Jump to content

2021-2022 Texas Rangers Offseason Thread

CowtownHorn

By CowtownHorn
in Baseball

 Share

Recommended Posts

shadow_operative2.0

shadow_operative2.0 15944

Posted
Posted

ESPN+ 

Quote

The transaction orgy of the past few days has been stupendous for baseball fans accustomed to a more leisurely pace during the late autumn and winter months. That said, it's been more stupendous for some fans than others, and no fan base ought to feel more adrenalized than that of the Texas Rangers.

With the news Monday that Texas had reached an agreement with star shortstop Corey Seager on a 10-year, $325 million contract, the Rangers' offseason has gone from encouraging to exhilarating. Seager's megadeal comes on the heels of Texas' trio of agreements on Sunday, landing the Rangers Marcus Semien (now probably an ex-shortstop turned second baseman), starting pitcher Jon Gray and outfielder Kole Calhoun.

All it took was a can-do spirit, an aggressive mindset -- and $561 million in salary commitments.

The scale and pace of this year's free-agent frenzy has been something to behold, especially coming at a time on the baseball calendar during which it's usually safe to do things like visit family, watch an episode of "Succession" or go to the grocery without missing a breaking news alert. Not this November. As someone who moved over from NBA coverage a few years back, I've noticed that these past few days have a familiar feel, and I like it. Hopefully, as the players and owners negotiate in Dallas on the expiring CBA, they've taken note of the buzz their sport is currently generating.

However, there is another NBA dynamic that sprang to mind when I heard the Seager news. Executives in the NBA have long recognized the most important step in building a championship-caliber roster is also the hardest one: acquiring a franchise-level star player. There are only so many in the league at any given time, and NBA teams used to plan for the expiration of certain contracts so that they might be positioned to grab such a star in free agency.

Baseball rosters are constructed very differently, of course. Star players matter, but one or two stars can't carry a team alone. Depth is as important in baseball as star power. But the opportunities to acquire a franchise-defining player are not particularly common. For that reason, even if you aren't necessarily at the point where a franchise player might put you over the top, it's not out of the question to go ahead and get one while you can, even as you continue to build up.

Which brings us back around to the Rangers. We remind you: Texas lost 102 games last season, the most since 1973, and its winning percentage of .370 was actually an improvement over its .367 in the pandemic-shortened season. When you check those records against run differential, there was nothing fluky about them. The Rangers have been legit terrible the past two seasons.

Unfortunately for them, there's no shortcut for getting from terrible to great in baseball. A free-agent splurge might push a middling team into contention, but the cost of splurging your way from the cellar to the penthouse can be enough to give even spendthrift Mets owner Steve Cohen the jitters. In reality, you've got to augment big buys with players who produce wins in an efficient way, and young, internally developed, team-controlled talent is the biggest part of that equation.

Well, the Rangers are working on that. Let's consider the trajectory of their place in the organizational rankings at Baseball America:

2017 preseason: 23rd
2018 preseason: 22nd
2019 preseason: 24th
2020 preseason: 20th
2021 preseason: 24th
2021 midseason: 11th

Things are getting better, even if the waves of talent haven't started crashing onto the oceanic parking lots of Globe Life Field. Thus, the pessimist might look at Texas' splurge and think that lead executive Jon Daniels and his staff are putting the finishing touches on a portrait that does not yet have any discernible figures.

It's a fair concern. The starting rotation is improved with Gray, but he's not a No. 1. Dane Dunning and Spencer Howard are former prospects still trying to establish themselves as rotation stalwarts (Dunning is slightly further along in the process). Texas' top prospect is a starting pitcher -- former Vanderbilt hurler Jack Leiter -- but Leiter, a 2021 first-round pick, is just getting started. Meanwhile, the current state of the bullpen is that of an absolute cipher. There is no escaping it: Even with the dollars and headlines of the past two days, this is not yet a contending Rangers roster.

But the counter is that if the Rangers believe their system is going to yield a progression of big-league-caliber players over the next few years, locking in some long-term cornerstone players makes sense. So what if the arrival of this free-agent class didn't dovetail with Texas' contention timeline? Now is when the stars are there to be grabbed.

Let's consider the Rangers' strengths with Seager on board. Middle infield is a clear strength. Semien, Seager and Isiah Kiner-Falefa have all been everyday shortstops in the recent past, so there are a lot of ways manager Chris Woodward might want to configure things. The simplest: Seager plays shortstop. Semien won a Gold Glove at second base in 2021, and Kiner-Falefa won one at third base in 2020. That seems like the most likely outcome. And if we assume that Seager and Semien will be the middle infield, it's perhaps the best combo in the majors.

Seager is also a clear offensive upgrade for the Rangers -- as he would have been for basically any roster in the majors. He is a perfect offensive player, who hits for both average and power while displaying outstanding on-base skills. His career OPS+ (131) marks him as a consistently elite offensive threat with the added value of deploying that stick from the shortstop position. He won't turn 28 until after Opening Day in 2022, so he's still got a lot of prime seasons ahead. If this deal goes sour for the Rangers, it'll be because Seager can't stay in the lineup, not because the Rangers overestimated his skill set.

But that's a real concern. Seager was limited to 26 games in 2018 because of elbow trouble. In 2019, he missed 28 games, largely because of a hamstring issue. He was mostly healthy during the shortened 2020 campaign, but last season he missed 67 games because of a fractured right hand. That last injury was mostly bad luck, as his hand was broken when he was hit by a pitch thrown by Miami's Ross Detwiler. But the results are what they are. If health is a skill, so far, he has rarely displayed it (the exception is his best season, 2016, when Seager played in 157 games and finished third in NL MVP balloting).

As long as Seager stays on the field often enough to justify $32.5 million per season, given the 10-year, $341 million extension Francisco Lindor signed with the Mets last season, we can view the terms of Seager's impending deal as what elite shortstops get paid in Major League Baseball in 2021. (Carlos Correa, just as good or better than Seager and a few months younger, is surely paying attention.)

It's easy to dig into the Rangers' history and look at the Seager signing as the possible reprise of a cautionary tale, when a 91-loss Texas team went out and signed Alex Rodriguez to a mind-blowing, interminable contract two decades ago. But that was a different team, a different player and a different time in baseball.

Between Semien's seven-year deal and Seager's new contract, Texas is on the hook for $57.5 million in payroll through 2028 for just those two players. That's not a problem if they are who they project to be in the short term: Texas' two best players. The best thing for the Rangers now would be to target roster depth, however they can find it, rather than tying up even more payroll. Improving as many roster spots to as close to league average as possible is their best path to get back to .500 in the immediate future, assuming Semien, Seager and Gray provide the expected baseline of well-above-average production.

In a sense, nothing has changed in the long-term outlook of the Rangers. They need their pipeline of homegrown talent to start pouring, or else the money they've spent over the past couple of days won't mean much. But, returning to our NBA comparisons, as crosstown NBA owner Mark Cuban would surely attest, when you have a chance to get the star, you get the star.

The Rangers have added a couple of stars over the past couple of days. How brightly they shine will be determined by the work they've done over the past couple of years to put them in position to make these investments.

GRADE: A-

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dr Fear

Dr Fear 1268

Posted
Posted
Quote

Both New York and California have some of the highest state income tax rates in the U.S.  at 8.83% and 12.3% respectively. Playing for a team like the Mets or the Yankees would also cost a baseball player another 3.78% in city tax from New York City on top of that. Playing for a team like Los Angeles or San Francisco would add another 8% in city taxes on top of the  12.3% that a player would be taxed at the state level in California.

From 2019.

https://risingapple.com/2019/04/15/mets-new-york-city-taxes/

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ghost of LL

Ghost of LL 15531

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

Cheap bastards finally got the message with nobody showing up to a new stadium that the product on the field fucking matters?

I think that's the real issue.  I suspect they were planning on the new stadium bringing in a lot of revenue in 2020 and 2021 just by being a new stadium.  Covid killed 2020.  And maybe big shiny new stadiums don't generate attendance like they used to.  But I think their entire revenue model was blown up, and they came to the realization that, at this point, a winning baseball team is the only thing that's going to drive attendance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
conVINCEd

conVINCEd 21469

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think that's the real issue.  I suspect they were planning on the new stadium bringing in a lot of revenue in 2020 and 2021 just by being a new stadium.  Covid killed 2020.  And maybe big shiny new stadiums don't generate attendance like they used to.  But I think their entire revenue model was blown up, and they came to the realization that, at this point, a winning baseball team is the only thing that's going to drive attendance.

I haven’t regularly watched them play in 5 years, and I used to shag flyballs during batting practice as a ute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52485

Posted
Posted

I like having a front loaded contract for seager. Pay more for the years he should be at his best, and we will see about the final 6. Makes more sense to me than a back loaded one where the player gets paid the least when he’s the most valuable and the most when he should be the least valuable.  Although I guess it’s semantics as you pay him 325 over 10 and you get what you get for performance in each of those seasons. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
shadow_operative2.0

shadow_operative2.0 15944

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Fudbelty said:

Overall that is the easiest in and out from any stadium/arena in dfw.

My only foray was August 29, a 1:30 Sunday game against Hou when Cowboys had a home noon preseason dorkfest. Fucking awful, awful decision. From 1:00 at the corner of Texas Live!, didn’t sit down in the Shed until bot 3. Fuck prepaid parking, that shit better be cash again soon. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jameslaw121

Jameslaw121 4448

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

My only foray was August 29, a 1:30 Sunday game against Hou when Cowboys had a home noon preseason dorkfest. Fucking awful, awful decision. From 1:00 at the corner of Texas Live!, didn’t sit down in the Shed until bot 3. Fuck prepaid parking, that shit better be cash again soon. 

Ouch.

 

We've been talking about finding a Tueday Night/ Wednesday day game to attend. Stay the night at the hotel Stay at the Sheraton or something that Tuesday night. Hit up Texas Live before the Wed. game. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fudbelty

Fudbelty 2787

Posted
Posted
My only foray was August 29, a 1:30 Sunday game against Hou when Cowboys had a home noon preseason dorkfest. Fucking awful, awful decision. From 1:00 at the corner of Texas Live!, didn’t sit down in the Shed until bot 3. Fuck prepaid parking, that shit better be cash again soon. 

Oh damn. We’ve never been to either stadium with another event going so ya I could see that being a cluster.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TrashMaster G

TrashMaster G 17541

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, CowtownHorn said:

I went to a few games and I hate to admit it (because I still have such fond memories of Arlington Stadium and The Ballpark), but I love the new place.

It's a great facility.

 

2 hours ago, Sgt Hulk said:

Came here to say wrrrbody 

You can say it, but what does it mean?

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
CowtownHorn

CowtownHorn 5126

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Random Rangers shit…

Last season, my son and I were at Globe Life and I was wearing my 70’s era powder blue Jim Sundberg #10 Rangers jersey. I know, I’m a little old to be wearing jerseys but it’s a tribute to my sister that passed away when she was 15. That was her favorite player when we were growing up. The guy sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey man, Sundberg was a hell of a ballplayer.” We ended up chatting the rest of the game. Come to find out he is NC State’s women’s basketball head coach, Wes Moore. He’s from the DFW area and was in town for recruiting. Very cool guy. So random.

FBF555C5-B5AF-4A88-A883-D2D671B6258F.png

Edited by CowtownHorn
  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
idigTexas

idigTexas 2284

Posted
Posted

Based on the player numbers on the scoreboard, that looks like a mid-'70s roster.

CF-12   Pepe Tovar or Juan Beniquez
2B-5     Dave Nelson or Ken Pape
DH-15   Roy Smalley
RF-20   Jeff Burroughs
1B-21    Mike Hargrove
LF-6     Tom Grieve
3B-7     Lenny Randle
SS-11    Toby Harrah
C-10     Jim Sundberg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CowtownHorn

CowtownHorn 5126

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, idigTexas said:

Sundberg was my favorite player growing up as well.  Left field bleachers at the old Arlington Stadium for the win. 

Scoreboard at Arlington Stadium] - The Portal to Texas History

(fuck the Angels)

Saw Nolan Ryan’s 7th no-hitter from almost that same spot. No doubt the best sports moment I’ve seen in person.

Edited by CowtownHorn
Well…maybe my son’s first home run ranks up there. Right after he hit his first…he hit his 2nd in the very next at bat.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Trey3216

Trey3216 15343

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, CowtownHorn said:

Saw Nolan Ryan’s 7th no-hitter from almost that same spot. No doubt the best sports moment I’ve seen in person.

Saw him give up a No hitter in the 9th against Devon White and the Tigers.  Fucking Dave Bergman  

Edited by Trey3216
  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Trey3216

Trey3216 15343

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

^ Your memory’s fading, Devon was never a Tiger.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/whitede03.shtml

My Bad.  I did edit to say Dave Bergman but forgot to take Devon White out of it.  Forgot he was on the Angels then, as I saw them play against the Rangers in a game that Nolan pitched as well.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dcar00

dcar00 14150

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, idigTexas said:

Based on the player numbers on the scoreboard, that looks like a mid-'70s roster.

CF-12   Pepe Tovar or Juan Beniquez
2B-5     Dave Nelson or Ken Pape
DH-15   Roy Smalley
RF-20   Jeff Burroughs
1B-21    Mike Hargrove
LF-6     Tom Grieve
3B-7     Lenny Randle
SS-11    Toby Harrah
C-10     Jim Sundberg

pretty decent lineup there. probably 75?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DougO

DougO 5243

Posted
Posted

Rangers signed C Meibrys Viloria to a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Viloria appeared in 67 games with the Royals over a two-year period from 2019 to 2020, but spent all of last year at Triple-A Omaha, slashing .233/.367/.384 with five homers across 212 plate appearances. The 24-year-old former top prospect is a worthwhile low-risk gamble for the Rangers and should give them some additional catching depth next season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
gsoda3

gsoda3 3245

Posted
Posted

morris with a good 2021 review of lowe today.

Quote

With the 2021 season having come to a close, we are looking back at the year that was for members of the Texas Rangers.

Today we are looking at first baseman Nathaniel Lowe.

One of the interesting storylines — meta-storylines, really — of the past twelve months and three days has been the turmoil and controversy online, among Rangers fans, about Nathaniel Lowe.

From a certain point of view, its hard to understand why Nathaniel Lowe would generate the degree of angst he has since the Rangers acquired him on December 10, 2020. He was a young major league ready player that the Rangers acquired in exchange for three guys who hadn’t played full season ball yet and who were part of the team’s prospect depth, he filled a position of need, and he had a decent enough campaign for the Rangers in 2021 while earning the league minimum.

On the other hand...he was acquired for prospects at a time when the Rangers were supposed to be rebuilding, including one prospect, Heriberto Hernandez, who had generated a fair amount of enthusiasm among prospect watchers. He was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays, and there’s a certain sense of concern when you are getting a player that the Rays decide they are willing to give up, even if, as was the case with Lowe, it is a player where the team has a surplus and needs to move someone. He was displacing Ronald Guzman, who had a significant number of supporters, particularly due to his glovework (and area that isn’t Lowe’s strength). He wasn’t anything special in 2021, either offensively or defensively. and he turned 26 in the middle of July, 2021, meaning he’s not particularly young — he’s entering his peak years, which means that there’s reason to think he’s not going to be much, if any, better than he is now. And he didn’t hit for much power, which...well, that’s what first basemen, particularly not particularly slick fielding first basemen, are supposed to do.

To pick a word to describe Nathaniel Lowe’s 2021 season...it was “fine.” Okay. Adequate. Lowe logged a 113 OPS+ and a 115 wRC+. First basemen as a whole put up a 117 OPS+ in 2021, and a 110 wRC+ in 2021, per B-R and Fangraphs, respectively. Lowe put up a 2.4 bWAR and a 1.6 fWAR in 2021. 2.0 is, by definition, league average, so Lowe was more or less an average first baseman.

That said, he doesn’t appear to be perceived that way by a good chunk of the Rangers fanbase...or, if he is perceived that way, that is still deemed to be insufficient by those folks.

Part of it, as noted above, is that he didn’t hit for much power in 2021 — after a hot April, when he had 6 home runs, he homered just 12 times the rest of the way, and logged a .415 slugging percentage on the year. That is 39 points below first basemen slugged as a whole in 2021. His 2021 ISO of .151 was well below the .197 ISO first basemen as a whole registered. He also struck out a lot — 162 times in 2021 — which, when combined with the lack of power and mediocre defense, is going to result in him not passing a lot of folks’ eye tests.

However, Lowe did hit for a slightly higher average than the average MLB first baseman — .264, compared to .257 — and he drew 80 walks, which meant his .357 OBP was almost 20 points higher than the average for first sackers (.338). That above-average OBP is what picks up his numbers and lands him in the meaty part of the first baseman curve, at least for 2021.

Hmmm...patient lefthanded hitter, middling average, has some power but not a lot, gets on base a lot...sound familiar? I’ve mentioned before that 2021 Nathaniel Lowe was essentially Shin-Soo Choo, the DH who retired from MLB after the 2020 season. A comparison:

Lowe in 2021: .264/.357/.415, 113 OPS+.

Choo as a Ranger: .260/.363/.429, 109 OPS+.

Weird, huh?

If we look at the Statcast data, one would think that Lowe would be putting up better numbers than he has. In 2021 he was in the 90th percentile in walk rate, 91st in maximum exit velocity, 74th in hard hit percentage, 77th in average exit velocity, 81st in chase rate. If you’re in the top quarter of all those things, you should be putting up some big offensive numbers, even if you strike out a lot (and Lowe, as we noted above, does strike out a lot — he was in the 25th percentile in K rate).

And it isn’t even something to be chalked up to bad luck — his xwOBA of .324 was actually worse than his .337 wOBA in 2021. If anything, he had good batted ball luck (as reflected by his .339 BABIP in 2021).

So what gives?

The commonly cited problem with Lowe is that he struggles with fastballs. And while that is kind of true, the reality is a little more nuanced than that.

If you go to Lowe’s Statcast page, you’ll see that he has an xwOBA of .362 on four seamers. Statcast gives him a bright red +14 in run value on four seamers in 2021 — bright red is good, that means well above average. Looking at players with at least 100 PAs ending in a four seamer on Statcast, Lowe’s .360* xwOBA on four seamers is 138th out of 268 hitters, between Alex Verdugo and Akil Baddoo.

* Yes, the .360 isolated on the Statcast search is different than the .362 on his 2021 Statcast page. I don’t know why.

Weird, huh? Why would Lowe be middle-of-the-pack in xwOBA against four seamers, but +14 and among the best in the league in run value against four seamers?

There’s two things at work here. First of all, Lowe put up a .382 wOBA against four seamer, better than his xwOBA against them, so there’s an overperformance element at work. That .382 wOBA put him 80th out of 268 hitters.

But also...Nathaniel Lowe saw a shitload of four seamers in 2021. 43.1% of the pitches he saw in 2021 were four seamers — 5th out of our 268 hitter group. He saw a total of 1161 four seamers in 2021 — second only to J.P. Crawford, who saw 1183 four seamers. The next highest was Robbie Grossman, at 1083, with five others after him who saw at least 1000 four seamers.

And because run value is cumulative, not rate-based, seeing a shitload of four seamers, plus putting up actual results that are above average against four seamers, is going to result in you having a great run value against four seamers.

In any case, the book on Lowe last year was clearly, challenge him with four seamers, he won’t do any damage against them. The team, and Lowe, acknowledged that was an issue for him, was something that he had to work on, and late in the season the coaching staff was saying they were seeing improvement from Lowe in that regard.

And interestingly, prior to September 1, Lowe had a .357 xwOBA against four seamers, with a .370 wOBA. After September 1? .383 xwOBA, .451 wOBA. So, yeah, that would be improvement.

In any case...remember how we were talking about Lowe’s lack of power? That was a particular bugaboo for him in 2021 against four seamers. He had an xSLG of .402 and an actually slugging percentage of .400 against four seamers in 2021. And that dropped to a xSLG of .353 after September 1, when we saw the improvement noted in the previous paragraph. Though he drew a lot of walks, so maybe he was just laying off four seamers more.

Ultimately, though, four seamers are the fastballs that are thrown hardest. So if Lowe was struggling with velocity, we’d expect to see it show up there. And that’s not what the Statcast data shows.

The Statcast data does show him with positive run values on offspeed pitches, and his +7 on changeups is comfortably above average.

So where’s the problem?

Nathaniel Lowe couldn’t hit sinkers in 2021. He had a -9 run value against them, well below average, along with a .262 xwOBA against sinkers.

Using a 50 PA cutoff for plate appearances ending in a sinker, we have 248 hitters in our sample group for 2021. Nathaniel Lowe’s .261 xwOBA against sinkers was 243rd out of those 248 hitters.

Here are the five hitters who were worse than Lowe against sinkers:

Jose Trevino

Nick Ahmed

Jack Mayfield

James McCann

Austin Barnes

Lowe had a .194 xBA against two seamers, 245th out of 248 hitters. His xSLG was .265, which was 242nd (and right behind Elvis Andrus, who was a .270). His ISO was .069, which...well, its not good, but at least it is 214th, so, you know, not it the bottom 10%. 18.3% of his plate appearances that ended on a two seamer were Ks.

Unlike with four seamers, Lowe wasn’t among the tops in the league in seeing sinkers — he saw them 17% of the time, which put him 77th out of this group. If we combine four seamers and sinkers, however, and raise the plate appearance cutoff to 150, we see that 60.2% of the pitches that Nathaniel Lowe saw were fastballs — second out of 257 batters, behind only Tony Kemp.

But I think we are seeing the problem here.

You know how many home runs Nathaniel Lowe hit off of sinkers in 2021?

One. One home run off a sinker, total.

You know how many home runs Nathaniel Lowe hit off of four seamers in 2021?

Three. He saw the second most four seamers in MLB in 2021, and hit three homers off of them. The same number as Leury Garcia had. The same number as Dylan Moore had. The same number as Jason Martin had.

Lowe hit for power against non-fastballs. If we look at everything other than a four seamer or a sinker (I’m including cut fastballs in the offspeed/breaking ball category), Lowe had 14 home runs. His xSLG against those pitches was .461, which is 43rd out of 260 batters with at least 150 PAs ending in a non-fastball. His xwOBA against them was .314, which is 71st out of 260.

So Nathaniel Lowe hits well, and for power, against non-fastballs, is middling against four seamers, and is getting killed by sinkers. What else might we be able to glean from our available data?

Well, we know Nathaniel Lowe’s ground ball percentage in 2021 was 54.5%, per Fangraphs. Out of 132 qualified hitters, only six had a ground ball rate higher than that. That’s a problem for a guy you are wanting to see power from (and is what has led folks to compare Lowe to Nomar Mazara, although Lowe’s walk rate means he’s got a higher OBP, and thus more value, than Mazara ever had).

Lowe had 115 plate appearances in 2021 end on a two seamer. 21 were strikeouts and 14 were walks, which means there were 80 plate appearances where he put a ball in play. 63 of those 80 plate appearances resulted in a ground ball.

Well, that seems like a lot. 78.75% of balls in play* off of sinkers from Lowe in 2021 ended in ground balls. As a point of comparison, 55.8% of plate appearances for the league as a whole in 2021 that ended in balls in play off of sinkers resulted in ground balls.

* This includes home runs, as a point of clarification.

If we look at four seamers, there were 64 ground balls out of 140 balls in play for Lowe, compared to 76 pop up/line drive/fly ball results — 45.7% ground balls. For the league as a whole, there were 13,857 ground balls off of four seamers, compared to 26,086 results of the other variety — 34.7%.

So we’re seeing more grounders than the league as a whole off of four seamers, but the spread is less than half of the spread on sinkers.

And on all other pitches? The league as a whole had 31,362 non-ground balls and 26,534 ground balls, so a 45.8% ground ball rate. Lowe had 90 ground balls and 88 balls in the air, a 50.6% ground ball rate.

So the takeaway from all this?

2021 Nathaniel Lowe:

— Hits the ball hard

— Hits the ball on the ground too much

— Is especially vulnerable to hitting sinkers on the ground too much

— Performs fairly well against everything other than sinkers

— Can’t hit sinkers

So the solution, of course, is to get Lowe to hit the ball in the air more, and hit sinkers better. And I’m sure that is what Donnie Ecker and Tim Hyers, two coaches seen as among the best offensive coaches in the game, and who have been brought in this offseason by the Rangers to do their thing in Arlington, are looking at.

All that being said, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that 2021 Nathaniel Lowe was still...fine. Adequate. If you can get league average production for the league minimum, you’ll generally take it, and with five more years of team control remaining (at least, under the current CBA — we will see if that remains with the new CBA), Lowe would seem to be at least an inexpensive, functional member of the lineup for the next few years.

The hope is, of course, that there is more there, that with a full season in the majors under his belt and the new coaches working with him, Lowe will be able to better tap into his power, better elevate balls, and be more productive — make a jump to a 3-4 win first baseman. Its also possible, of course, that he doesn’t improve, and teams do even more to expose his weaknesses, and he regresses, ultimately providing little value.

But for now, Lowe is...okay. Acceptable. And hopefully, we’ll know more about him after the coming season.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
TrashMaster G

TrashMaster G 17541

Posted
Posted
On 12/1/2021 at 2:00 PM, idigTexas said:

Based on the player numbers on the scoreboard, that looks like a mid-'70s roster.

CF-12   Pepe Tovar or Juan Beniquez
2B-5     Dave Nelson or Ken Pape
DH-15   Roy Smalley
RF-20   Jeff Burroughs
1B-21    Mike Hargrove
LF-6     Tom Grieve
3B-7     Lenny Randle
SS-11    Toby Harrah
C-10     Jim Sundberg

The Rangers of my youth!

My favorite personal memories of being at old Arlington Stadium are seeing Nolan Ryan pitch in person and I was also there for a game where Juan Gonzales hit three dingers.

Best memories at ballpark #2 are seeing the Rangers beat the Orioles in '96 26-7.  They scored 16 runs in one inning.  Another day I saw Ian Kinsler hit for the cycle.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Al

Longhorn Al 440

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, TrashMaster G said:

The Rangers of my youth!

My favorite personal memories of being at old Arlington Stadium are seeing Nolan Ryan pitch in person and I was also there for a game where Juan Gonzales hit three dingers.

Best memories at ballpark #2 are seeing the Rangers beat the Orioles in '96 26-7.  They scored 16 runs in one inning.  Another day I saw Ian Kinsler hit for the cycle.

It was the 8th inning. Went in wanting some insurance up 10-7. I was staying the night at a friend's house. He fell asleep. I watched alone. His dad came downstairs and I told him what was happening. He said, "why haven't you woken up Nick?!?!"

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jameslaw121

Jameslaw121 4448

Posted
Posted
On 2/10/2022 at 1:15 PM, TrashMaster G said:

The Rangers of my youth!

My favorite personal memories of being at old Arlington Stadium are seeing Nolan Ryan pitch in person and I was also there for a game where Juan Gonzales hit three dingers.

Best memories at ballpark #2 are seeing the Rangers beat the Orioles in '96 26-7.  They scored 16 runs in one inning.  Another day I saw Ian Kinsler hit for the cycle.

Don't remember alot of games at Turnpike. But I remember seeing for Ranger and Longhorn and Brownwood great Jerry Don Gleaton pitch once. My dad and granddad were his little league coaches in elementary school.

 

Best and worst in the Temple was Beltre's 3,000th hit. He was sitting on 2998, Saturday night. Which was also my bachelor party. Tried to keep track but I was pretty fucking hammered. Next morning, my now wife called me around 11. Waking me up from my slumber on the bathroom floor where my groomsmen deposited me the night before.

"Are you still asleep? Get dressed. He only got one hit last night. I already bought us tickets."

It was awesome to see. but it was also 104 degrees outside in the sun and I felt like I was going to die

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...