

To start the 2016 season off I figured I would do something a little larger in scope than player analysis. The 40-Man roster is simply a pre-requisite for being put on the 25-Man roster that plays for the MLB team. There are a lot of rules about the 40-Man, but the ones we are going to worry about are pretty simple:

Who is on the 25-Man and why should I care about them?

Who is potentially going to be on the 25-Man and why should I care about them?

This breakdown is going to be cut up into chunks by positions and will focus on getting excited about the guys we know will be playing, and the guys who are fighting for the spots left on the roster. Let's start off with the largest chunk of important players, the starting pitchers.



The Starters

These are your primary work breeds, the guys whose goal is to keep every inning a 0 for 200 innings. Some of them resemble wild stallions breezing through line-ups without looking tired or excited. Some remind us of bulls; hulking and not so pretty, but effective inning eaters. Some just end up looking like those dogs that can't breathe well and you feel like it's cruel that someone forces them to stand out in the heat. That being said, the 5 starters are arguably the most important group of players on a team and it's important to have the 5 best possible players out on that field consistently.



Probable Starting 5: Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels, Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Colby Lewis

I went ahead and included Yu Darvish because at some point fairly soon he will be the # 1 starter in the rotation. Darvish is one of the best pitchers in the MLB when healthy. His 4 seamer can sit between 91 and 97 and he can usually locate it very well. He also has a 2 seamer that breaks in on righties and a cutter that cuts in on lefties; both sit between 91 and 94 and have late movement that leaves a lot of hitters pretty upset. He has an extremely slow curveball, 60ish, that he throws for a strike to baffle hitters who are completely unprepared for it. His money pitch is the slider and it is the main out pitch for Darvish as well. The slider looks like a fastball out of the hand, but drops off the face of the planet about 4 feet out in front of home plate. Darvish only ever really has trouble when he isn't locating any of his fastballs and sometimes falls back on his breaking stuff really early, leading to high pitch counts and walks. Darvish looks to come back to form after Tommy Johns and we can expect a rehab assignment in late April-May. In case you haven't seen it, here is Darvish striking out 277 guys.





Hamels is probably going to be one of the best #2 starters in baseball. Hamels is another guy with a seemingly endless supply of pitches. His 4 seamer sits around 91 and his location is usually superb. He has a sinker that gets used from time to time and a curve that he can bury in the dirt or locate in the zone for strikes. The Cole Hamels trademark pitch is the changeup. With the exact same arm motion, Hamels takes about 9 MPH off of the ball and can locate the pitch consistently at the bottom of the zone for swinging or called strikes. Look for Hamels to quietly put together another year of 32 starts and 200 quality innings.

The next two guys are big question marks. Holland is a tale of two players, sometimes consistently able to command the zone and string quality start after quality start, while other times he leaves a lot of pitches in wonderful spots for the hitter's OPS. Holland's FB sits at 93-95 on good days and also throws in sinkers, changeups, sliders, and a curveball that is usually +, but he has an issue with it hanging in the zone which leads to a fairly high HR/9 for Holland.

Perez is the even bigger question mark though. Perez had a rough start last season after coming back from Tommy John's, but if you ignore his first three starts he put up a solid 3.38 ERA and a 3.28 FIP. To put that into perspective, he outperformed Cole Hamels during their last 11 starts. Perez is predominantly a sinker ball pitcher and does have some trouble with missing bats, but he does not allow much hard contact which plays well in Arlington. That is a worry though; there are not many guys who can sustain that low of an ERA while only striking out 5.6/9. While I don't think Perez is going to pull off a surprise All-star caliber season, it's not hard to see him quietly being one of the top 10 pitchers in the AL-West.



Colby Lewis is Colby Lewis. For 5 seasons Lewis has been the perfect example of that bull that does the work that is needed to be done, but doesn't make it pretty. He throws in the high 80's and gives up a decent amount of dingers, but he bares down and limits damage as good as anyone I've ever seen. The only worry with Colby is he's 36 now and it wouldn't take too much of a skill drop off to have him resemble that dog you need to put out of its misery. That being said, I fully expect Colby to go out there and get guys out through sheer will and be productive for the Rangers in some fashion this year.



The Other guys

These are the guys who are vying for that 5th hole that and injured Darvish leaves exposed and maybe take a job away from one of the other guys if they can't perform. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but these guys are potentially important pieces to the Rangers.

Starter Hopefuls: Chi-Chi Gonzalez, Nick Martinez, Nick Tepesch, Anthony Ranaudo, Jeremy Guthrie, Cesar Ramos, and A.J. Griffin.



Tepesch and Ranaudo are outside shots of breaking camp with the team. Tepesch is coming off of a lost season and Ranaudo had a lot of trouble missing bats in AAA last season. Nick Martinez had a rough outing last week and he will have to bounce back if he is to get another shot. Chi-Chi still has options, so unless he is 100% clearly the best candidate he will likely start the year at AAA. Ramos is being converted from being a reliever, so I expect the Rangers will give him more time to see how his stuff holds up over 6-7 innings. Griffin is coming back from missing 2 seasons due to injury and apparently is not in 9 inning pitching shape, so I expect him to start the season in AAA as well. In my opinion the 5th starter job is likely Jeremy Guthrie's for the taking simply because he is the most convenient option for the Rangers.

The 37 year old had a rough 2015, but the three seasons before that he was a valuable #4-5 starter. He induces a lot of weak groundballs, but he gets in a lot of trouble when he leaves his pitches up in the zone as he's not a hard thrower. He's on a minor league contract, but I expect if he doesn't break camp with the team he will likely ask for release. Long term poses a few issues for Guthrie if he is not pitching at a Cy-young caliber, as the Rangers will likely want to let the young guys have a shot when they are ready.

Final Thoughts

The starting rotation for the Rangers this year should be a bright spot on a good ball club. If Darvish/Hamels/Holland/Perez pitch to their potential and Colby does what Colby has always done this could one of the top 3 rotations in the AL. The depth is also fantastic this season and a starting spot could very well be ripped away by the hungry dudes who will start the season in AAA. This is the most exciting rotation the Rangers have put together since I've been alive. That being said, I fully expect to see a lot of negative comments about the rotation, sorry Colby Lewis and Derek Hollan, and the return of the perennial question, "When we gun get some pitch'n up in here?".