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 wish to proceed to pursue leverage arms.”
To that time, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal just lately described re-signing Kirby Yates as “a precedence” for Texas. Equally, Grant wrote that they might “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 pair of.85 SIERA in 61 appearances, saving 33 video games in 34 possibilities. He was simply as profitable at inducing whiffs as he was at limiting exhausting contact, due to a extremely efficient four-seam and splitter pairing. Regardless of his 37 years of age, he was one of the crucial 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 larger price ticket this time. MLBTR put Yates at no. 38 on our Prime 50 Free Brokers record, predicting he’d signal a one-year, $14MM deal. Younger may need to get inventive to seek out room within the funds for a contract like that – Texas is reportedly making an attempt to drop beneath the posh tax threshold in 2025 – however his current choice to commerce Nathaniel Lowe exhibits 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 might push them over, however not thus far over that Younger wouldn’t be capable to discover a approach to carry 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 will likely be much-needed reinforcements, however none can fairly substitute what the staff 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, might doubtlessly fill that gap as an alternative.
