Locked On Rangers: Evan Carter's injury scare, early positive signs from spring training, slow-playing Adolis Garcia, and Jonah Heim
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00:00 Spring training games have started and we've already got an injury scare for the little savior
00:04 and some positive news about the Rangers starting pitching staff one time through the rotation.
00:08 Talk about all that and more on this episode of Locked on Rangers. Let's get into it.
00:12 You are locked on Rangers.
00:16 Your daily Texas Rangers podcast.
00:19 Part of the Locked On Podcast Network.
00:23 Your team, every day.
00:25 [Music]
00:35 You are locked on to the World Series champion Texas Rangers.
00:38 I'm Bryce Paddock, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for 10 seasons,
00:42 including all five as the founder and host of this podcast.
00:45 Thank y'all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day.
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00:56 where the best way you can help grow the show is to comment nearly any single thing below.
01:00 Now, before we get into Evan Carter's injury scare, the positive news and developments on these starting pitchers,
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01:18 Now, the Rangers have three spring training games under their belts so far,
01:23 and the most important thing to come out of those spring training games was an injury scare
01:28 on Sunday's 0-0 tie to the San Francisco Giants.
01:33 Yes, they do have ties in spring training. It's not that big a deal.
01:36 But the scariest news to come out of these first three games is that Evan Carter left the game on Sunday
01:42 with a hit-by pitch. The first lefty that he faced, he got hit in the arm by some velocity from Mr. Harrison,
01:50 Kyle Harrison from the San Francisco Giants, the 22-year-old left-handed pitcher.
01:56 Nailed Evan Carter in the forearm with a pitch. He left the game.
02:00 Immediately, trainers came over to him, and Rangers Twitter for about 40 minutes was a burst with,
02:07 "Oh, God. Oh, no. This is how it starts. This is how bad things happen.
02:10 This is how everything is going to come apart. This is deeply upsetting.
02:16 This 21-year-old budding superstar is going to get injured in spring training,
02:21 and we're going to have to miss him for some amount of time."
02:24 Well, the good news came back less than an hour later, according to the Rangers.
02:28 They had the good news themselves within about five minutes of him leaving that game.
02:33 But the x-rays were negative. There is no broken forearm.
02:36 There is just a bruise. He is day to day at this point.
02:41 But still a concerning thing to see happen to your 21-year-old phenom,
02:47 who was a postseason superhero and the Rookie of the Year favorite at this point in the American League,
02:53 according to FanDuel's odds.
02:56 But Evan Carter, this is not the first time he's gotten hit by a pitch.
02:59 It certainly won't be the last time.
03:02 But it was one of the major concerns about him last year.
03:05 Not that he gets hit by pitches too much. It's that he is very thin.
03:10 He's a very tall young man, but he is very thin.
03:13 He is not the most beefy of boys, unlike his new best buddy, Wyatt Langford.
03:19 There is not a whole lot of meat on them bones to where if he gets hit by a pitch,
03:23 then it's not as big a deal.
03:26 So last year, he was hit by pitches several times by lefties.
03:31 But those hit by pitches really sapped him of his power for a large chunk of last season in the minor leagues.
03:38 It was one of the big concerns for him in general, is asking how much power is Evan Carter going to have?
03:45 And if he's able to get hit by these pitches and lose a lot of his strength
03:50 because he doesn't have as much bulk on him, and that saps him of his power.
03:56 Or worse off, it would make him more prone to getting hurt if he is hit by a pitch.
04:02 That is one of the concerns with him.
04:04 It's that he is not as beefy a boy as you might hope for a guy who is listed at 6'2", 190 pounds at this point.
04:12 I think he might be a little bit more than that. He apparently added a lot of weight this offseason.
04:18 We've also seen him play a little bit of right field, which was one of the questions that I had.
04:21 How good is his arm? Is it good enough for right field?
04:24 And so far, the answer has been yes.
04:26 We haven't seen a lot of Adoles Garcia talk a little bit more about that later on in the show.
04:30 But they're going to play him in all three outfield positions.
04:33 At this point, it feels like it's going to be Evan Carter in left, Adoles in right, and Lioti in center.
04:39 I might be more inclined to put Evan Carter in center field and Lioti in left field.
04:48 Because of the consistency of Evan Carter's defense, of his route running,
04:51 he's not going to make as many spectacular plays as Lioti.
04:54 But I think he's a little bit faster, and I think his range and his reads are a little bit more consistent than we've seen from Lioti Tavares.
05:02 But Tavares is the incumbent in center field, so it seems like that question that was at least a question to me
05:08 is not a question to the Rangers or to Bruce Bocce.
05:11 Evan Carter is playing left field all throughout the playoffs.
05:14 Lioti Tavares is playing in center field all throughout the playoffs and that stretch run in September.
05:19 So it seems like, yep, that's going to be the case.
05:22 But one of the positive notes, one of the fun things from this spring training is that,
05:27 well, in case you hadn't noticed, the Rangers have two of the top prospects in all of baseball.
05:32 They're both very young, very exciting, very fun, and should be very good for many years to come.
05:38 And Evan Carter and young Wyatt Langford.
05:41 But the two of them had not met before this spring training.
05:44 They had not hung out down that postseason stretch. Wyatt Langford was not traveling with the big league club,
05:49 so he had not met Evan Carter because basically every time that he got promoted to a higher level,
05:54 Evan Carter had basically just been promoted right ahead of him, usually within a couple of weeks.
05:59 When he made it to double-A, Evan Carter had been in triple-A for not that long.
06:04 And then once he made it to triple-A, Evan Carter was in the big leagues.
06:07 So the two hadn't met just yet.
06:09 But so far, basically every picture I've seen of them together in spring training
06:14 and everything that the Beats that are on the ground in Arizona have seen is these two guys are forming a very fast friendship.
06:23 They are hitting in all the same batting groups. They are following each other around.
06:27 And Wyatt Langford is soaking up the intelligence, the experience of Evan Carter.
06:34 Yeah, the 22-year-old, not yet rookie, is soaking up experience from the 21-year-old,
06:41 who just did exactly what he is hoping to do in break into this club, this very good club, this very good lineup,
06:49 and be a big contributor right away.
06:51 And I think that he's obviously learning from all the other vets around the clubhouse, from Corey Seager, Marcus Simian.
06:57 Those guys aren't as talkative as much as just observing what they do and how they go about their business
07:02 and learning what it's like to be a superstar in the major leagues.
07:06 But I think that's a great pairing, not only because it just makes my heart happy,
07:10 and I'm sure many other Rangers fans' hearts happy to see, "Oh, look at these two young, budding superstars.
07:16 Look at them being best buddies. Look at them imagining them playing the outfield together,
07:20 hitting second and third in the lineup."
07:24 Not that I think that's going to happen much during the regular season, especially if Corey Seager is back.
07:28 But just imagining a future a few years down the road of these two guys propelling this Rangers team to,
07:34 I would say, new heights, but this team did just win the World Series.
07:37 So, familiar heights for the extended long term.
07:42 And I think there's a lot to be learned from Evan Carter, from his rapid development.
07:46 I mean, Wyatt Langford is probably going to move through the minors.
07:50 He's already moved through the minors at an insane rate.
07:54 We've seen Evan Carter jump through the minors pretty quickly.
07:58 I mean, he came up in 2023 as a 21-year-old who had had, what, two weeks of AAA ball under his belt?
08:06 He did spend basically the full season at AA, did come up the year before at AA, won a Texas League championship,
08:14 and then a World Series championship the year afterwards. That doesn't usually happen.
08:18 But learning from this kid and saying, "All right, how was it coming into this team in the middle of a postseason chase,
08:26 and then a postseason run, and then a World Series run, and a World Series championship?"
08:30 What was it like to acclimate yourself in there to not try and be like, "All right, I'm the kid. I'm the guy.
08:35 I am the one that's going to save everyone," and to be anointed the little savior by everyone else,
08:41 not by himself, because that's not what Evan Carter's about.
08:45 And that's not what Wyatt Langford's about.
08:47 He's not about to come into this team that just won a World Series and be like, "All right, guys, don't worry.
08:52 I'm here. I'm going to solve everything, every issue of why teams are overlooking us as the reigning champs,
08:59 why media and fans aren't respecting us as champs. Don't worry. I'm going to fix all of that by myself," because he's not.
09:06 Neither of these guys by themselves are going to fix that.
09:09 But I think learning from someone who literally just went through what he's hoping to go through,
09:14 learning how to acclimate to this clubhouse, what to do, how to go about your business,
09:18 what things are different from the major leagues than the minor leagues,
09:22 because Langford didn't even have that much time in the minor leagues.
09:25 It was 200 plate appearances in the minor leagues, plus 8 or 12 or however many he got in the postseason
09:33 that unfortunately Baseball Reference doesn't track, which is very annoying and frustrating to me.
09:37 But anyway, he is learning from someone who literally has just been there, just done that,
09:42 forming that budding friendship, that superstar, hopefully future superstar tandem.
09:47 It could be stars as early as this year because the expectations are sky high on both of these guys,
09:53 but they're also not going to be under a lot of pressure because the rest of this lineup is so stinking good.
09:58 The rest of this team is so stinking good, and they are riding the confidence high of just winning a World Series
10:03 and also being the underdogs and underestimated and picked by many different places to finish third in the row division coming off a championship.
10:11 But I think that's a very exciting development from this early first three games, first week and a half or so of spring training,
10:20 seeing those two being buddy-buddy, a couple of country boys, a couple of early draft picks
10:25 that might just turn around the future and long-term health of this Rangers team.
10:30 Coming up, we're going to look at what we've learned so far from the pitching staff,
10:33 some impressive, important developments, including from a prospect that I did not have high hopes for doing anything in the spring training.
10:40 Right after this word from our sponsors.
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10:56 That's $150 if your bet wins. They've got all kinds of different bets you can make on the NBA, on NHL, on MLB.
11:04 They've already got some early bets there. They've got Evan Carter as the odds-on favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year.
11:09 And his new best buddy, White Langford, has the third-best odds to win AL Rookie of the Year.
11:15 I think either of those guys are a solid bet.
11:17 They're going to be fighting with Jackson Holliday, but I think both those guys are going to have a great season this year.
11:23 So just visit fanduel.com/lockdown and shoot your shot.
11:26 FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA.
11:29 Shout out to the NBA for making Lockdown Rangers your first listen every single day.
11:36 On tomorrow's show, I'll be back and talking about this spring training game that's happening this afternoon
11:40 and why Marcus Simeon is so important to the Rangers lineup as the everyday leadoff man.
11:45 Now, we are almost officially finally one trip through the rotation in this spring training.
11:52 The only starting pitcher who hasn't pitched yet is John Gray.
11:55 We'll talk about him in just a second.
11:57 But so far, so good with this starting rotation.
11:59 This rotation, there have been a lot of questions about it this offseason.
12:03 And it would be kind of nice to have Jordan Montgomery back to kind of shore up this rotation just a little bit more,
12:09 especially in this first half while there are three very good starting pitchers on the shelf.
12:15 But so far, so good in this spring training.
12:20 Nathan Eovaldi has looked very, very good.
12:22 And one of the most positive developments is him sitting 96 miles an hour his first time out in spring training.
12:29 He went two innings, allowed a hit and a walk, no runs, no strikeouts, but sitting 96.
12:36 That is an important development.
12:39 There is not a whole lot of data out there for stat cast-wise for these spring training games, unfortunately.
12:45 It's not as readily available as it is during the regular season.
12:49 So you're kind of having to rely on eyewitnesses, people who are watching the gun out there in spring training,
12:54 whether it's the broadcast, whether it's the beat writers or whoever else is out there.
12:59 But that's a very positive development for him coming out there and so early on having that premium velocity.
13:08 Now, there's not many pitchers in this starting rotation that have more of importance of them maintaining that velocity,
13:15 having that higher velocity, high-end velocity than Eovaldi.
13:20 We saw when he was basically rehabbing at the big league level, when his stuff was playing down,
13:25 when that velocity was down during the regular season, he was not nearly as effective as a pitcher in the second half
13:30 when he was hurt and coming back.
13:33 But when he regained that velocity, when he was sitting in the mid-90s as opposed to the lower 90s,
13:39 it just made every single bit of his arsenal that much more potent.
13:43 It's part of why he was so incredibly good in the playoffs, because he was fully healthy,
13:47 because he was fully that dude empowered with the high-end velocity
13:53 and the combination of how much better that makes his splitter, how much better that makes his curveball, his cutter,
13:59 all the other aspects of his repertoire.
14:01 They play so much better when that fastball is up and moving and at the top of the zone.
14:07 When he can locate that fastball there with the premium gas, it makes it nearly impossible for hitters to hit.
14:13 And it sets up getting them to chase at those splitters below the zone and out of the zone in the dirt.
14:19 It makes it so much more effective.
14:21 So him just simply being that high-end and going multiple innings in his first time out,
14:27 that is a very good sign about Nathan Eovaldi.
14:30 He is so incredibly important to this team, to how they stack up in the first half,
14:35 and to how well this team can just maintain competing with the Astros and the Mariners
14:42 or whoever else is in that playoff hunt around there,
14:46 while they wait for the reinforcements from the starting pitching staff in Scherzer,
14:50 in eventually DeGrom and Tyler Mallee as well.
14:54 Nathan Eovaldi is going to have to be that dog that we saw in the first half of last year
14:58 and in the playoffs last year and kind of carry this rotation.
15:02 And I think he can definitely do it for the first half.
15:05 Now, if that load needs to be lightened for him in the second half so that he is fully healthy,
15:10 fully ready for the playoffs, I think that once they get those reinforcements in their rotation,
15:17 in the second half with Scherzer, Mallee, DeGrom,
15:20 then you can take a little bit of that pressure off of Eovaldi.
15:23 You can not have to run him as hard into the ground that I think they might have to do in this first half,
15:28 which is kind of what they did in the first half last year.
15:30 And he stepped up in a huge way.
15:32 I mean, he was so important that starting pitching staff,
15:34 and he was such an important part of this team staying out in front in the AL West for as long as they did.
15:41 This rotation to start the year is not that different from the first half rotation of last year,
15:45 which is when the Rangers were getting off to their insane start and getting that big old lead in the AL West.
15:51 They didn't have DeGrom for most of that.
15:53 They didn't have Scherzer for that first half.
15:56 They didn't have Jordan Montgomery.
15:58 They had MartÃn Pérez and John Gray and Dane Dunning and Andrew Heaney and Nate Eovaldi.
16:05 And that's what they have right now.
16:07 And I think that staff is good enough to carry them at least to be, you know, 500 or above 500,
16:12 or at least competing for a playoff spot, which is what the goal is in this first half.
16:16 But the rest of this rotation also looked very good their first time through the order.
16:19 Dane Dunning had a perfect inning with no strikeouts in that first game.
16:23 Cody Bradford did get lit up just a little bit, tagged for a solo home run, a hit, and a strikeout in a couple innings.
16:29 Eovaldi, like I just said, very solid.
16:31 And Andrew Heaney was in very Andrew Heaney-esque form in his Sunday start.
16:38 Got into trouble very early on, allowed a walk on the first four pitches, then plunked a guy.
16:43 And, well, we know what Andrew Heaney can do when he gets into a big jam.
16:48 He really turns up that strikeout stuff and gets even more relentless, even more locked in and loaded.
16:54 And ended up with two innings pitched, one hit, one hit by pitch, one walk, and five strikeouts.
17:00 The strikeout stuff was really, really going for Andrew Heaney in that one.
17:05 That was one of the things that I loved about Andrew Heaney's game, why the Rangers were signing him.
17:09 Even though he doesn't always go the deepest in the games, he does have that very good strikeout stuff.
17:15 We didn't see it as much this past year. We saw it in spurts.
17:19 Remember that first start that he had where he struck out, I believe it was ten batters in a row?
17:24 And tied a no-win Ryan record for the most consecutive strikeouts in Rangers history?
17:29 He has that in him. He definitely has that in him.
17:33 We saw him pitch five innings of one-run ball in a crucial World Series game when it mattered most.
17:39 We saw him come up very big in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Orioles.
17:44 Now, granted, he was lit up a little bit against the Astros, but a lot of the starting pitching staff was.
17:51 But Heaney's a solid number three, number four pitcher.
17:55 And when this rotation is healthy, right now, he's the number three pitcher.
17:59 He's the number three starter in this rotation, and they're going to need a lot out of him.
18:02 They're going to need some consistency and some health from him.
18:06 But we didn't see the Heaney that we thought we were going to get this past year.
18:11 I thought we were going to get more of the Andrew Heaney that we saw in 16 games for the Dodgers last year.
18:16 That 310 ERA, 110 strikeouts in 72 and 2/3 innings. I thought we would see more of that.
18:22 This year, instead of 13.6 Ks per nine, he was down to 9.2, which is still solid.
18:29 And still okay if a guy with a 415 ERA as your number five, six starter, which he was at the end of the season.
18:36 Or when that rotation was fully healthy, that's about where he was.
18:39 Ended up as your number three starter in a playoff rotation, which was less ideal.
18:44 But he came up big when the Rangers needed him most.
18:46 And I think that he is a big, important part of this pitching staff.
18:50 I am not so worried about Cody Bradford as the number five in this rotation.
18:53 Having a number five that is probably going to give you about five, maybe six innings every time out.
18:58 Probably not going to be anything spectacular.
19:00 Probably not going to have a whole lot of, you know, seven inning, 15 strikeout games from Cody Bradford.
19:05 But he's your number five in your rotation.
19:07 As long as he stays healthy, as long as he eats those innings, as long as he is not getting completely lit up and obliterated
19:13 and having a bunch of blow up starts where you're having to get a lot of innings from whoever your long man is in your pen, that's fine.
19:20 That's solid.
19:21 This offense is good enough to where you don't have to be perfect as a starting pitcher to keep your team in the game.
19:28 A lot of times they will give you a big old lead, let you go be more aggressive, let you go get outs and, you know,
19:36 suffer the consequences if you give up some hard contact because you're staying in the zone,
19:39 because you're trying to eat those innings and forcing the opposing teams to beat you more difficultly
19:46 because they are already down five, six runs because this offense is so good.
19:50 And I think Bradford is perfectly capable of being that.
19:52 I'm really excited to see what he's doing.
19:54 The update with John Gray, even though he hasn't pitched just yet,
19:57 is apparently he's working on tweaking his repertoire a little bit more,
20:00 throwing more of his change up, more of his curveball.
20:03 He's hoping that will help him be a more effective pitcher.
20:06 We saw what he can be at the top end of his game.
20:09 I mean, those three innings in game three of the World Series where he came in and relief of Max Scherzer.
20:14 Those were absolutely sensational.
20:16 Even those couple innings in, I believe it was game two that he also pitched in, in relief.
20:20 I mean, the guy was a monster out of the pen last year in the postseason,
20:24 hoping that he can be fully healthy and even if he is fully healthy, but if this rotation is fully healthy,
20:29 I'm not sure who's going to be in the starting rotation come playoff time.
20:33 I mean, ideally for me, I think there's the playoff rotation goes to Grom, then Evaldi, then Scherzer.
20:40 Then I'd say Malley is your number four starter, which means you get to put John Gray in the pen in the playoffs.
20:47 And we saw how effective that can be.
20:49 Now that's imagining that everybody is fully healthy and, you know, fully at their best come playoff time.
20:56 That's not a guarantee with three starters on the wrong side of 30 that are coming off of major injuries, but it's entirely possible.
21:04 And even if one of those guys isn't there, you know, fully healthy self ready to be in your playoff rotation,
21:09 John Gray is your number four starter in the playoff series.
21:12 That's really darn good.
21:14 That is a good number four starter.
21:16 That is a lot better number four starter than most teams have.
21:19 The depth of this rotation is a little sketchy behind that.
21:23 We did get some good news on Owen White so far in the spring training outing did get touched for a run in a couple of hits,
21:29 but he was sitting 94 to 96.
21:32 That is incredibly good news because last year with that neck injury, I mean, he was, he was in a rough way and they're going to need something from Owen White this year.
21:43 He's going to need to be a capable big league starter.
21:45 He's probably gonna have to pick up a couple of starts, maybe three, four or five, six.
21:49 Who knows how many starts?
21:50 I mean, you're hoping that there's no injuries to this, this initial five that you're hoping to ride for the entire first half,
21:58 but eventually there's going to need to be some days where he comes in and helps out.
22:02 But 94 to 96, that's more of where he was in years past where he was more effective.
22:06 Last year he was averaging, you know, 93.
22:09 The average pitch or the highest pitch that the fastest pitch he threw in triple A last year was 95.4,
22:15 according to Scott Lucas of the Newburgh report.
22:18 And that is a huge development for the Rangers.
22:20 A healthy Owen White is a big game changer for this team, for the depth of this rotation and any kind of injury help.
22:28 If there's something that happens to one of these five starters, having Owen White sitting in the mid nineties,
22:34 he might just steal a starting spot in this rotation from Cody Bradford.
22:37 Who knows?
22:38 But it is an encouraging sign so far from this starting pitching staff.
22:41 Coming up, we're talking about some of the stars that have not yet played in spring training.
22:45 Why that is, and a little bit of news about maybe Boston poning up and paying for Jordan Montgomery.
22:51 Right after this word from our sponsors.
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23:44 Shout out to the aviators making Lockdown Rangers your first listen every single day.
23:51 On Wednesday, I'll be back and talking about the importance of Corey Seager to this lineup.
23:56 And why his runner-up to MVP level season last year is probably going to be the expectation moving forward.
24:03 Now, there was some news that came out this morning from Peter Gammons.
24:06 Peter Gammons is a longtime MLB reporter. A lot of sources around Boston, lived in Boston and very tied to the Red Sox.
24:15 He tweeted this morning at 522 a.m. said one executive, one NL executive yesterday said, quote,
24:21 "We hear the Red Sox and Scott Borris had a good meeting recently and may get some deal eventually done on Jordan Montgomery." End quote.
24:28 Now, this has been one of the more obvious landing places for Jordan Montgomery.
24:34 If he doesn't come back to the Rangers, coming off of a rare Scott Borris L in free agency for one of his clients of Cody Bellinger,
24:43 taking that pillow deal, a three-year $80 million deal with opt-outs in all three years of that deal.
24:51 I guess after the first two, because after the third, he's the free agent anyway.
24:55 But it kind of seemed more likely that there might be more pillow contracts done.
25:00 There's obviously still four very big Borris clients that are out there on the market.
25:05 Jordan Montgomery is one of them. Blake Snell is another one of them.
25:09 We also have Matt Chapman, the third baseman that's still a free agent at this point.
25:13 And JD Martinez, who's apparently looking for about $20 million a year, was offered $14 million by San Francisco.
25:20 But turn that down and San Francisco pivoted and signed Jorge Soler.
25:24 So this makes all the sense in the world for Boston. Jordan Montgomery's wife is doing a residency, I believe, in Boston at this point.
25:33 And there was a lot of links there. Boston needs help in their starting rotation.
25:36 They think they might be competing this year. Their lineup is pretty solid.
25:40 They're an incredibly difficult division, but they could definitely use a Jordan Montgomery as the Rangers could as well.
25:45 If it is more of the realm that I thought it would be of five years, $100 million, I thought it was like the bare minimum for Montgomery.
25:55 If it's five years, 100 mil, I don't see why the Boston Red Sox couldn't do that.
25:58 They are one of the richer teams in baseball. They do have a very passionate, very strong fan base.
26:04 And that would be a huge loss for the Rangers, not being able to bring back Jordan Montgomery.
26:08 But I think at this point, the Rangers have made their peace with that, unless there is some kind of pillow deal happening,
26:15 which I don't see happening for Montgomery, because I don't see him having another year like last year and convincing everyone,
26:23 "Oh, wait, this is the new Jordan Montgomery."
26:25 He's coming off about as good a year as you could hope for Jordan Montgomery.
26:29 Around 180 innings, he was incredibly good with the Rangers down the stretch in the regular season.
26:34 He was incredibly good with the Rangers in the playoffs and helped them win a World Series title.
26:39 And I thought that would be enough for the Rangers to get over the hump and to bite the bullet and go deeper into that luxury tax to go bring back Montgomery,
26:47 because the fit made so much sense, because at that point, you might have a five-man rotation in the playoff time, come playoff time, if everyone's healthy,
26:57 where Tyler Mallee is your number five starter, and he might end up in the bullpen, or that might be Max Scherzer ending up in the bullpen,
27:04 in a four-man rotation of DeGrom, Eovaldi, then Scherzer, and Montgomery.
27:11 That's an insanely good playoff rotation.
27:14 It's still going to be pretty good even without Montgomery, assuming those guys are healthy, or even if one of them isn't,
27:19 that's still a darn good rotation, and with this Rangers lineup, it's good enough.
27:22 But just a frustrating development. It seems like that deal, it makes too much sense for it not to happen.
27:29 I mean, Montgomery makes a lot of sense in a lot of places, and I still don't understand why the market's been held up to this degree.
27:35 He's not asking for $180 million over six years.
27:39 I think his demands are pretty reasonable, and that would be a pretty decent price for a guy who I think is still very underrated and could help a lot of teams,
27:47 especially this Rangers team, but if that ends up being where he goes, good on him.
27:53 He is a World Series hero forever.
27:55 Thank you for the three-month stretch of bringing a Rangers World Series championship to Texas.
28:04 It's a beautiful thing, but hey, I've kind of made my peace with it at this point.
28:07 But there's some other news that came out, some injury news, unfortunately, about Chase Lee,
28:12 a right-handed relief pitcher that the Rangers drafted and developed and spent a lot of time in the AAA last year.
28:17 But he has suffered a labrum tear in his hip. He is going to be out until May.
28:22 I thought he was going to be competing for one of those last spots in the Rangers pen.
28:25 He's got some funky stuff. He is a side armor.
28:29 He is nicknamed the Viper, which is a delightful nickname because Sidewinder to Viper.
28:36 That's just kind of how these baseball nicknames go. A guy from the University of Alabama as an Alabama alum.
28:42 Very excited to see Chase Lee do some things with the Rangers, maybe in the big leagues this year.
28:47 Not entirely sure. I think I was more expected that he would make his big league debut
28:51 and help out the Rangers pen last year than I was with Grant Anderson.
28:55 But Anderson proved himself to be a solid big league believer and is a bummer for Chase Lee.
29:00 Thankfully, it's just out until May, not a longer-term injury than that,
29:04 but still definitely going to hurt the depth of competition for those final spots in the Rangers pen.
29:10 Now, last bit of news is that we have not seen Adoles Garcia or Jonah Heim in a spring training game yet so far.
29:17 They have the lineup out for today's game, as I am recording this, and neither of those guys are in the lineup.
29:23 So, led some Rangers fans to question, "Okay, are those guys hurt? Is everything okay?"
29:30 We did see Adoles Garcia's season ended by an oblique injury in the World Series last year,
29:36 but he came out of camp and everyone said he was fully healthy, feeling good,
29:40 and so there were some questions about, "Okay, why have we not seen him in this lineup yet?"
29:43 And it turns out the Rangers are slow playing him and Jonah Heim.
29:47 I think it's a great decision for both those guys.
29:50 They're both coming off a very, very long season where they both had to endure some injuries that were really tough on them.
29:57 The wrist injury for Jonah Heim was a toughie.
30:00 It was very difficult for him to come back and hit like his regular self after that injury.
30:05 He did find it for a little bit of a stretch in September, but overall just wasn't quite the hitter that he was earlier on in the season.
30:13 And he is a primary catcher. He is the Rangers' primary catcher, and that is a demanding position.
30:19 He played a lot of games last year, not quite a career high in games because of the time that he missed,
30:25 but 131 games last year, 501 play appearances during the regular season, and then--excuse me, that was a career high.
30:32 And then you add 17 playoff games onto that where he was catching literally every single one of those games.
30:37 That's a big wear and tear on your big boy catcher in Jonah Heim.
30:41 We've seen him fade down the stretch the last couple of years, so slow playing in spring training feels like a great move for him.
30:48 Adoles Garcia coming off of that oblique injury. He's also had some injury concern--another injury concern of the knee injury
30:56 that we thought might hint his season in September last year that led to Evan Carter's call-up.
31:00 So I think slow playing these guys, not playing them nearly as much in games early on--we haven't seen nearly as much of Mr. Iron Man
31:09 and Marcus Simeon in these spring training games--I think that's a good idea, especially for a team coming off a World Series run
31:16 that is a great thing for a team, but also makes your offseason a lot shorter, makes your recovery time a lot shorter.
31:24 So I think that slow playing these guys--usually for hitters, it doesn't take them nearly as long in spring training
31:29 to get fully acclimated, fully ready as it does the pitchers.
31:32 So I think there's definitely no reason for concern about not seeing Jonah Heim just yet, not seeing Adoles Garcia yet.
31:39 I think that's a smart move by this Rangers training staff, by this Rangers organization to say,
31:43 "Alright, that was a long run, a grueling run through the World Series. Both those guys were a little banged up,
31:49 and we want them fully healthy for the long run of this full season and hopefully another World Series run this year."
31:56 So don't worry too much about not seeing the regulars nearly as much.
32:00 There's a lot of young guys that we're going to see, hopefully a lot of.
32:02 We'll see--we next see Evan Carter coming off of that day-to-day arm contusion after being hit by that pitch.
32:09 Thankfully, it wasn't worse news there.
32:11 We'll see how much we see of Wyatt Langford. I think we'll see a lot of him in the outfield getting those rips there,
32:16 seeing how his chops are defensively.
32:18 We'll see a lot of Evan Carter in all kinds of different outfield spots, center, right, left.
32:23 Very excited to see what he can do, and I feel like his position is pretty well locked up.
32:28 And we'll see what Justin Foskew can do.
32:30 If his bat is, they deem, a little bit more advanced or more ready for opening day than Wyatt Langford,
32:36 he might end up as the Rangers' opening day DH.
32:38 Who knows? Still a lot of things to learn from this spring training, a week and a half in to everybody being in camp.
32:44 That's going to do it for today's show.
32:45 Thank you all so much for listening and subscribing, and until next time,
32:48 don't forget to enjoy World Series champion Texas Rangers baseball.
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