if JDG or Nate go down.
Then it is all for nothing. Sit tight until the break.
They may. If even want to add both Hauser and Murphy due to money

 

[saddles]

Jamey Newberg also had some things to say about the breakout game:

RHP Winston Santos was pure filth.

Three perfect innings, a pair of strikeouts in each frame. Touching 98, saving a wipeout slider for his second inning, flashing a respectable change. Santos needed only 37 pitches to get through his three, a remarkable number when it comes with six punchouts. (One came on a hitters’ clock violation, but it was on a 1-2 count. The way Santos was throwing, I’m betting he would have closed that deal.)

If you watched the game, you know what I mean when I suggest Santos looked the part. He has a starter’s build, a deep repertoire, just the right amount of bowed-up.

Yes, he’s on the 40-man roster.

Yes, the Rangers are suddenly in need of at least one starter they didn’t anticipate needing.

No, Santos is not a candidate.

The 22-year-old will likely start his season where he ended his last, taking the ball once a week for Double-A Frisco. There is certainly every possibility that he forces his way to Triple-A this summer, but you hope there’s never a need, or even a temptation, to give Santos any big-league starts in 2025.

But it’s coming. That was nine outs of insanely good pitching.

(RHP David Davalillo’s sick seventh deserves mention, too. Three strikeouts, all swinging, around a seeing-eye single up the middle.)

For all the talk of Evan Carter’s and Leody Taveras’s inability to produce in left-on-left situations, man, did we see a bunch of just the opposite tonight — including from two outfielders.

• Facing Whisenhunt, who is San Francisco’s top pitching prospect and a Top 100 guy a year ago, Osuna doubled sharply to start the game and then worked a walk in their second matchup.
• LF Dylan Dreiling laced an opposite-field single off Whisenhunt, driving in Osuna. (When the left fielder booted the ball, SS Sebastian Walcott came around to score as well.)
• C Malcolm Moore walked in one of his two plate appearances against Whisenhunt, and later doubled over the right fielder’s head off of LHP Joe Whitman.

One game doesn’t prove anything, but it was good to see some left-handed hitters with upside who looked comfortable at the plate against southpaws and, for at least one night, like they may not be platoon risks down the road.

CF Anthony Gutierrez filled up the box score and the highlight reel. It would be a great year for him to do a lot of that.

Texas has been very aggressive with Gutierrez developmentally, sending him to the Low-A level at age 18 in 2023 and then High-A last year. As tooled up as the 20-year-old is — yes, he’s still just 20 and will be all season — the power he flashed when he arrived stateside in 2022 has yet to materialize since.

He didn’t impact tonight’s game with slug, but that’s about all that was missing.

Gutierrez made as brilliant a play coming in on a ball as any Rangers center fielder has made in memory, a headlong dive from a full sprint to snare a sinking line drive in the third.

In the fifth, he singled in a run by going the other way with men on the corners, and when 2B Yolfran Castillo took third on the play, Gutierrez took off for second and got himself caught up in a rundown — and stayed in it long enough for Castillo to break for the plate and score . . . and to elude the first baseman’s tag himself and get back to the bag.

He then swiped second base on a delayed steal. (He was successful on 43 of 49 attempts last season.) He then moved up to third on a wild pitch. He then scored on a passed ball.

 

[saddles]

Money and doubt they move a contract

At this point they may have to surpass the CBT threshold just to survive these injuries. I hate to see that after they decided not to pursue a closer to keep from doing that.

You could be right though.

 

[saddles]

It would be huge for Jack Leoter to come out tomorrow and be dominant for 4 or 5 innings.