The Rangers have already added 4 relievers this offseason: Robert Garcia, Jacob Webb, Shawn Armstrong, and Hoby Milner. Nonetheless, they’re nonetheless missing a confirmed high-leverage arm; Webb, Garcia, Armstrong, and Milner have a complete of 15 profession saves amongst them. With that in thoughts, president of baseball operations Chris Younger nonetheless has work left to do. He acknowledged as a lot, telling Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning Information, “We’re going to want to proceed to pursue leverage arms.”
To that time, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal not too long ago described re-signing Kirby Yates as “a precedence” for Texas. Equally, Grant wrote that they’d “completely love” to re-sign their All-Star nearer. Yates was phenomenal for the Rangers in 2024. The veteran right-hander pitched to a 1.17 ERA and a couple of.85 SIERA in 61 appearances, saving 33 video games in 34 probabilities. He was simply as profitable at inducing whiffs as he was at limiting onerous contact, due to a extremely efficient four-seam and splitter pairing. Regardless of his 37 years of age, he was probably the most dominant closers within the recreation, vastly outperforming the one-year, $4.5MM contract he signed forward of the season.
It’s simple to see why the Rangers would like to reunite with Yates, though he’ll include a a lot increased price ticket this time. MLBTR put Yates at no. 38 on our Prime 50 Free Brokers listing, predicting he’d signal a one-year, $14MM deal. Younger may need to get artistic to seek out room within the price range for a contract like that – Texas is reportedly making an attempt to drop beneath the posh tax threshold in 2025 – however his latest resolution to commerce Nathaniel Lowe reveals he’s not afraid to do exactly that. RosterResource at the moment places the Rangers’ luxurious tax payroll at roughly $229MM, which is $12MM beneath the primary tier of the tax. Signing Yates may push them over, however not to date over that Younger wouldn’t be capable to discover a strategy to deliver them again down.
The Rangers bullpen completed twenty sixth in ERA and twenty third in SIERA in 2024. To make issues worse, they misplaced their 4 most skilled, high-leverage arms to free company: Yates, David Robertson, Andrew Chafin, and José Leclerc. Arms like Webb, Garcia, Armstrong, and Milner can be much-needed reinforcements, however none can fairly change what the group misplaced on the again finish of the ’pen. Thus, bringing again Yates makes good sense. A.J. Minter, one other veteran arm who has been linked to the Rangers, may doubtlessly fill that gap as a substitute.
