Locked On Rangers Podcast: Previewing the bullpen, health concerns, and best/worst-case scenarios for 2024
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00:00 On today's show, I have Tim Jackson here to talk about baseball prospectuses season
00:07 preview preview for the Texas Rangers.
00:09 How much of last year was repeatable and what to expect from this team in 2024.
00:15 All that and more on this episode of Locked on Rangers.
00:17 Let's get into it.
00:20 You are locked on Rangers.
00:22 Your daily Texas Rangers podcast.
00:27 Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day.
00:43 You are locked onto the World Series champion Texas Rangers.
00:46 I'm Bryce Patrick, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan covering this team for 10
00:49 seasons, including all five as the founder and host of this podcast.
00:52 Thank you all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day.
00:55 If you're not already, you can follow me on Twitter at Bryce Patrick.
00:57 You can follow the show at Locked on Rangers.
00:59 You can follow my guest at Tim Jackson says on Twitter, hit subscribe on your favorite
01:04 podcasting platform and on YouTube for the best way to help grow the show is to comment
01:08 nearly any single thing below.
01:10 Now joining me today is Mr. Timothy Jackson of Baseball Perspectus, writer extraordinaire,
01:17 baseball knower and writer of the Rangers 2024 season preview.
01:23 How are you doing today?
01:24 I'm doing well.
01:25 How are you?
01:26 I'm doing all right.
01:27 I'm doing all right.
01:28 I am ready to get into this discussion.
01:31 I have a computer to argue about and some, some gripes that are just feel very almost
01:38 insincere at this point coming off of a Rangers World Series champion.
01:43 Before we get into today's episode, this show is brought to you by game time.
01:46 Download the game time app, create an account and use code locked on for $20 off your first
01:51 purchase.
01:52 Now, I think the most important line in the entire 2024 season preview of the Texas Rangers
01:58 happens before we get into any of the body paragraphs.
02:01 It starts out with most recent playoff appearance in bold 2023 parentheses, one world series.
02:08 And you know, I feel like it could just stop there.
02:10 Honestly, I mean the most important thing in my opinion to happen in the history of
02:14 mankind, let alone baseball was the Rangers winning that 2023 World Series and all of
02:20 us here in Arlington and Texas and wherever Rangers fans are spread across the globe,
02:24 we are still very much riding that high of that world series win, which was just an absolutely
02:31 wild wild ride.
02:33 And of the many things that were wild about it was a little 21 year old coming up to the
02:40 big leagues and in his first month and a half, two months of major league baseball, just
02:46 putting on an absolute show.
02:48 And some of the underlying data wasn't quite as enthralled as the rest of us watching Evan
02:53 Carter and the projections for him, according to Dakota are not quite as flattering as I
02:58 might have expected.
03:00 I'm curious what went into some of those projections, you know, putting Evan Carter as a very harsh,
03:06 I believe as a two 18, three 15, three 55 slash slide.
03:11 And do you agree with some of those projections or are they a little bit, is he a little bit
03:15 hurt by some of the things that he didn't do well at the big league level?
03:20 Well I'll just say right off the bat that I don't necessarily agree with him.
03:23 I think it would be devastating if Evan Carter hit two 18 in 2024.
03:30 The one thing that, especially when it comes to projection systems, Dakota is conservative
03:37 and I don't want to say skittish, but in my experience kind of working with it and seeing
03:42 it come out and reading through it, it is always, always, always wanting to see more
03:48 before it believes more.
03:51 So it's mostly a track record thing when it comes to a guy like Carter because he just
03:55 hasn't been in the majors much and 23 games were super exciting in 2023.
04:01 But ultimately, I just don't think enough for it to buy into and the playoffs.
04:07 I actually don't know that the playoffs get factored into a ton of that either just because
04:10 they look at Thompson so many, so many like factors go into the projections.
04:16 And I don't want to sound like I'm talking out of my rear end, so to speak, but I don't
04:22 put them together.
04:23 Right.
04:24 So I know just through working with them, they are naturally conservative.
04:26 I would be devastated if he hit two 18.
04:30 So I'll say that much.
04:31 I disagree there.
04:32 I think that's one of the spots where it's like, if you're looking at the Rangers projections
04:37 through Dakota and you see a soft spot, that's it.
04:41 And it's like, oh, they could break through a little more there.
04:43 They could get more value out of that spot for sure.
04:45 Yeah.
04:46 And I think it also has the same thing for for white Langford.
04:48 It has him as a I think is this is this bettering war point point for war player, which, you
04:54 know, he has an even smaller track record than Evan Carter because he was in the minor
04:58 leagues for what, two months, basically.
05:01 It was a very fun two months, but it was still a short stretch.
05:05 So I think is that kind of one of the things that might lead into it being a little more
05:09 skittish about a guy who has two months of professional ball under his belt?
05:13 Yeah, for sure.
05:14 And I mean, even right off the bat, like we didn't see we saw top like you kind of hinted
05:20 at it.
05:21 We saw top line production or we saw top line results.
05:24 Right.
05:25 But if you look at like just hard skills in terms of a maxi V, he was kind of under that
05:30 threshold that Rob Arthur had found a few years ago when it comes to like one hundred
05:34 eight miles being significant.
05:35 We only got one hundred seven point five.
05:39 He battled the ball pretty well, but ultimately it was it was kind of like he hit a lot of
05:44 grounders, relatively speaking, when he came up, which is something that's one of those
05:48 things that I think kind of gets overlooked with any rookie is that they they take a while
05:53 almost to show their batted ball profile.
05:55 And so many of them are not their peak selves right away, even if they reach peak sooner
06:01 just because of development tracks at this point, even the tippy top guys.
06:05 I think the the thing to this is one of those instances where it's like, how do you want
06:11 to use a projection system?
06:13 Do you want to use it to say this is what they think of my team or do you want to use
06:16 it to say this is what they think of like, you know, blind bag this player kind of like
06:23 if you're putting their names into a hat, right, and you're just pulling out results.
06:27 Oh, this one might kind of settle down lower than we would expect just because that's what
06:31 so many rookies do.
06:34 So few guys come in ready to play full time.
06:37 So few guys come in ready as full, fully baked.
06:40 Right.
06:41 So it's it's almost like I'd be very curious to see this projection in a year.
06:47 Right.
06:48 I'd be very curious to see it after Evan Carter has a chance to show not only does he need
06:52 to make an adjustment, but he makes it, which given everything that has been around him
06:57 since he's been drafted, this is actually he's one of the guys that BP's prospect team
07:01 has tabbed very early.
07:02 Right.
07:03 They saw it right out of the draft and they saw kind of how some of the market was reacting
07:09 to him.
07:10 And they said, oh, holy crap, he's he's got like top line skills.
07:14 Everybody should be talking about him more than we have so far.
07:17 Yeah, I remember that first year out of the draft, there was not much known about him,
07:21 but it didn't take long for for for Carter being around that that minor league camp of
07:26 whatever was going on in 2020 for scouts saying like the consensus buzz that I was hearing
07:32 about about Evan Carter right when he was drafted was, oh, this kid is already the most
07:37 talented player that was playing in the minor leagues for the Rangers and whatever abbreviated
07:41 minor league thing they had back in 2020.
07:44 And and Langford, I mean, it seems like I believe in the top 100, Langford is is above
07:50 Carter at where where was he at the top 100.
07:53 I think he was I know he's top five.
07:55 I can't remember.
07:56 I think that y'all were the highest on him.
07:57 Yeah.
07:58 At number two, just behind Jackson Holly, the only player that he was behind and man,
08:04 the Rangers having two guys in the top five, Evan Carter is at number four behind junior
08:08 Cameron Arrow and like the Rangers coming off of a World Series title and then adding
08:13 these two kids to a lineup.
08:15 I mean, I feel like the lineup was definitely what carried this team for a lot of last year.
08:20 And and adding these these two youngsters with with such high, high ceilings and high
08:26 expectations from the get go.
08:27 Is that something that you think that can help this team maintain that level of offense
08:31 that that might have looked a little unsustainable at times, even though they are losing Mitch
08:35 Garver?
08:36 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
08:38 Because there are kind of ways to balance that out.
08:40 Like, yes, you lost Garver.
08:42 But do you really expect Carter to put up like the Anthony Volpe type slash line for
08:47 the Yankees last year, except with a little more on base and a little less slugging?
08:52 I don't.
08:53 I you know, I and Volpe was somebody who came up and there were questions around him in
08:57 terms of how his game would play or how his plate approach would play a little bit in
09:02 terms of, you know, his adjusted swing.
09:04 And it was steep and it was geared toward power and it worked through the minors.
09:09 But he was shown pretty regularly and pretty quickly last year.
09:13 That's not quite going to fly here.
09:15 I think Carter skills are higher.
09:17 I think Langford skills are higher.
09:20 I'm not one to disagree with the prospect team.
09:23 They are very sharp when it comes to tabbing these guys and really kind of knowing when
09:28 to when to push them right when to really stuff their ranking.
09:32 And we get into that a little bit in the preview in terms of what Langford did.
09:37 Like it's incredible that they didn't have to call him up.
09:40 Right.
09:41 Like you mentioned the lineup carried the team.
09:43 And it's hard to argue when they win the World Series, but it's almost like, my God, how
09:46 did they avoid calling up Wyatt Langford when he was as good as he was just to give him
09:53 kind of that taste and see like, well, here we are.
09:56 I think that speaks to both the quality of the lineup and the quality of the hitter and
10:02 the quality of injection they could get for 2024.
10:06 Yeah, definitely some high hopes for this offense.
10:09 And it came out in a big feature by Jeff Passant that white labor was actually in the traveling
10:15 party around the team during that World Series run.
10:18 And as much as Chris Young, you know, denied it and scoffed it and laughed it off.
10:22 And a lot of beat writers thought, no, no, there's no way that that, you know, Wyatt
10:25 Langford is going to come up and make his major league debut.
10:28 It came out in that feature that, oh yeah, by the way, when Adoles Garcia went on the
10:31 aisle, when his season was done after game three of the World Series, he was definitely
10:36 in strong consideration to make his major league debut and what would have been game
10:40 four of the World Series coming up.
10:42 We're talking about what from last year was not sustainable.
10:45 And what about this model that Rangers are not going to sustain from last year?
10:50 Right after this word from our sponsors.
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11:57 Now we are here with Tim Jackson of baseball perspectives, talking about the season preview
12:07 for your world series champion rating world series champion, Texas Rangers, and about
12:13 the weirdness that was last year.
12:15 I mean, this is a team that was full of the highest highs.
12:19 The lowest lows had an eight game winning streak and an eight game losing streak all
12:22 in the month of August, because why not do it in the weirdest way possible with a team
12:27 and a franchise that have been full of weird, unrepeatable moments that would never happen
12:33 again.
12:34 But I'm curious as an outsider viewing this team from what happened last year, what part
12:39 of the 2023 team was the most unrepeatable, unsustainable thing that happened?
12:46 I think that one's the pitching staff, right?
12:48 I mean, maybe generic or too big, too, too sweeping of a statement, but I think that's,
12:54 that's the thing that stands out to me in terms of, I mean, how did you all feel with
13:00 the pitching staff in general throughout the year?
13:01 Were you like, Oh my God, how many times did you say, Oh, this might be falling apart?
13:06 Well, at the beginning of the year, I felt really good about it because of the depth
13:10 and because there were so many options.
13:12 And I thought maybe they had to make a trade at mid season, which they did acquire two
13:17 different starting pitchers at the deadline that worked out pretty well.
13:21 But I mean, from the end of the regular season in 2022 to the trade deadline in 23, the Rangers
13:28 acquired seven starting pitchers.
13:31 And by the end of the world series, they had what two and a half that were fully healthy
13:36 and effective and ended up working.
13:39 But yeah, I felt really good about it.
13:41 I mean, obviously the Grom signing, like you're taking a big risk there, but I mean, if no
13:47 one else is willing to pony up, that's what kind of the game plan was for that rebuild
13:51 is all right.
13:52 Corey Seager is no one's offering him 10 years, 300 million plus done.
13:56 Oh, Simeon's not getting offered the kind of deal he wants done.
14:01 And that's kind of what it took.
14:03 And so they've signed about a million pictures and he thought, okay, well you got a bunch
14:06 of pictures.
14:07 So if some of them get hurt, then, then this can work out.
14:11 And a lot of them got hurt and a lot of them got hurt badly.
14:15 But because they had that depth, they had just enough.
14:19 And so the same with the bullpen, except to a lesser degree, it was less addressed because
14:24 I think last year they weren't quite sure that was year one of the rebuild being over,
14:30 but it kind of became apparent by May that like, oh, nope, this is it.
14:34 This is when you go for it.
14:35 So let's see what can happen.
14:37 But, but yeah, I totally agree that there is, there was definitely some, some questions
14:42 about that rotation.
14:43 Do you think it is a lot significantly more questionable this year, even with the guys
14:47 who were supposed to come back in, you know, Scherzer in June and Malley, hopefully in
14:53 July and DeGrom in August?
14:56 I do just in the sense of like, can you name the last team to have a staff like this, to
15:00 make a run like that two years in a row?
15:04 I cannot.
15:05 And that's one of those things where it's like, if we could, we would name them very
15:08 quickly, right?
15:09 Because it would be so standout.
15:11 So I think there's some natural regression baked in, like a team coming off the Super
15:16 Bowl and, you know, they always, unless they're Kansas City, have trouble getting back or,
15:22 you know, some other dynasty like New England, but just for a parallel on another sport,
15:28 I think it's just really hard to do.
15:31 And when you bring back a lot of the pieces, which you should do on a championship team,
15:36 especially when you are, like you're saying, spending this money to bring them in to kind
15:40 of prove the point of like, no, spending money is a very worthwhile thing.
15:44 And that's actually, I wrote a piece in the middle of last, well, around game 120, that
15:50 was initially titled the Texas Rangers are 71 and 48, excuse me.
15:57 And it ended up being titled the Texas sized and probability because nobody expected the
16:00 Rangers to be so good that far into the season, right?
16:05 We didn't expect it to work last year.
16:07 And one of the lines in that piece was something like, it would be, it would be a tragedy.
16:14 It's like nearly impossible for them to miss the playoffs.
16:17 And it was right before like, right before things started going way downhill.
16:23 Yeah.
16:24 So I'm glad it worked out.
16:26 I'm glad that one doesn't come back to hit me the way it would have if I was like, there's
16:32 no way they'll miss the playoffs.
16:35 But I think it's very, very difficult to repeat what they were doing in the sense of like,
16:41 even like if we go back to Dakota, right?
16:43 Like, do you expect nearly 30 starts out of Evaldi when he hasn't thrown that much back
16:48 to back in years?
16:49 Do you expect Max Scherzer to be more than Max Scherzer has been the last year and a
16:55 half or so when he's back?
16:58 Do you expect a guy coming off surgery, Tommy John, like Maley is to be himself fully right
17:05 away?
17:06 And what does that look like?
17:08 Because before he was injured, there was a lot of hope for him.
17:10 He was still like a slowly evolving arm.
17:14 Do you think Jacob deGrom is going to throw more than three innings at a time?
17:19 Do you think Jonathan Gray or Jonathan, I fully named him like a, like an angry mother.
17:24 Do you think John Gray is going to be more than what he was?
17:27 He like he had an approach change last year where he was throwing different pitches, right?
17:32 Or kind of mixing his pitches differently for the first time in his career through fewer
17:38 fastballs than he ever did.
17:40 And it still resulted in this kind of like stagnant middling production.
17:45 Do you think Dane Dunning will be more than a guy who is on the mound?
17:49 Like all of these are in a sense, I think some greater in whole than they are in any
17:56 one question, like any one of these could go any number of ways.
18:00 But the fact that there are all of these questions and you can just list them off, I think that
18:04 makes it very tough to be like, Oh yeah, the Rangers, they're going to be right back in
18:08 it because baseball is a long and cruel season.
18:13 It is, it is definitely a long and cruel season.
18:16 There are some things that I'm hopeful for.
18:17 I mean, with E of all the 30 starts, I think that is aggressive, but if, if he follows
18:22 the game plan of what happened last year of be amazing in the first half, get hurt, right?
18:28 The all-star break come back just in time to get fully healthy for the playoffs.
18:32 I think the Rangers might take that.
18:33 I mean, they wrote him pretty hard last year.
18:36 Once DeGrom went down and he, he was, he was huge for the Rangers in that first half.
18:42 And, you know, once they acquired the reinforcements of Scherzer and Montgomery, those were both
18:47 very, very helpful.
18:49 And for Scherzer, I don't think they're asking him to be, you know, peak Max Scherzer.
18:52 I think that Mike Maddox definitely got a lot out of him.
18:55 Maddox was his pitching coach during two of his three Cy Young years.
19:00 So I think that there was definitely some tweaking there and being on a competitive
19:03 team that wasn't the Mets sure helped them.
19:06 I think when, in terms of the intensity, I mean, he's always very, very intense, but
19:11 just like upping it just that little bit more of like, okay, we are in a playoff chase right
19:15 now.
19:16 So, and this team needs me very, very badly.
19:19 And he stepped up in a big way.
19:22 And I thought we'd talk a little bit about how much better these projections would feel,
19:25 how much safer this team would feel if they were to add Jordan Montgomery and bring him
19:29 back right after this word from our sponsors.
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20:41 Now we are here with Timothy Jackson of baseball perspectives, talking about the Rangers season
20:50 preview, the reigning champs, how hard it is to go back to back, but it might get a
20:55 little bit easier if the Rangers would go ahead and bring back the tall, lanky lefty
21:01 in Jordan Montgomery, who somehow as of this recording 4 26 PM central time, March 6th.
21:07 I keep checking my Twitter account because it's many times it's happened that news is
21:11 broken while I'm in the middle of recording a podcast episode.
21:15 But right now it is still a possibility, maybe even a likelihood.
21:20 I don't even know at this point we've gone back and forth so many times, but if this
21:23 team had a Jordan Montgomery, a guy who you felt much better about, you know, easing up
21:28 some of the burden on that rotation, some of the question marks like Cody Bradford or
21:32 Dane Dunning in the backend of that rotation, how much better would you feel about this
21:37 team going back to the playoffs, maybe being the first team to repeat as champs in the
21:42 21st century?
21:43 I'd feel a lot better.
21:45 I think a lot of teams would feel a lot better with Jordan Montgomery.
21:48 This is one of those issues that, you know, we go bigger picture and we look at how the
21:53 MLB off season plays out.
21:56 And we've heard these ridiculous things about like, Oh, a signing period and this and that.
22:00 And I don't really get why these guys are still around, some of them Montgomery being
22:09 like one of the top names, right?
22:12 It's just that idea of almost like going out of our way to avoid being better.
22:19 So whoever signs him, I think will benefit greatly because ultimately Jordan Montgomery
22:23 is one of the steadier arms in baseball.
22:26 He's somebody who made it through New York.
22:30 The Yankees do weird things to players, right?
22:33 And he survived that.
22:35 He's been remarkably consistent over the course of the majority of his career.
22:41 His walk rate has been below, I was just there, it is below, it's better than average because
22:46 it's below 8%, right?
22:49 For pretty much his whole career, going all the way back to like his second year.
22:56 I think that's such a big deal.
22:59 You look at in the grand scheme of a season when you have so much variance, like we've
23:03 just been talking about through the rest of the rotation, if you can have an arm who can
23:06 come in and you know exactly what he's going to be doing and how often he's going to be
23:10 doing it because in the last three years, he's thrown 157, 178, 188 innings, right?
23:16 335 innings total, which is something so few guys do.
23:21 It would be a massive deal.
23:22 It would be a huge, huge rock for them to lean on throughout the course of the year
23:27 because you could expect them to be there because he's been there.
23:32 Yeah, he definitely has been there and it would be nice for the Rangers to be able to
23:37 home grow their own starting pitchers so they wouldn't have to worry about not bringing
23:41 back Montgomery.
23:42 But I don't even want to talk about Jack Leiter and Owen White.
23:46 I definitely don't want to talk about Colwyn in this moment because that's a much sadder
23:52 conversation that I'd like to have today, but I'm curious.
23:55 This is the hardest question for me to answer looking back at that 2023 world or world series
24:00 team, but especially during the regular season, what percentile of an outcome would you say
24:04 that regular season of 90 wins was looking at where they were at the beginning of the
24:08 season because you have to factor in so many things.
24:11 It felt like a lot of things went right, but a lot of things also went very wrong.
24:14 You got six starts up to Grom.
24:15 You missed a month and a half of, of MVP level Corey Seager.
24:20 And so it's hard to say that they got particularly super lucky, but they also weren't not super
24:26 lucky if that makes any sense.
24:29 It makes plenty of sense because if you look at their season, they, they ran the gamut,
24:33 right?
24:34 Like they gave you the full experience possible.
24:37 Like we can talk project, you know, projections and percentiles.
24:40 And it's like, you guys got everything from zero to a hundred over the course of the year,
24:44 which is like remarkable.
24:46 And like, I'll be curious if in a few years there's a study that's like, oh, there was
24:50 a spike of heart attacks in Texas in 2023.
24:55 We're trying to figure it out.
24:59 Putting a percentile on it is tough.
25:00 I think even with some of the downside in there, because it's something you would bake
25:05 in, like it, it feels like, like how many people were picking them to be where they
25:11 were.
25:12 So it feels like it has to be sneaky high, almost like 70, 80 percentile or 70th or 80th
25:17 percentile.
25:18 Right.
25:19 Yeah.
25:20 I feel like it because I felt, I felt optimistic with my 85 win projection.
25:24 I had them 85 wins in the third, the third wildcard team.
25:27 But I was like, I'm feeling really good about this team.
25:29 I didn't expect the offense to look like everybody to just break out the best way they did.
25:34 I'm a big Josh young guy, but I, even I didn't anticipate what he was doing in that first
25:38 half and Adoles figuring out how to walk at a good rate that that was very surprising.
25:45 But, you know, Corey Seager being one of the best players in baseball, that's not surprising.
25:49 Simeon being one of the best players in baseball, that's not particularly surprising when they're
25:53 a middle infield duo.
25:55 You paid half a billion dollars for seven and 10 years respectively.
25:59 Right.
26:00 So, yeah, I feel like I would say it's definitely high for sure.
26:05 Not to step in your toes there.
26:06 And I think it's interesting that you're mentioning all these things kind of click together.
26:09 Right.
26:10 But the Garcia thing is fascinating to me because he was kind of building toward that
26:14 for a few years, right?
26:16 Like he's been a progressively better player for the last few years.
26:20 And I think that's really, really interesting.
26:22 Like we Robert or writes with BP and he's developed.
26:27 Are you familiar with this?
26:28 I'm sorry.
26:29 The Seager metric.
26:30 Yeah.
26:31 Yes.
26:32 He's got the Seager metric and like it's named after Corey Seager for a reason, but Texas
26:34 ranked third in it as a team last year.
26:36 So it's like they're doing something collectively very interesting.
26:40 I know we're talking about Montgomery and kind of how the rotation has shaken out or
26:45 could shake out.
26:46 And we've talked about how strong the lineup is, but it seems like they might have something
26:50 cooking in terms of just being able to message with their players and being able to deliver
26:54 a message, at least in the hitting side.
26:57 I don't know.
26:58 Do you feel anything kind of like that on the pitching side when it comes to development
27:01 or in or on the roster right now?
27:04 Yeah.
27:05 In terms of development, I mean, this team has been a travesty at developing pitching
27:10 in general, but the, the, I mean, it's so hard to develop starting pitching for anybody,
27:14 but this team has been, they've been so unlucky with it.
27:17 And the fact that Cole Reagan's is sitting right there, anything short of a ring and
27:21 that Cole Reagan's trade haunts me consistently in the forefront of my mind for the rest of
27:26 my lifetime.
27:27 But, uh, I get to say good on you, Cole Reagan's happy for you go thrive.
27:31 But the hitting side, yes, this hitting staff is, is phenomenal.
27:34 I mean, Donnie Ecker as the bench coach slash offensive coordinator who they took over was,
27:39 I think a very big part of that 2021 giant season going nuts offensively.
27:44 Tim Hyers is a very good hitting coach as well.
27:46 And Seth Connors is a pretty solid assistant hitting coach, but yeah, I think the messaging
27:50 is very, very solid and having Bruce Bochy there and that calming influence, like I think,
27:56 and Mike Maddox as a calming influence on the pitching side.
27:59 Like I think just their presence as a coaching staff and the way they're able to get their
28:03 message across to players, whatever they're doing is incredibly effective and I don't
28:08 see it changing.
28:10 And so I think that will kind of lead to a lot of success.
28:14 If it could lead to the success of developing one singular, like number three, homegrown
28:19 starting pitcher.
28:21 Like if any of Owen white, Jack lighter, you know, Brock Porter, Kuma rocker, if any of
28:28 those guys turn into a big league, number three, I think I might even be happier at
28:32 that than the world series.
28:34 Probably not, but like, you know, a guy can dream for, for some kind of miracles, miracles
28:39 before we get out of here, I want to go through what is, what is your worst case scenario
28:44 or 10th percentile outcome and your 90th percentile outcome for how the season could go with Rangers
28:49 because of the teams in major league baseball, I'm a little biased, but I think this, this
28:54 Ranger squad might have the biggest gap for what, how the worst of it could go and how
28:59 the best the season could go.
29:01 Yeah.
29:02 I mean, we didn't even really, we, we maybe mentioned the bullpen momentarily, but we
29:06 didn't really dig into it.
29:07 And like, I thought it was interesting that they signed David Robertson for a kind of
29:12 like that, um, like experienced guy Chapman role while letting Chapman go.
29:18 Um, I think that's the kind of thing that could maybe pay some dividends through the
29:23 regular season.
29:24 I think we've seen David Robertson come up, uh, with some mixed results later on, but
29:29 he's a guy who is really, really good.
29:31 It still has a devastating off-speed pitch that could kind of like be a sneaky calming
29:36 presence or, um, you know, reliable presence on the mound through some really tough times.
29:43 Um, and I think that would lead to kind of something like, I mean, I, we can't repeat
29:49 last year.
29:50 We do, then that's like, that's like thousandth percentile, right.
29:52 With how things mix well together.
29:56 But even when you're talking about the staff, what you're really getting at, it seems as
29:59 is it, it's like the right people being able to kind of swirl together this, uh, collective
30:05 thing that is beyond any given skillset that, that supplements it or compliments it rather
30:11 than tries to, um, you know, speak or work separately from it, which I think happens
30:16 with a lot of teams that aren't run well so that they have been willing to spend the way
30:20 they have, but also, uh, acquire the right people from a messaging perspective, I think
30:25 is a big deal that could lend itself to a similar season to 2023, but for as low as
30:32 it could be, I mean, I think it's again, I, how, how have we not seen it already?
30:37 Right.
30:38 Like we, we saw that streak after they were 71 and 48 and it was, it was bad and it was
30:44 rough and, and really through a lot of doubt in the things.
30:48 I think what, what the Texas Rangers could be is what we've seen the Texas Ranger, Texas
30:53 Rangers already be right in that, um, lowest percentile, it might be like a, like a 20.
31:01 Like what if all the pitcher's arms fall off, like our pet's heads in early nineties movies.
31:08 Um, and then again, what if they don't, uh, this is like the best part of projection season
31:14 for me.
31:15 Yeah, that would be awesome.
31:17 Like if it didn't happen that way.
31:19 Um, I don't know.
31:21 I feel like I'm almost beating around the bush, but I feel like we can't expect a repeat
31:27 because it would be unhealthy on your poor.
31:32 I think it would definitely be unhealthy, but like not quite as unhealthy because some
31:36 of that burden, I mean, you know, as, as growing up as a Phillies fan, like once, once it's,
31:41 once it's, once it's happened, I don't know about how this actual season will be, but
31:45 I'm hoping in the other sports that I've been watching after the Rangers won the world series,
31:49 no matter how devastating the loss, even when the Cowboys, you know, crap, the bed and the
31:53 playoffs or, you know, when the Mavericks have some bad thing, whatever other sports
31:56 team I'm watching.
31:57 And if it goes horribly wrong in a way that would have utterly devastated me, even just
32:02 like a year ago, I'm just like, Oh, Oh, well, let me go watch that Corey Seager home run.
32:07 Let me go watch that walk-off home run by Adolis Garcia.
32:10 Cause nothing can hurt me anymore.
32:12 I think that, I think that that might rub off a little bit onto this team this year.
32:17 And even if it doesn't, again, I'm just going to go watch that Corey Seager high drive.
32:22 It's tied home run go and make all of my pain and troubles go away, but thank you so much
32:27 for joining me on joining me today, Tim, where can the fine people, fine people listening,
32:33 listen to find your work.
32:34 Gosh, I have just lost all of my words.
32:36 Where can the people listening to this find all of your good work?
32:40 They can find it at baseball prospectus, me and many other much smarter people who are
32:45 very worth every subscription dollar you could send it to the site.
32:50 We have so, so much going on there, but you can find me at baseball prospectus.
32:54 You can find me on Twitter at Tim Jackson says, and on blue sky, I think at the same
33:00 handle.
33:01 And, and again, really BP I'm there twice a week.
33:06 And so are a bunch of other really, really smart people.
33:08 BP is such a great site doing such great projections.
33:12 I can't wait to be very annoying at the end of the season.
33:15 If the Rangers outwork those projections, you see, take that hating computer.
33:19 The Rangers have heart that no computer could ever manage to capture.
33:24 But Tim, thank you so much for joining me.
33:27 Y'all thank you so much for listening and subscribing.
33:29 And until next time, don't forget to enjoy world series champion, Texas Rangers baseball.
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