Locked On Rangers Podcast: Monty remaining domino, first look at The Show, final roster cuts looming
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00:00 With Blake Snell off the board, Jordan Montgomery is the last big free agent domino to fall.
00:04 And it seems like Chris Young's patient approach might just pay off in a Jordan Montgomery reunion after all.
00:10 Talk about all and more on this episode of Locked on Rangers. Let's get into it.
00:13 You are Locked on Rangers.
00:18 Your daily Texas Rangers podcast.
00:21 Part of the Locked on Podcast Network.
00:24 Your team, every day.
00:27 [Music]
00:38 You are Locked on to the World Series Champion Texas Rangers.
00:40 I'm Bryce Patrick, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for 10 seasons, including all five as the founder and host of this podcast.
00:47 Thank you all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day.
00:50 If not already, you can follow me on Twitter @BrycePatrick.
00:53 You can follow the show @LockedOnRangers.
00:55 Hit subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and on YouTube.
00:58 The best way you can help grow the show is to comment nearly any single thing below.
01:02 Now, before we get into Blake Snell coming off the board, not going to the Astros, what is left for Jordan Montgomery to ask for?
01:09 Today's episode is brought to you by Price Picks, the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports.
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01:23 Now, yesterday, Blake Snell signed with the San Francisco Giants a two year, $62 million deal.
01:32 I believe that is still pending physical, which is a trigger warning to any Giants fans who might be listening at this point.
01:41 But that's three out of the big four Scott Borres clients who have signed and not signed massive deals, but signed these shorter term opt out centric contrition deals.
01:55 This is a big fat L on Scott Borres' offseason.
02:02 A guy coming off his second Cy Young award and settling for a two year deal.
02:07 That is not at all what Blake Snell was hoping for, and he could not have had more leverage than he did heading into this offseason.
02:16 And coming off an absolutely stellar year where he absolutely deserved that second Cy Young was basically unhittable for the final two thirds of the season.
02:24 I mean, from like May 5th on, he was just absurdly good.
02:30 Granted, it was on a Padres team that didn't end up going anywhere or doing much of anything, but that was not at all Blake Snell's fault.
02:38 I mean, two Cy Youngs and granted, the first Cy Young kind of felt a little, a little if he's still a really good season.
02:44 But there have always been question marks about Blake Snell, about, you know, how deep can you pitch him to games?
02:49 You know, how consistent is he? You know, all about the walk issues.
02:52 But he showed that it didn't really matter when he was walking as many guys as anybody in baseball or more guys than anybody in baseball.
02:59 He was still a phenomenal pitcher who was very, very valuable.
03:04 And he's held it for two years.
03:06 Granted, it's $31 million average annual value and he's got knocked out after the first year.
03:10 But this, this is not what Blake Snell was expecting.
03:14 And I'm sure Giants fans are just absolutely over the moon with this signing, with getting two out of the big four Boris free agents,
03:23 both of them on very healthy deals of Matt Chapman, three years, $54 million.
03:28 That of these four guys, I mean, we'll see what Monty ends up taking.
03:32 But of those four, Chapman's value felt like the safest because, you know, he's always going to be a very good defender at third base.
03:40 And he's always been a pretty decent hitter.
03:42 He hasn't had any terrible offensive seasons.
03:44 He had some really darn great ones and, you know, three years for him.
03:48 And he apparently turned down a four year, $100 million extension with the Blue Jays.
03:52 That looks like a massive failing on his part and on the part of Scott Boris,
03:58 who for once is taking massive losses all off season long.
04:04 This is shocking.
04:06 This is a big development because this is not something that usually happens with Scott Boris.
04:11 Boris has been one of the best agents in baseball for 20 years, 25 years.
04:16 It's been a long time that he has been the top dog among baseball agents and really among pretty much every sport of major agents.
04:26 There's not much more, not many that are better at getting the best deals for their client than Scott Boris.
04:34 But this year is the exception.
04:37 This year is the embarrassing blight on Boris's sterling reputation because not only are these clients taking these smaller deals
04:45 that are obviously Boris overestimating his leverage and failing to get the kind of deal that his clients wanted,
04:53 but they're prolonged.
04:56 This is prolonged into spring training.
04:58 I mean, we are nine days away from opening day at this point.
05:02 Nine days.
05:03 And it took 10 days away to get Blake Snell, a reigning Cy Young winner, a team.
05:08 And Jordan Montgomery, a reigning World Series champ, is still unsigned.
05:13 Nine days away from the start of the season.
05:16 Actually, technically the season starts in less than 24 hours in Seoul.
05:22 But, you know, the rest of everybody else, opening day, that is not happening until March 28th.
05:28 But still, it seems like all the leverage ploys, all the, "Oh, you need my client way more than he needs you,"
05:35 well, that didn't end up being the case for Bellinger, three years, $80 million.
05:39 That felt like a fine deal.
05:40 Chapman, three years, $54 million feels like just not great.
05:44 But Snell having to prove himself again, again, after winning his Cy Young and going into next season
05:52 with a much more loaded pitching free agent class than there was this year.
05:56 I mean, Snell was pretty clearly atop the market outside of Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
06:01 There was, and well, Shohei Otani, but he's not just a pitcher.
06:06 We all know the deal with him.
06:08 But of the reigning guys who are going to pitch next year, who pitched in Major League Baseball last year,
06:15 Snell was the cream of the crop.
06:17 He took a two-year deal.
06:19 And Montgomery had some supreme leverage still, even with all these different pitcher entries that are popping up.
06:26 I mean, with Garrett Cole being out for two months, with the Rangers having three really quality star-level pitchers
06:36 that are on the shelf for around half the season or a third of the season or two-thirds of the season,
06:42 they definitely could have used some help.
06:44 Not that I don't think Cody Bradford is capable of being a fifth starter.
06:48 Talked about it on yesterday's show.
06:49 But still, they could use a little bit more oomph at the top of their rotation if John Gray is your number two for most of the season.
06:55 That's where the Rangers were back in 2022.
06:58 And that was a 90-something loss team.
07:02 Now, they have more depth in the starters three through five than they did that year, and the offense is significantly better.
07:10 But still, the Rangers definitely could have used some Jordan Montgomery.
07:14 They still could.
07:15 And it seems like Chris Young's gambit the entire offseason, the strategy that he had to go with because ownership said,
07:24 "No, we're not. We're spending this much. This is how much you can offer Jordan Montgomery, and we are sticking with it.
07:29 And if he takes it, great. If he doesn't, that's fine. We will survive, and we will reset the luxury tax a little bit or get close to it, maybe."
07:38 But that was the deal.
07:41 And Chris Young held firm.
07:43 It was all he could do.
07:44 And it seems like—it feels like the next domino to fall is—the next thing that's going to happen is Jordan Montgomery saying,
07:53 "OK, I'll take whatever deal the Rangers offer me first."
07:58 Or some other kind of modified, shorter deal with some opt-outs like Cody Ballinger, like Chapman, like Snell have taken as well.
08:07 It's not something I thought would happen at the beginning of the offseason.
08:10 I thought Montgomery had plenty of leverage.
08:12 I thought that Scott Borris wouldn't read the market, the landscape for free agency wrong, but I've been proven wrong.
08:18 This is—this is how this turned out.
08:21 And there are still some other suitors for Montgomery.
08:25 I wouldn't be surprised if the Astros started kicking the tires, or maybe they won't because they blocked it $30 million-plus a year for Blake Snell.
08:33 Even at that two-year deal where they're trying to keep their contention window open for this year,
08:38 and they also have some guys who are going to be free agents like Kyle Tucker, like Alex Bregman is going to be,
08:45 like even Franber Valdez, not after this year but after next year.
08:49 Both him and Tucker will be up, and they are definitely going to want to keep both of those guys around for the long term because of how good they've been.
08:56 But their contention window is kind of hanging on by a thread.
09:01 The Mariners are coming strong. The Rangers just destroyed them in Game 7 of the ALCS.
09:07 And the Rangers have a lot longer contention window open, theoretically, at this point, than the Astros do.
09:13 So them spending big right now made a lot of sense, and I'm kind of surprised they didn't do this deal for Blake Snell.
09:21 And it makes me think they might be more likely to make the move for Jordan Montgomery,
09:26 with Justin Verlaine starting the year on the IL and with Jose Urquidy having some kind of elbow issues as well,
09:32 and not knowing what they're going to get out of Christian Javier this year, Franber Valdez coming off a down year.
09:38 They don't know what they're getting in Hunter Brown.
09:43 Who knows what else they're getting from some of the other injured pitchers that may or may not come back at some point this season,
09:48 like Lance McCullers. It's just a big question mark at this point.
09:53 But it feels like this is just Scott Borris admitting defeat slowly over time, over the last couple of months.
10:01 "OK, well, I guess the Bellinger deal, we can work that. That's a pretty good average annual value."
10:06 And if he does this again, then he'll get a massive contract next year.
10:10 With Chapman, that felt like a huge contrition, and with Blake Snell, this feels like a white flag waving aggressively from Scott Borris.
10:20 And there's only two more guys that he's got on the market that are left to sign.
10:24 Somebody's eventually going to sign J.D. Martinez at DH. It's not going to be the Rangers.
10:29 But somebody who needs a DH is surely going to sign him to a deal that will probably be much less than anticipated.
10:35 I thought he'd get about $20 million a year, and I don't think there's a team that's about to shell out for that,
10:39 even though he's absolutely worth it. Because if you've got Scott Borris on the ropes, then you've got to take advantage.
10:46 And I think the Rangers will. I think that Jordan Montgomery wanting to go to a contender,
10:51 wanting to go somewhere that he knows, because it is going to be such a fast turnaround for him to learn an entirely new team,
10:57 an entirely new place, an entirely new coaching staff and organization, that takes a lot of time.
11:04 And if he just goes back to the Rangers, then maybe he will be ready for opening day, because we are quickly, quickly approaching it.
11:13 And despite spring training, you know, rambling on for this long, it feels like at this point Scott Borris is defeated.
11:22 And the last nail in the coffin will be where Jordan Montgomery signs. I'm hoping it's here on that kind of a contrition deal.
11:29 I think the Rangers would feel really good about that. I think Montgomery would feel not great, but good enough.
11:34 And at this point, any more help in that rotation, especially bringing back a World Series hero,
11:40 that would be a cherry on top of the mid-Sunday of an offseason that it's been.
11:46 Rangers didn't have to do much this offseason, but hey, if Chris Young's patience can pay off and eventually get Jordan Montgomery back,
11:53 I will be over the moon at what this offseason has been, despite how it's played out.
11:59 Coming up, we're going to talk about MLB The Show game lodging, what it feels like, some respect and disrespect to certain Rangers players,
12:06 and a little bit about some injury updates on Rangers star players. Right after this break from our sponsors.
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13:15 Shout out to the AirDash, make it LOCKED on RadioJet First.
13:17 Listen every single day on tomorrow's show.
13:19 I'll be back and doing my final opening day roster projection.
13:23 Now, this is the first day that MLB the show was released to the public for people who did not pre-order like me,
13:30 who, silly me, forgot to pre-order this game.
13:33 It's a game that I play a whole lot.
13:35 I don't know if you guys have heard of it.
13:36 It's a game that I play a lot.
13:37 I don't know if you guys have heard of it.
13:38 It's a game that I play a lot.
13:39 It's a game that I play a lot.
13:40 I don't know if you're into video games, but if you are like me, then MLB the show is,
13:44 has been one of the better sports video games of the last few years.
13:49 I was a guy who played a lot of sports video games, but as the years went on,
13:54 I mean, there was no college football video game, which is hopefully coming back.
13:57 I mean, Madden just felt like an absolute dumpster fire because all they did every year was just update the rosters
14:03 and make the game slightly worse.
14:04 2K became all about microtransactions.
14:07 and just was absolutely maddening as well.
14:10 But MLB the show for someone whose favorite game, favorite sport is baseball.
14:14 Obviously it has been top tier.
14:17 There were a lot of years where I didn't buy it because it felt like it was,
14:20 it was causing bad luck to the Rangers.
14:22 But then I realized now if you just buy it every year, then you can't blame that.
14:26 The bad luck of the Rangers, the Rangers doing poorly on me buying a game or not buying a game.
14:31 The main reason, because the first game that I bought was 2014.
14:34 And we all know how that season ended up.
14:38 But the first thing you notice about this game when you open it up is,
14:41 is a delightful thing after they finished showing MLB the show credits of the game studio and what have you.
14:48 It just starts with Joe Davis's call.
14:50 It's happened.
14:51 The Texas Rangers have won the world series with a picture of the Rangers,
14:57 all dog piling Josh spores.
14:59 And it gives me chills every single time.
15:02 Normally I'll skip through those opening credits.
15:04 At least in last year's game,
15:05 it was a long monologue about jazz music and the history of jazz and baseball and yada,
15:11 yada because jazz Chisholm was on the cover and it was fine and good,
15:14 but I'm not going to sit there and listen to a minute's worth of it every single time I'm opening up the game.
15:20 But I think this year, every time I open up that game,
15:24 I will definitely let it out.
15:25 Linger there on Joe Davis's call.
15:28 Just having this game back means we are so close to the regular season being back.
15:33 I already talked a little about the overall ratings for the Rangers that are kind of surprising,
15:39 kind of about where I expected, though, some of them a little lower than I expected,
15:44 but good to see that Corey Seager is getting respect of being one of the top 10 players in the game.
15:50 Number one overall is the team.
15:52 The top 10 players in the game.
15:54 Number one overall is Mike Trout.
15:56 Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge are the top three,
15:58 which is kind of wild to me that it's not Shohei and Ronald Acuna Jr.
16:02 They are fifth and fourth, respectively.
16:05 So those are the only players that are ranked ahead of Corey Seager,
16:08 which I feel is accurate coming off the season that he just had,
16:11 but not having the reigning MVPs be the top players in the game.
16:15 I get it.
16:16 Mike Trout is Mike Trout, but he is coming off a rough year.
16:20 And Ronald Acuna Jr. is coming off about the best year that you could possibly have.
16:23 But overall, the Rangers, they rank pretty well, really highly.
16:27 Guys who I didn't expect to be rated as highly is J.B. Graham coming off of a season where he was 99 overall.
16:34 Now he's 92 overall, which is the number five starting pitcher in Major League Baseball.
16:38 That's pretty exciting.
16:40 Adolph Garcia jumping all the way up there to the number six rated outfielder in baseball.
16:44 Not just the number six right fielder, the number six outfielder.
16:48 Behind Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Jordan Alvarez.
16:53 He's ahead of guys like Julio Rodriguez and Fernando Tatis Jr. and Corbin Carroll and Kyle Tucker.
16:58 That's impressive company to keep.
17:00 It's really impressive company to keep, honestly.
17:03 A lot of different Rangers in the top ten at their position as well, including Marcus Simeon.
17:08 Somehow the second best second baseman, him being all the way down there at 90,
17:12 really kind of felt like a little bit of disrespect because Jose Otuve is all the way up there at 93.
17:17 And, well, Marcus Simeon's coming off of his second finish in the top three of MVP voting in the last three years.
17:24 The third of his career.
17:26 And I feel like he should get a little bit more respect being on that reigning World Series champion team.
17:32 But I digress.
17:34 Him being rated up there was pretty encouraging.
17:36 Max Scherzer being rated a little bit higher than I expected at 87 as the fifth highest rated Ranger.
17:43 Some other guys who got some pretty big bumps, Jonah Heim all the way up to 83.
17:46 He's in the top ten catchers, which is about where he should be.
17:49 Josh Young among the top ten third baseman in the league at 85.
17:53 He is the sixth best third baseman, according to the show, which is, I think, generous.
17:58 I'm really high on Josh Young, but I could see a lot of different people saying they're not quite as high on Josh Young being the sixth best third baseman in baseball.
18:07 There's a lot of really good third baseman in baseball, so not too surprising there.
18:12 Very encouraging bump for Evan Carter all the way up to 82.
18:16 Another rating that I think will definitely change for a Rangers rookie is Wyatt Langford at 68 overall.
18:23 Now, that's not uncommon for a guy who hasn't made his major league debut for him to be not as well fleshed out in the rankings,
18:30 especially since there was some question marks about if he would make the major league roster or not.
18:36 I'm pretty sure that is going to be the case, but the other players rated around 68 are Owen White, Travis Jankowski, a little bit ahead of Cole Wynn and Jonathan Hernandez.
18:47 They don't have him on here on immobiliashowratings.com, but I went ahead and looked it up in the game because I'm very curious of what they would say about Wyatt Langford.
18:56 Nate Eovaldi being down there at 84 is kind of not where I thought,
19:00 but some of the things that I think that they could use to really help boost these ratings are StatCast.
19:06 Just use StatCast. They've already got it in the game, but things that are easy like sprint speed and arm strength and power numbers, just use the StatCast leaderboards.
19:16 It's not that difficult. It's really not.
19:19 Like these guys, especially speed, like that one is just so basic.
19:23 It's so easy to put in there of just, all right, what percentile are these guys, make that their rating and just keep that updated throughout the year.
19:30 Not very difficult, but I love playing baseball video games. I love playing as the Rangers.
19:35 I love last year going through all that World Series. I was playing pretty much every single game the day of that playoff run and just experiencing the Rangers winning the World Series.
19:47 We could only do it in video game form for most of our lifetimes.
19:53 And then last year, I've won the World Series about a million times with the Rangers in different iterations of the show and in other MLB video games,
20:02 but I got to say the real life version was just a little bit more satisfying.
20:07 Kind of reminds me of that commercial for MLB The Show back in 2015 or '14 or whatever it was,
20:12 when it was the Cubs winning the World Series back before they had broken that curse.
20:17 And you just saw the Cubs winning the World Series and a Cubs fan crying at home.
20:20 And then it pans down to the controller in his hands and realize it's just a video game.
20:24 But man, it's fun. It's less, it's less, you know, it's less real, obviously, than the real thing.
20:32 But I think I'm going to enjoy it even more winning like 17 more World Series with the Rangers,
20:38 knowing that they've already done it in real life and just reliving that with a new iteration of this team,
20:44 which they might do again in real life this year. It's just going to be that much more fun.
20:49 Coming up, we're going to talk about some injury news about the Rangers stars on the left side of the infield,
20:53 the Dolphs' car seat heating up and some last spots on the roster being up for grabs.
20:58 Is Jack Leiter going to grab one of them? Talk about all that and more right after this word from our sponsors.
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23:02 Shout out to the Everydayers for making Locked On Rangers a first listen every single day.
23:09 On Thursday's show, I'll be back and talking about the worst case scenario for the Rangers this season.
23:15 Now, there is not much time left in spring training. There are not a whole lot more things to be gleaned from these games,
23:23 but one thing that is nice to see is Adoles Garcia heating up. A couple of extra base hits for him in yesterday's game,
23:31 including a home run his second of the spring and a double as well, hitting the absolute crap out of the baseball like Adoles Garcia does.
23:38 He had been in a rough way offensively, just not a whole lot of time, not a whole lot of time for him to get his bearings.
23:44 I mean, he was in the midst of, I believe, a one for 10 stretch. It was just not the best start to spring training for Adoles Garcia.
23:52 But again, the Rangers were definitely slow playing him throughout this spring. He wasn't getting into games,
23:57 wasn't even getting into A games, let alone playing the field until basically last week for getting him fully ready to go.
24:04 And he's coming off of an oblique injury. And all of these Rangers, all of these position players,
24:09 I mean, it was the shortest off season they've ever had and the longest regular season and postseason and preseason combined that they've ever had.
24:17 So, so playing guys like him, guys like Jonah Heim, those two specifically were the main ones who have been slow played as opposed to just guys who are injured and,
24:28 and coming back or coming back from an injury. Those are the two guys that I think made the most sense to slow play.
24:34 Good to see El Bambi getting back into his groove, finding his big bat and coming up with some massive hits.
24:42 I think he'll be totally ready for opening day as I think Jonah Heim will also be ready for opening day.
24:48 Heim has always been a guy who starts off very quickly and offensively. I mean, you look at his splits for the first half and second half of his career OPS,
24:55 and they are significant and staggering for the last couple of years. Now, part of it is because last year when he came back,
25:03 he missed significant time in August with that wrist injury. When he came back, he just was not the same version of himself.
25:09 So that's also partially why. And, and partially just because being a catcher is hard. It is taxing, it is grueling, it is exhausting.
25:18 So easing up some of that burden on your franchise all-star starting catcher in spring training, I think is smart.
25:26 He has always been red hot out of the gates in April and March as well, offensively the last couple of years that he's been the Rangers starter.
25:34 And so I think those numbers might be down and sacrificed a little bit for the long-term projection, the long-term health,
25:40 the long-term sustainability of Jonah Heim's offensive success. I think that has been a smart move.
25:45 And I think that's definitely something that the Rangers will at least toy with continuing, depending on how this year turns out.
25:51 I've really liked the Rangers slow playing him and having about a million catchers in camp to kind of get him off of his feet,
26:00 off of his squat, so to speak. And I've been really excited to see that.
26:05 Another bit of news that came out right before I started recording today's episode is that Nathan Eovaldi is officially going to be the Rangers opening day starter.
26:14 That is encouraging news. It is not a shock really at all. And I think that would have been the case if everybody on this team was healthy outside of Jacob deGrom.
26:25 I feel like with the way the roster was set up, even if Scherzer was healthy for opening day, I still think that Nate Eovaldi would get that nod in game one.
26:33 Maybe it would end up being Scherzer. But hey, good for Nate Eovaldi getting the nod to be on the bump for game one of the season as the reigning champs take on the Cubs.
26:43 Very excited to see him there. He is probably going to get a little bit of back work. He worked pretty well in his final league game on Sunday.
26:51 I think he might get one more outing before opening day, but knock on wood, him being healthy through spring training has been, it was my number one concern.
27:00 It was the main thing that I was scared about. It's still the main thing that I'm scared about until opening day happens.
27:06 Even throughout the entire first half, I'm still going to be nervous about the health of Nathan Eovaldi because again,
27:11 he is so important to how well this team is going to do in the first half and just staying in the race while those big arms in Scherzer and Malley and DeGrom,
27:20 make their way back and hopefully become a part of this rotation and are fully healthy and big contributors to this rotation in the second half of the season and down the stretch.
27:30 But Eovaldi is going to have a big workload on him. He has looked very good this spring.
27:36 He looked incredible in October and he looked exceptional in May and June as well of last year.
27:42 Raiders are asking a whole lot from him and I have loved what I've seen from him. I have loved that so far, almost all the starters have been healthy.
27:51 The big five that we went into camp with, it's the same guys that are going to crack the opening day rotation and so far they have all looked fairly good.
28:00 At points they have looked not quite as capable, not the best outing from Cody Bradford his last time out, but still, the fact that we are arriving on opening day,
28:10 we are close and the fact that the Rangers have avoided too many major injuries.
28:16 Last year it was such a slow play of getting DeGrom fully healthy when he came into camp.
28:21 There were all kinds of issues just getting him fully built up and he wasn't even fully built up for opening day and we all know how that turned out.
28:28 But when you look around the league at some of these other teams that are missing big stars or had big pitching injuries in spring training like the Yankees,
28:36 like the Astros have already had, like even the Orioles with Kyle Braddish, I think that's a bigger deal that people aren't really realizing how important he is going to be to that staff
28:45 and how much it's going to hurt them for however much time he misses, whether he ends up getting Tommy John or not.
28:50 Even the Boston Red Sox with Lucas Gialito, a guy who has been the model of durability the last couple of years.
28:56 The Rangers starting five, their rotation, heading into the season are not guys who have been the peak of health and durability.
29:04 I mean, specifically looking at John Gray, Nate Evaldi and Andre Haney.
29:09 Those guys have been banged up quite a bit in their career.
29:12 Thankfully, John Gray was mostly healthy for almost the entirety of last season until his very final start in the regular season.
29:20 Deeply unfortunate, but still came back and played a big role in the Rangers World Series win.
29:25 But again, the Rangers have been really lucky to avoid any kind of major injuries so far.
29:30 There are some final cuts. I'll talk more about that in tomorrow's show that are coming up.
29:35 Kind of the final things that you can really even look for in this spring training.
29:38 But Jack Leiter's role, I think, is going to be really, really interesting.
29:42 He is still in big league camp and he's mostly had a pretty good spring.
29:47 The biggest development from him, I talked about it on, I believe it was yesterday's show a little bit more,
29:52 on Thursday's show last week with Grant Schiller, who saw him in person.
29:56 But the fact that Jack Leiter is landing his curveball for strikes consistently,
30:00 he's also landing his slider for strikes as well.
30:03 That was one of the things that made him so effective at Vanderbilt.
30:07 It made him such a high draft choice and why the Rangers believed in him to such a high degree
30:12 that he would press the system pretty quickly.
30:14 Obviously, the fastball command is still lagged behind a little bit, but he is missing in different ways.
30:20 It can be wildly effective, effectively wild. That's the more of the phrasing there.
30:28 It's not just missing glove side every time and he's not just relying almost exclusively on the fastball
30:33 like he was when he made it all the way up to AAA and had some success there,
30:37 but that's not going to fly against big league hitters.
30:39 But I think the Rangers are still considering him as a long man in the pen.
30:43 I think that is a mistake.
30:45 I think Jose Ureña should probably get that spot because you're not really worried about the long-term development of Jose Ureña.
30:52 That is not a concern for the Texas Rangers franchise as a whole.
30:57 But Jack Leiter, on the other hand, you're definitely concerned about his development.
31:01 You're definitely caring about his development and his long-term prognosis.
31:05 And I think that moving him out of a starters role, even if the Rangers do really need some bulk innings from him,
31:12 I think long-term that is a big mistake.
31:17 The Rangers have some other big pitching prospects that have some hope that maybe have a better chance of being a mid-rotation starter
31:24 than Jack Leiter does at this point.
31:26 I think I'm more confident in Brock Porter's ability to reach that.
31:29 I'm less confident about Owen White's ability to reach that.
31:33 I'm definitely less confident that Owen White could be a serviceable to pretty decent long rotation option at this point,
31:39 or long relief option.
31:41 But I think that the fact that he's still in big league camp is just more of a sign that the Rangers,
31:46 who have said they're not ruling out anything with Leiter and what role he's going to play on the Rangers this year,
31:50 where he'll start the season.
31:52 I think internally they kind of know that since they handed the spot to Cody Bradford,
31:57 Leiter's going to go down to AAA and that'll be fine, and he will be able to progress and get better.
32:03 And once he gets to the point where he is a better option for starting every fifth day than Cody Bradford,
32:09 then Bradford will end up in that longman role.
32:12 Or if Leiter doesn't show that this year, then you've got some other reinforcements coming down the road in Scherzer, Malley, DeGrom,
32:19 and you can give Leiter the time to develop so he can hopefully contend for a starting spot in the rotation in 2025.
32:27 That, I think, is a little bit more likely.
32:29 The progression from him, the new developments of landing the breaking balls for strikes, those are both huge.
32:36 If he can get that command of the fastball down just a little bit better, man, the sky is the limit for this kid.
32:42 I have been really impressed with him this spring training.
32:44 I love that he is getting these positive developments after a couple of very, very frustrating years.
32:48 He is a smart kid, a talented kid.
32:51 He has still got an incredibly high ceiling, and I know it's been frustrating watching that development.
32:56 But, hey, there is no such thing as a pitching prospect, and if Jack Leiter can reach anywhere near his ceiling,
33:01 that is a huge, huge bonus and a win for the Rangers, who haven't been able to produce a quality starting pitcher in a long, long time of the homegrown variety.
33:11 Jack Leiter might just be that.
33:13 It's not quite time yet, but, hey, the signs have been very, very positive so far.
33:19 That's going to do it for today's show.
33:20 I'll be back tomorrow doing my final version of the opening day roster projection,
33:24 unless there is some kind of news about Jordan Montgomery that drops before then.
33:28 But that's going to do it for today's show.
33:30 Thank you all so much for listening and subscribing, and until next time,
33:33 don't forget to enjoy World Series champion Texas Rangers baseball.
33:36 [END]