Locked On Rangers Podcast: Eovaldi looks ready, Max Scherzer ramping up, Wyatt Langford can't be sent down
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00:00 On Monday, Mike Langford did something that he's never done before in the Cactus League.
00:03 And it shows why the Rangers have absolutely no choice but to keep him on the opening day roster.
00:08 Talk about all that and more on this episode of Locked on Rangers. Let's get into it.
00:11 You are Locked on Rangers.
00:16 Your daily Texas Rangers podcast.
00:19 Part of the Locked on Podcast Network.
00:22 Your team, every day.
00:25 You are Locked on to the World Series Champion Texas Rangers.
00:38 I'm Bryce Patrick, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan covering this team for 10 seasons,
00:43 including all five as the founder and host of this podcast.
00:46 Thank y'all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day.
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01:01 Now, before we get into what Wyatt Langford done in the Cactus League that he's never done before,
01:05 and about Nathan Eovaldi looking just about ready for opening day,
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01:24 Now, Wyatt Langford has done a lot of things in the Cactus League so far.
01:28 He's done a lot of good things in his professional career as short as it has been.
01:33 But the thing that he did on Monday that he's never done before in the Cactus League is DH.
01:40 He hit third and DH'd, and that might be where he slots into this opening day lineup.
01:47 Yeah, you heard me right.
01:49 Hitting third and DHing on opening day for your Texas Rangers.
01:55 Now, there's a reason that he hasn't DH'd at all this spring.
01:58 It's because the main question about Langford is not whether he can hit,
02:01 because everybody in the world knows that this man can hit and hit incredibly well for such a young age
02:07 and for such a lack of professional at bats.
02:11 But the question was, can he play the outfield?
02:14 Can he play defense?
02:16 What does that glove look like?
02:18 Is it good enough to hang in a major league outfield every day or just fairly often?
02:26 And to me, that always felt like a kind of superfluous question about Wyatt Langford.
02:31 Yeah, he doesn't have a whole lot of experience in the outfield in college or in the minors
02:36 because he just switched to playing outfield full-time as a sophomore in college,
02:40 so the reps aren't exactly there.
02:42 But the kid is incredibly fast.
02:44 He's incredibly athletic.
02:45 He is an exceptionally hard worker, and it's just left field.
02:51 I mean, it's not like the Rangers are asking him to, you know, play shortstop every day
02:55 or even center field or even go back to catching, which actually he might do better
03:00 because he has more experience catching because he was a catcher in high school and early on at Florida.
03:06 But he's not a catcher anymore.
03:08 He's an outfielder, and primarily, he's a hitter.
03:12 One of my favorite prospects to cover coming up through the Rangers system was Willie Calhoun.
03:17 Now, when the Rangers traded for him, this might put you off, but just hear me out.
03:21 Hear me out, okay?
03:23 Because Willie Calhoun was not a defender.
03:26 He was a hitter.
03:27 He was a pure hitter, and he was a darn good hitter until whatever the Rangers started teaching him
03:33 just was not sinking in, and he stopped being the kind of hitter that he was coming up through the minor leagues.
03:39 But the guy was a second baseman/left fielder/mainly a DH,
03:43 but everyone knew that Willie Calhoun's bat was the thing that was going to carry him to and through the big leagues.
03:49 And so when scouts would ask Willie Calhoun, "What position do you play?"
03:53 he would always answer, "Three-hole hitter."
03:57 Now, that's baller.
03:58 That's a baller line, and it's one of the reasons why I loved Willie Calhoun.
04:02 Now, if you asked this young man, Wyatt Langford, what position he plays,
04:06 he's probably not going to say three-hole hitter, and that's fine.
04:10 But he is.
04:12 He is what we hoped Willie Calhoun would be, and then some.
04:16 This guy has been lighting up spring training, and some of the questions for putting him at DH
04:21 are this is a guy who's not had a lot of DH experience,
04:23 and it's not something you'd usually do to a young kid, especially one as athletic as Wyatt Langford.
04:29 If he's got the potential to be a plus-out fielder, which I think he does, especially in left field,
04:34 then you want to get that glove in the field, keep him engaged,
04:37 keep him in the routine that he is used to playing baseball games.
04:41 You go out on defense, and you don't just sit in the dugout for half the game like DHs do.
04:46 And so the worry was can this kid stay mentally engaged?
04:50 Can this kid stay locked into his at-bats when he's not going out there, and he's out of his normal routine?
04:57 Well, all he did was go two for three with a walk, an RBI double, a hard hit single,
05:03 and the only out that he produced was him running out a fielder's choice
05:07 instead of making it a ground ball grounded into a double play.
05:11 And immediately, it was followed up with a reward as the first spring home run from Mr. Ezekiel Durian,
05:18 who, by the way, also continues to absolutely crush it.
05:22 But there's been a lot of questions about whether Wyatt Langford would stay up or whether he'd go down,
05:25 and if he really needed those reps that badly on his defense.
05:29 And the fact of the matter is, it's true that he might have his development stunted
05:35 if Wyatt Langford is just an everyday DH at the big league level.
05:40 That's true.
05:42 But the main value of Wyatt Langford is that this kid is an absolutely exceptional,
05:47 unbelievable, ungodly good hitter already.
05:53 He is already maybe the second best hitter in this Rangers lineup at this point,
05:59 behind just Corey Seager.
06:01 And if Corey Seager's not there, I think this might be the best hitter in this lineup in general.
06:07 Now, again, spring training stats don't matter all that much,
06:10 but the processes and the results that they lead to do matter.
06:15 The guy has four home runs, 10 RBIs, five walks to 10 strikeouts, a 379, 472, 827—
06:23 excuse me, 828 is a sluggish percentage.
06:25 That is a 1,300 OPS, which, in case you were curious, is indeed the best OPS in the entire Cactus League.
06:38 The entire Cactus League, half the league, half of Major League Baseball,
06:41 all those 15 teams out there in Arizona, or however many there actually are out in Arizona,
06:45 maybe there's 14 and 16 in the Grapefruit League, I don't know.
06:48 But there's a large chunk of teams that includes the Dodgers,
06:52 who have quite a few good hitters on their team,
06:54 and includes the Padres, who have quite a few good hitters on their team.
06:58 Wyatt Langford is hotter than anybody in all of Arizona, which is a pretty darn hot place.
07:07 Now, Chris Young, when he was asked about if the new competitive balance bonuses
07:13 for keeping a player on your roster from opening day and they win Rookie of the Year or get top three MVP votes,
07:18 he said, "That's not a consideration when we're taking into consideration if Wyatt Langford is going to stay up."
07:24 And Bruce Bochy, when he was asked about if Wyatt Langford has already earned his spot on the opening day roster,
07:28 was definitely beating around the bush and would not give any straight answers.
07:32 This is about the time of year, with about two weeks left, about I think 10 days left in Surprise,
07:38 before they come back to Texas, that, "All right, this is when we got to, you know, put our nose to the grind zone
07:44 and figure out, all right, who is actually going to be on this opening day roster?
07:48 Who is good enough to make the cut? How do we feel about what they've shown in spring training, their processes?
07:54 Are they going to help this team be the best that it can be at the big league level from day one?"
08:00 And when you're looking at this roster and when you're looking at Wyatt Langford,
08:05 there's no way you can look at this roster and say, "Wyatt Langford isn't the best option to have at DH every single day,"
08:13 or the fact that they need to have his bat in this lineup each and every single day,
08:17 regardless of how much it stunts his development in the outfield,
08:20 which is something that, frankly, working with the coaches every single day at the major league level,
08:26 whether he's getting everyday game reps in left field or right or center or wherever,
08:30 that's beside the point. This kit is just too darn good to keep in the minor leagues for whatever other kind of seasoning,
08:38 even if it's for just a month or six weeks or even three weeks.
08:44 You've got to have this bat in your lineup. This lineup is already the strength of this team.
08:50 But adding Wyatt Langford in there and adding Evan Carter in there every day,
08:54 wherever Evan Carter hits, wherever Wyatt Langford hits, which I think will probably be third for,
09:01 if not from the start of opening day, but at some point this year, he's going to be hitting in that top four of the order
09:06 because his bat is just that darn good.
09:10 If you want to win games, if you want to compete and finally win that AL West,
09:15 if you want to shove the Astros down and kill that dynasty and kill the hope of the Mariners surpassing you
09:22 with what they did this offseason, because they frankly had a much better offseason than the Rangers,
09:26 and it's not particularly close by my estimations, but I still think this Rangers team is better than the Mariners,
09:32 is better than the Astros, and if you want to be that, then you cannot keep your secret weapon,
09:38 your very not-so-secret weapon, because everybody knows how good this kid is.
09:43 You cannot keep him in the minor leagues for another second.
09:48 He is good enough to hit big league pitching right now, and if you want to win games,
09:53 if you want to win the AL West, if you want to be the first team to go back-to-back winning World Series this millennia,
10:00 then Wyatt Langford has got to be in your lineup from day one.
10:06 Coming up, we're talking about some good injury news on the front of Max Scherzer
10:10 and Nathan Eovaldi looking completely ready for opening day, right after this break from our sponsors.
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11:26 Later on this week, possibly tomorrow, I'll be talking with Grant Schiller, who is out there in Surprise,
11:30 to get some eyes on Prospects and the big league club.
11:33 And I'm sure he will have also many, many glowing things to say about Wyatt Langford.
11:39 Now, the Rangers got some good injury update news on Monday.
11:43 Mad Max is coming back. He is working back up.
11:46 And those reports about the 12-week mark since that surgery, that was a big deadline for him.
11:54 He went and saw a specialist and got it all checked out.
11:57 And the reports were very, very good. He is ramping up his baseball.
12:02 "More aggressive baseball activities" was the quote that Chris Young used to describe what Max Scherzer has been doing lately.
12:10 And he is hopefully coming back in June.
12:14 That is the ideal timeline. That is the earliest I think we can expect him.
12:18 Whether that's early June or mid-June or late-June, who knows at this point.
12:24 I'm kind of hoping for early June, obviously. The sooner the better of the return of Max Scherzer.
12:30 Because of the three big pitchers the Rangers have on the shelf for a huge chunk of this season,
12:36 Scherzer is the one who is likely to come back the soonest.
12:40 And I think I speak for most people when I say that I expect Scherzer to be the most, I guess, healthy of those three.
12:51 Obviously the Rangers are going to get him for the most of this season.
12:54 But I think of the recovery processes, coming back from back surgery, I'm hoping and thinking,
13:00 maybe it's optimistic because Scherzer is the oldest of this group,
13:04 that Scherzer will be the most like himself this year.
13:08 The Rangers would ideally have the best versions of all three of these guys that have been on the shelf,
13:13 that will be on the shelf for most of this season.
13:15 When they come back, hopefully they're just 100% look exactly like they do all the time,
13:19 and there's no worries about that whatsoever. That would be great and ideal.
13:23 And I think that DeGrom is probably going to be maybe closer than Malley.
13:30 Because I have yet to see Jacob DeGrom on a baseball mound the last, you know,
13:35 five, six, seven, eight years where he hasn't been absolutely astounding.
13:39 It's just, has he been on there?
13:42 Now Max Scherzer is the oldest of this group, but the Rangers saw a very, very good version of him down the stretch
13:47 last year when he was healthy in the regular season.
13:50 When he came back in the postseason, it was probably a little earlier than he should have been coming back
13:55 from that terrorist major injury.
13:57 But he was effective enough? Not great.
14:02 But again, he was basically rehabbing at the big league level in the ALCS in the World Series.
14:08 And it's not a shocker that he wasn't fully right.
14:12 The Rangers didn't need the apex version of Max Scherzer in the ALCS in the World Series.
14:19 They just needed some innings because the rest of their rotation was just totally decimated.
14:26 And this year, it's not quite as totally decimated at this point.
14:30 You'll have to ask me again in a couple of weeks and hopefully it's still this healthy version.
14:36 But the Rangers probably aren't getting peak Max Scherzer back.
14:40 He's probably not going to be a guy who pitches 200 innings in the season again.
14:46 He's creeping up very close to 30 or 40 if he's not 40 already.
14:52 And he's got a lot of innings under his belt.
14:54 I mean, over 3,000 career innings.
14:57 Even though he's been healthy for the vast majority of his career, the last couple of years, Father Time gets everybody.
15:02 Nobody goes through unscathed.
15:04 Even Adrian Beltran we saw towards the end of his career, the guy who fought the best fight with Father Time that I think we've seen in a while.
15:11 I mean, outside of Nolan Ryan, who just stonewalled Father Time.
15:16 I mean, he gave him the Robin Ventura treatment, Father Time.
15:19 That was Mr. Nolan Ryan.
15:21 And there's never going to be another Nolan Ryan again, and that's fine.
15:24 We can accept that.
15:26 But Max Scherzer, the Rangers aren't asking for Cy Young level Max Scherzer.
15:30 They're asking for pretty good, competent number three pitcher.
15:35 Maybe number two if things are working out and he's looking like he did down the stretch with the Rangers in the regular season.
15:41 Everyone thought, "Oh, well, this guy, because he's not doing well with the Mets on a terrible Mets team, then he must be terrible.
15:47 That's just it. He's just done forever."
15:50 But that wasn't the case with the Rangers.
15:52 In eight starts in the regular season, he pitched 45 innings, 53 strikeouts.
15:56 That is 10.5 Ks per nine.
15:58 The home run rate was down from one point-- from much higher with the Mets down to just one home run per nine innings with the Rangers.
16:06 And only 5.6 hits per nine that whip was below one.
16:10 He was in a very good place with the Rangers getting back with Mike Maddox.
16:14 I mean, last year, it feels like a disappointment, a disappointing year for Max Scherzer.
16:20 And he still pitched 153 innings-- 152 2/3 innings, excuse me, with 174 strikeouts in a 3.2 baseball reference for.
16:29 That's a down year for Max Scherzer.
16:32 A down year.
16:34 And he did all of that.
16:36 That's a pretty darn good year for most people.
16:39 Grady had an ERA north of four with the Mets, but he was much, much better with the Rangers.
16:43 He got that home run problem much more under control.
16:46 The slider was more the slider that we've seen, and it's been one of the deadlier pitches in baseball.
16:52 And he got back to that all-star level form, which is what he was when he was starting in healthy with the Rangers.
16:58 And he saved the Rangers' bacon in quite a few of those starts.
17:02 That one start in Minnesota particularly is the one that I'm thinking of when the Rangers were in the most desperate, desolate, horrific stretch of their season.
17:10 Everything looked like it was falling off the rails, and they couldn't get a win to save their life.
17:16 And then Max Scherzer stepped on the mound in one of the most important starts of the season and delivered the Rangers that win with an exceptional performance in the midst of a truly hopeless stretch.
17:29 And even the start where he got hurt against Toronto, in Toronto, he was exceptional and helped the Rangers get that mop of the Toronto Blue Jays, that four-game sweep in Toronto when everything felt as hopeless as it's ever been after that pummeling at home by the Astros.
17:48 And it got things back on track.
17:50 I mean, this guy was a huge part of their season, and he's going to be a pretty big part of their season this year.
17:55 It's not going to be all on Max Scherzer to just carry the load.
17:59 There's five other capable starting pitchers in this camp right now.
18:03 Maybe Jack Leiter is under consideration to be one of those five guys.
18:07 If Jack Leiter is considered capable by the Rangers who have a lot more data than we do and know a lot more generally than I do and than probably you do, unless you're some other very smart baseball mind.
18:22 If you're like, I don't know, the Dodgers GM, Andrew Friedman, then maybe you know a little bit more than the Rangers do.
18:28 But for the most part, they know their players better than us fans and even media people do as well.
18:35 And if they feel like Jack Leiter is capable, then great.
18:38 That is a healthy complement of six starting pitchers that you start your year with.
18:42 Hopefully all of them are healthy for at least most of the season, especially Nate Eovaldi.
18:48 They are really banking on the health of him, but Max Scherzer coming back and being around the same version of pitcher that he was down the stretch with the Rangers last year.
18:56 That is an incredibly valuable, incredibly good pitcher.
19:00 And even though he's going to be this is age 39 season, this guy is still very effective and the people writing him off.
19:08 I don't think they watched him down the stretch with the Rangers last year.
19:11 They just saw, oh, this guy's giving a bunch of home runs with the Mets and he's old.
19:16 So therefore, it's time to doubt Max Scherzer.
19:19 I mean, there was a column written about Max Scherzer signing that big, massive contract with the Nationals where he won two Cy Youngs and finished top three.
19:28 I believe pretty much every year that he was there in Washington.
19:32 And it was a gross overpay. It was, oh, my gosh, how can you pay for this guy who just turned 30?
19:37 And he's got one Cy Young, but he's only had two seasons where he had Cy Young votes, but he ended up being one of the best pitchers of his generation.
19:46 And a large part of that was due to what he was doing with the Washington Nationals.
19:51 Yeah, he's a little bit on the older side, but he is still an incredibly intelligent pitcher, incredibly meticulous, ruthlessly hard worker.
19:59 And there's still a lot left in the tank for Max Scherzer coming off that 150 inning season.
20:06 If the Rangers get 150 innings out of him this year, I think that would be miraculous.
20:10 Aiming for something in the 100 to 125 inning range of quality innings for Max Scherzer, I think that's not something that's out of the question.
20:17 I think that's something the Rangers could desperately, like, definitely reasonably ask of him.
20:23 And I think that he can absolutely provide.
20:25 He is probably going to be in their postseason rotation if he is healthy at that point.
20:29 And he is going to eat a big chunk of innings down in the middle of the season.
20:33 The Rangers need to bank on his return and being at least a reasonably competent pitcher.
20:39 And even if he's not Cy Young Award winning Max Scherzer, this guy is still very valuable to this team.
20:46 Coming up, we'll talk about a couple, but more about the Rangers injury news front, including some news on Corey Seager, Josh Young, and Nate Iovale looking like he is totally ready for opening day.
20:57 Right after this word from our sponsors.
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22:04 Shout out to the avid listeners for making Locked On Rangers your first listen every single day.
22:11 Later on this week, I'll be talking about the importance of John Gray and why the Rangers just really need a big ol' year.
22:17 Maybe even a career year from John Gray in 2024.
22:21 The Rangers got some other great news on Monday about some injured players.
22:25 It seems like Corey Seager is working his way back.
22:29 We'll see if he's actually ready for opening day.
22:32 Whether he is or not, the Rangers obviously have some options.
22:35 Seeing what Ezekiel Duran did to that baseball on Monday was very encouraging.
22:41 What he's done to baseball is all spring training long.
22:44 He's looking much more like the player that he was in the first half when he was stepping in for Corey Seager.
22:49 Pretty much almost equaling that production.
22:52 Not quite offensively, but overall he was an incredibly valuable backup shortstop to have.
22:57 He might be your opening day shortstop.
22:59 Right now, Corey Seager is taking some swings and lightly tossed baseballs on Monday.
23:06 Josh Young has been cleared to start taking some at-bats in minor league games.
23:11 He is not playing the field yet. He is not running.
23:13 It is giving him a chance to get those at-bats in, get those reps in.
23:19 When the leg is fully healthy, he said that it was at 70% at this point in his calf.
23:26 It is giving him the chance to get those reps in like you would for a normal spring.
23:31 Even though he isn't able to run the bases, he is still getting himself ready.
23:37 Getting what you normally get out of spring training.
23:40 It doesn't take hitters nearly as long to get ready as pitchers.
23:43 I think at this point, him being cleared for at-bats is a good sign that he will probably be ready.
23:49 Or at least fully himself by opening day.
23:52 I don't anticipate there will be some massive bad stretch at the beginning of the season.
23:57 He is just not quite ready.
23:59 At this point, we have 16 days until opening day.
24:03 Getting those reps in every single day will be helpful.
24:07 Hopefully, we can get some news about him being cleared sooner or later.
24:12 It seems like he is not going to be fully cleared to play in spring training games.
24:17 Until those dress rehearsal games at Global Life Field against the Red Sox the week of opening day.
24:22 We are going to have to wait a little bit longer to finally see Josh Young in a Rangers uniform.
24:27 Getting those spring training games in.
24:30 As long as he is ready for opening day, that is what matters most.
24:34 Also, seeing that Corey Seager is starting to take some swings.
24:37 I am more hopeful that he will be ready for opening day.
24:40 Even if it takes a week or five days or whatever, he is not exactly ready for opening day.
24:46 Zeke Duran is your backup shortstop as we saw last year.
24:50 He is a pretty darn good backup shortstop to have.
24:53 Even if it is Josh Smith, he has been having a quietly very good spring training.
24:58 I have loved the at-bats I have seen from him.
25:00 I think his at-bats have a lot more potential than he has shown at the big league level so far.
25:04 He can obviously pick it at shortstop and in the outfield and wherever the heck the Rangers have him.
25:08 Whether he is the Rangers opening day third baseman and Zeke Duran is the opening day shortstop.
25:13 Neither of those two guys are ready.
25:15 If those are your backup two middle infielders, I guess corner/middle infielders,
25:20 then you are in a really good spot as a team.
25:23 You are also in a really good spot as a team if Nathan Eovaldi is your opening day starter.
25:27 It seems like that is going to be the case.
25:29 Nathan Eovaldi had a solid, not spectacular, but really, really solid outing in what he called basically his dress rehearsal on Monday.
25:40 Pitched four and two-thirds innings.
25:42 The walks did pile up on him in this one and that ended up being what ended his day.
25:47 Had five strikeouts, four hits, four runs, only three of which were earned in those four and two-thirds innings.
25:53 He threw 84 pitches through his entire arsenal.
25:57 Looked good, felt good.
25:59 Just a couple of mechanical tweaks that he is going to be making moving forward.
26:02 He might have two starts left this spring.
26:05 The next start is going to be a minor league game because the Rangers will be scheduled to play the Cubs at that point.
26:10 The Rangers are starting the season against the Cubs and he does not want to pitch against them twice in the span of ten days, which makes sense.
26:19 You would rather him use those bullets in a regular season game, especially opening day, than some spring game.
26:26 He is still getting those reps and still a couple of things to nail down.
26:30 The fastball velocity looks good.
26:32 The splitter looks really darn good.
26:34 Curveball looks good.
26:35 Cutter looks pretty solid.
26:37 Still a couple of tweaks there.
26:38 The slider is improving.
26:40 It is not a pitch that he threw a whole lot last year.
26:42 He is mainly a fastball, splitter, curveball, cutter guy.
26:46 The slider he only used about 3% of the time last year.
26:55 It was definitely a pitch that was not super effective.
26:57 That is one of the things that he talked about this spring.
26:59 He used the slider a lot less last year than he did in 2022.
27:03 In 2022, he threw the slider 12.2% of the time.
27:06 Last year, he cut that in a third.
27:08 Just 4% of the time he was throwing that slider.
27:10 It made him very, very effective.
27:11 The cutter, splitter, fastball, all those play very, very well off of each other.
27:15 The fastball velocity dipped down and the usage dipped down just a little bit.
27:19 I think a lot of that was because of what he was doing in the second half when he was rehabbing at the big league level.
27:25 Last year, that walk rate was a little bit higher than we have seen from him in years past.
27:29 In years past, he has been among the top 5% of baseball every year from 2020 to 2022.
27:37 He was in the top 5% of baseball, having the best walk rate.
27:41 He wasn't last year.
27:42 Last year, it was at 8.1%.
27:44 The league average is 8.4%.
27:46 Not a bad walk rate, but not elite, which is one of the things that the Rangers really loved about Nate Evaldi.
27:53 You look at that first half versus the second half, that walk rate,
27:56 that kind of shows you a lot of what he was dealing with, a lot of how effective he was.
28:01 The first half, his walk rate of the season was 6.8%.
28:05 Still not that elite level of 3% to 4.5%, which it was from 2020 to 2022,
28:13 but still better than it was in the second half when it jumped all the way up to 13.1%.
28:19 If you look at the postseason, 6.5% walk rate, fine.
28:24 You take out that 5-walk game in the World Series, just the World Series in general,
28:27 before that World Series, his walk rate was 3.9%.
28:32 In those first two starts of the postseason, in the wild-card game and against the Orioles and the ALDS,
28:37 he didn't walk a single batter in 13 2/3 innings.
28:42 That's what makes this guy special, is when he is pounding the zone, getting ahead of hitters,
28:45 and not letting that walk rate get out of control. Doesn't allow a lot of home runs, doesn't allow a lot of walks.
28:50 He does not beat himself, but he is an ace on the mound.
28:54 We saw that in the playoffs, and he is going to be the Raiders' ace for the vast majority,
28:58 if not all of this season, depending on what DeGrom looks like when he gets back
29:02 and how fully himself he is, and how Scherzer looks when he gets back, if he is his full self.
29:09 But the best version of Nate Eovaldi is an incredibly good pitcher,
29:13 and a pitcher that can be your number one to carry you through to a World Series,
29:17 which is what he did for this Rangers squad in 2023.
29:21 I think he is more than capable of doing it yet again this year.
29:25 Hopefully the Rangers don't have to rely on him as heavily to pitch 6, 7, 8, 9 innings
29:31 as often as he did in the first half of last year, so that he can stay healthy in the second half.
29:36 But again, I've talked about it before, but if he follows that same blueprint of what he did last year,
29:41 of being incredible in the first half, keep the Rangers in it, be that ace that they need
29:46 in the first half of the season, then once the Rangers get reinforcements at the trade deadline,
29:50 if he has to spend some time on the IL, or skip a start occasionally to make sure that he is fully ready
29:56 and fully his Nate Eovaldi, big dog, big game pitcher self come October,
30:01 when the Rangers get those reinforcements in Scherzer in June, Malley in July,
30:05 and hopefully DeGrom in August, then that's fine. That would be fine.
30:11 But the Rangers, especially in that first half, it's going to be a lot of pressure on Nate Eovaldi,
30:16 and him looking like he is ready to go 110% for day one.
30:21 Whether we see him again in an A start, I think we might see him in a shorter stint,
30:27 maybe in one of those games, maybe the final game in Arizona, he'll pitch a couple innings there.
30:32 But in terms of him being ready to go for opening day, the pitch count is built up,
30:38 the velocity is built up, and Nate "Big Dog" Eovaldi looks like he is ready to be that big dog,
30:45 that ace that the Rangers are going to desperately need him to be for the first half of the season,
30:50 and if they get to the playoffs, then they definitely need postseason Nate Eovaldi.
30:55 And when in his career has he not come up absolutely massive in the postseason?
31:00 I can't think of a single time. And the Rangers have got him on their staff,
31:04 hopefully of the many aces that they've acquired over the last couple years that they thought they'd have,
31:09 and we'll see if they can get another guy who can be a playoff level starter.
31:14 If they actually--no, I'm not even going to mention him this episode. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.
31:19 I'm not mentioning the big tall lefty that has been the big question mark over the entire offseason.
31:23 I'm not doing it. We're talking about how great Nate Eovaldi is, because he is here for sure this season,
31:28 and hopefully he can look just as good as he looked down that postseason stretch in the entire first half this year,
31:34 and hopefully carry the Rangers to a back-to-back championship as that ace.
31:38 That's going to do it for today's show. Thank you all so much for listening and subscribing,
31:42 and until next time, don't forget to enjoy World Series champion Texas Rangers baseball.
31:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]