Sleeper agent.

Talk about just going bad.

Jimtim1216 said:

---

Talk about just going bad.

---

Seems like all this team does is choke. Almost like the 2011 rangers taught them how.

Grapesoda2525 said:

---

Jimtim1216 said:

---

Talk about just going bad.

---

Seems like all this team does is choke. Almost like the 2011 rangers taught them how.

---

2011 was Cruz … now 2012 that was the whole team

Grapesoda2525 said:

---

Jimtim1216 said:

---

Talk about just going bad.

---

Seems like all this team does is choke. Almost like the 2011 rangers taught them how.

---

It's who they are. They'll never win a World Series. It's just not meant to be. They are the Buffalo Bills of the MLB.

Wow just saw the box score. Glad I did not follow along tonight.

From Evan Grant's latest column. I knew the bullpen was bad, but seeing all these stats in the same paragraph is just painful:

Quote:

---

It was the Rangers' 23rd blown save in 47 attempts this year. If you aren't doing the math at home, it's a 51.1% conversion rate. It ranks 27th of 30 teams in the majors. The only teams worse are all at least 25 games under .500. The Rangers also have the fourth-worst bullpen ERA in the majors (4.68). Oh, and as long as we're burying the bullpen here: The Rangers have now lost 15 games in which they've led after seven innings.

---

On that last one, they've only lost 55 games total, so that means over 1/4 of their losses happened while leading with 6 or fewer outs remaining.

Here's hoping the turnaround starts today.

Punch in the gut, makes me sick, every bit of it.

The bullpen is really bad, it is what it is and we'll have to live with it. What it boils down to for me is again just how god awful we are at developing pitchers. You can be mad at not signing more in the offseason or trading for more at the deadline, but at the end of the day you HAVE TO be able to develop pitching to. Signing or trading for 3/4/5 bullpen guys isn't sustainable. We need guys from the minor leagues to come up and be solid pieces, and we don't have any.

Anderson, Leclerc, and Sborz are the only ones we've really gotten to develop and they are AT BEST below average.

I'll never understand why the Rangers can't develop pitching. I've seen various reasons and opinions about it, but what I don't get is they can be so consistently bad at it for this long.

Like aggietony said above, at this point we need to bring Hernandez and white back up and let them try to figure things out on the fly. And even bring up Chase Lee too. The only effective pitchers we are getting out of the pen right now are Leclerc and Burke.

I've said enough times regarding the bullpen... If you've got multiple plus pitches (or even just one plus pitch and passable other pitches), you're a starter or eventually get stretched out to be a starter -- reference CJ Wilson and Alexi Ogando. Great bullpen arms, but their value was much higher as a starter.

If you don't have a plus pitch or you don't have passable other pitches, you're a bullpen arm.

Yes, there are exceptions. But the percentage of reliable bullpen arms in the history of modern baseball simply isn't that high. So combine that with small sample sizes you are going to get wild swings in performance. Will Smith was not as good as he was pitching pre-ASB, but he's certainly not as bad as he's been pitching post-ASB.

Looking at his career #'s, he is just what we thought he was... 2.76 ERA in 2019, 4.50 ERA in 2020, 3.44 ERA in 2021, 4.38 in 2022 with Atlanta, 3.27 in 2022 with Houston.

Honestly Bochy is in a tough spot. We have to win games, but we also have to get guys comfortable and calling up a bunch of AAA arms and just crossing your fingers they won't fold in the postseason isn't a good strategy.

Unfortunately right now unless Heim recovers or Jung returns, this is a very average team that is not going to hold off both Houston and Seattle. Heim rolling over a tailor-made double play ball from one knee with 1st and 3rd last night was about as predictable as it gets. I have more faith in Janikowski offensively right now than I do Heim.

Am I wrong in thinking pitching development has something to do with our longtime scouting director Kipp F@gg? He's been with us forever and should at least hold some blame

Minus Semien and Seager, we have a bunch of dudes that have just so happened to be having the best seasons of their careers. Not sustainable.

We'll be fortunate to hold onto a wildcard spot and that's honestly what the ceiling for this team was supposed to be to begin with. The trades ended up being a net break even, replacing DeGrom with Scherzer and Evoldi with Montgomery.

bmac_aggie18 said:

---

Am I wrong in thinking pitching development has something to do with our longtime scouting director Kipp F@gg? He's been with us forever and should at least hold some blame

---

I think he's got more to do with drafting philosophy. I wanna say it should do more with the farm director, as well as minor league pitching coaches.

I mean, we're still in a position to win the division. It's not like you can look at this complete roster and say it has 0 chance of going 21-14 down the stretch (which should be enough to win the division).

But I think for it to happen it's going to require a combination of Heim returning to at least competent, Jung getting back and being competent for the final 10, and Eovaldi returning -- with the last being the most significant.

If you can get Eovaldi back in the rotation you can then push Heaney to the bullpen which will at least help fortify it.

The unfortunate part is that there's still zero timetable for Eovaldi and Jung returning before season's end will be a "believe it when I see it" type thing.

Survive these next 6 games, get an off-day, and then a 9 game homestand that we absolutely have to feast on to have a chance.

At some point you just are what you are. Astros fans are figuring that out too.

Bizarro Jerry said:

---

Minus Semien and Seager, we have a bunch of dudes that have just so happened to be having the best seasons of their careers. Not sustainable.

We'll be fortunate to hold onto a wildcard spot and that's honestly what the ceiling for this team was supposed to be to begin with. The trades ended up being a net break even, replacing DeGrom with Scherzer and Evoldi with Montgomery.

---

I see that said a lot and I don't get it. A lot of dudes having the best season of their careers? You excluded Semien and Seager, so here are some others.

Garcia and Lowe. Garcia is hitting around .250 and on pace for 200 strikeouts. Lowe won the silver slugger award last year after hitting over .300 and is currently around .280 with 15 home runs.

Jung is a first round draft pick that has now locked down third base. He's doing what was expected.

Heim should have been on the all-star team last year and made it this year. Very good defensive catcher and above average at the plate.

Taveras did awesome in the first half and the opposite in the second. Former top prospect in the system.

Who is the left fielder?

Garver is a proven major league hitter that is showing what he can do when healthy. Grossman has underperformed. Duran is a stud but struggles defensively at third. Jankowski was a big surprise.

So for the lineup, I would say Jankowski and Taveras were delivering beyond what you could have hoped for in the first half. Maybe Duran. Maybe. Everyone else is pretty much in line with who they are as players.

I guess we can do pitching next.

I do think the Mariners are the best overall team on paper in the division. They have the best pitching from TOTR to the bullpen, and their lineup is solid. I like our lineup with Jung more, and our starting pitching is good enough, but the bullpen is atrocious. The Astros are solid across the board but nothing screams great to me except Kyle Tucker and Yordan (when healthy).

I do think it's time to see what Owen White has full time from the bullpen. Whether we like it or not, we need someone to strike guys out and he's got pitches to do it. I have no clue about Hernandez. He still walks way too many.

Eh, no one really knows exactly what Heim is yet.

He hit 0.227 last year.

Hard to say for certain him hitting 0.280 this year pre-injury wasn't over-achieving. We just don't know if he's a 0.240 hitter or a 0.280 hitter and that's a significant difference.

I would bet Heim is about a .250 hitter lifetime with some juice. Just a guess lol.

Tksymm7 said:

---

I would bet Heim is about a .250 hitter lifetime with some juice. Just a guess lol.

---

which would make him a really good MLB starting catcher

Proposition Joe said:

---

Eh, no one really knows exactly what Heim is yet.

He hit 0.227 last year.

Hard to say for certain him hitting 0.280 this year pre-injury wasn't over-achieving. We just don't know if he's a 0.240 hitter or a 0.280 hitter and that's a significant difference.

---

So split the difference. Very good defensively and above average at the plate. I'll take it.

I'm not a big believer in a guy that has become established in the league reverting back to where he was when he was trying to stick. I think Heim was just putting it together this season and making the adjustments he needed. Maybe not, but .250 with some pop in the bat and solid behind the plate is what a team needs.

Flounder Dorfman said:

---

Proposition Joe said:

---

Eh, no one really knows exactly what Heim is yet.

He hit 0.227 last year.

Hard to say for certain him hitting 0.280 this year pre-injury wasn't over-achieving. We just don't know if he's a 0.240 hitter or a 0.280 hitter and that's a significant difference.

---

So split the difference. Very good defensively and above average at the plate. I'll take it.

I'm not a big believer in a guy that has become established in the league reverting back to where he was when he was trying to stick. I think Heim was just putting it together this season and making the adjustments he needed. Maybe not, but .250 with some pop in the bat and solid behind the plate is what a team needs.

---

Agreed, but taken in the context of the post about "having the best season of their careers" -- Heim was hitting 0.280 with pop pre-injury. To date, that was the best run of production he has had in his career.

Even ignoring he shouldn't be as bad when healthy as he is right now, if he was a 0.250 hitter with some pop during that stretch we probably shed a W or two.

Proposition Joe said:

---

Flounder Dorfman said:

---

Proposition Joe said:

---

Eh, no one really knows exactly what Heim is yet.

He hit 0.227 last year.

Hard to say for certain him hitting 0.280 this year pre-injury wasn't over-achieving. We just don't know if he's a 0.240 hitter or a 0.280 hitter and that's a significant difference.

---

So split the difference. Very good defensively and above average at the plate. I'll take it.

I'm not a big believer in a guy that has become established in the league reverting back to where he was when he was trying to stick. I think Heim was just putting it together this season and making the adjustments he needed. Maybe not, but .250 with some pop in the bat and solid behind the plate is what a team needs.

---

Agreed, but taken in the context of the post about "having the best season of their careers" -- Heim was hitting 0.280 with pop pre-injury. To date, that was the best run of production he has had in his career.

Even ignoring he shouldn't be as bad when healthy as he is right now, if he was a 0.250 hitter with some pop during that stretch we probably shed a W or two.

---

We probably would. But I think he's good enough to help way more than he hurts.

Basically, they built a big cushion in the first half and the bullpen gave it back these last couple of weeks. I'm not going to have faith in this bullpen to protect any lead from here on out, no matter what the offense does.

I just don't see a path to winning in the playoffs with this bullpen. A good bullpen is THE most important piece of winning in the playoffs. You can get by with average SP or average offense. But non-elite, much less terrible bullpens don't make deep runs.

I still see this whole thing as basically being 2015 with the roles reversed. I think us and Astros make an early playoff exit and they probably take over the lead at some point.

CampingAg said:

---

I just don't see a path to winning in the playoffs with this bullpen. A good bullpen is THE most important piece of winning in the playoffs. You can get by with average SP or average offense. But non-elite, much less terrible bullpens don't make deep runs.

---

2011 Cardinals beat us with no closer. LaRussa said as much during the playoffs. Motte, Octavio Dotel, Arthur Rhodes, Repcynski. Those guys were all no better than LeClerq, Sborz, etc.

The AL has no dominant team. It's a complete toss-up to see who gets hot, who hangs on late in games. The NL has Atlanta and LA, both are huge trouble.

As disappointing as the Pen and the team in general has been for the last couple of weeks, there's still time for the guys in the pen to get thing turned around. The guys that are struggling right now have all gone in an extended run of success at one point or another this season.