The Texas Rangers have been loading up the last two offseasons. Now sitting atop the American League West, they took an approach to the deadline that reflects their status as one of MLB’s top teams.
Texas swung deals with the Mets and Cardinals for Max Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery, respectively. The Rangers’ pitching has been decent this season, but Jacob deGrom is out for the year and now Nathan Eovaldi is on the injured list.
Still, the Rangers are shaping up to have a rotation of Scherzer, Montgomery, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney and Dane Dunning until Eovaldi returns. That’s a strong group, and provided Eovaldi comes back healthy and effective, a really tough collection of arms to face in the postseason.
A busy deadline doesn’t necessarily guarantee postseason success, but former big leaguer Bret Boone laid out on “The Bret Boone Podcast” why he thinks Texas was the clear deadline winner.
“The Rangers were the big winners for me in all of this,” Boone said. “I look at all the teams across the board, and there were a lot of moves made. But what moves by which teams made you go that’s a difference-maker? And one team, the Rangers. They changed their team the most, I think.
“They have the No. 1 offense in baseball across the board. … Eovaldi has had a great year, Gray has stepped up to have a great year. They pitch pretty much middle of the pack. But you added a Scherzer – and I know he’s not having his best year, he’s got a four ERA, which he hasn’t had in a long time.
“You add a Montgomery from the St. Louis Cardinals, who is having another great year, you added two top-line pitchers. And Scherzer to me, still, a difference-maker down the stretch. He’s getting older, rough time with the Mets this year, lot of chaos going on. Did this shoot enough adrenaline into his system to really make a big push down the line, I think so.
“For me, the Rangers clearly made the biggest impact, changed their team the most.”
The Rangers also added Austin Hedges and Kevin Plawecki ahead of the deadline, in addition to trading for Aroldis Chapman earlier in the summer.
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