Newberg Report Mailbag v.5.
This week: some added Michael Lorenzen context, plus trade ideas, Jonah Heim, Cam Cauley, and more.
This weekly Q&A thing is not only a blast for me. It’s really useful. I get to take the pulse of a bunch of loyal, informed Rangers fans on what matters to them — and I even get some story ideas in the process. Including at the end of today’s edition.
The next time we do this, the Rangers will have a real 2024 game in the bank. Short offseasons are the best.
Let’s get to this week’s nine.
Note: Some questions have been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Justin Billodeau: With the signing of Michael Lorenzen, what are the odds the Rangers are trading a veteran pitcher (or two) at the trade deadline?
I think you want the answer to be “virtually non-existent,” because most teams trading away veteran starting pitchers in the summer are conceding the pennant race.
Now, I think I understand the nuance of your question: What if the Rangers have too much starting pitching? I suppose if, by July, Max Schezer and Tyler Mahle are back and in form, everyone in the season-opening rotation (Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Dane Dunning, and Cody Bradford) is healthy and clicking, Lorenzen has fared well in his swingman role, Jacob deGrom is looking vintage in his rehab starts, and maybe Owen White or Jack Leiter has forced the issue as well, it would make sense for Chris Young to consider opportunities to convert someone on the fringes of the playoff rotation plans to into another piece that could help the postseason push.
But remember how big Gray, Heaney, Dunning, and Bradford came up in spot roles in the playoffs.
Unless the Rangers are out of the race, trading a proven starter at the deadline would be nearly unprecedented. Not that this brand of the Rangers is averse to unprecedented.
Jake Carter: If a case of back spasms hits the rotation or pen early, has Leiter shown enough this spring to be the first call?
Whit Richardson: Dane Acker doesn’t get very much discussion as a potential rotation call-up. It seems he is best positioned to step up. How has he looked this spring?
To be fair, Jake submitted his question before word came down late Wednesday that Texas had signed Lorenzen. But it’s fair to assume that, at some point, the Rangers are virtually as likely to need a seventh starter in the first half as a sixth.
If Leiter were on the 40-man roster, the answer would be a pretty easy “yes,” assuming he keeps this up. He hasn’t been dominant in camp, but he’s been throwing his plus stuff for strikes, and that’s been encouraging — far more so than the work roster members White, Cole Winn, and Zak Kent turned in before getting sent out. If a starter is needed from the farm and Leiter is the best option at the time, they’ll find a roster spot for him.
Same goes for Acker and Josh Stephan, each also off the 40-man. Maybe even Tim Brennan. All three have reached Double-A and will look for a fully healthy season in 2024. Acker has the best stuff of the three, Brennan the best command, Stephan the best combination.
Matt Jennings: If Montgomery ends up an Astro or Angel, what will (and what should) his reception be when he comes back to Arlington?
As long and as raucous an ovation as an opposing player has ever gotten here. I highly doubt he’s the reason he’s not a Ranger right now. I hope he’s back on the market a year from now (seems likely), and Texas feels good enough about its TV situation to sign him then.
I genuinely feel bad for the guy.
Mitchell O'Briant: How bad is the Shohei Ohtani news?
It’s bad. I really hope it’s not worse.
Baseball has enough problems, between the RSN mess, the unrest in the MLBPA, and the challenges of capturing the youngest disposable-income demographic. A scandal involving the face of the sport would be horrible.
Shahnavaz Makhani: Time for my yearly “should the Rangers trade for Shane Bieber/what would it take to get Shane Bieber” question. So…should the Rangers trade for Shane Bieber and what would it take to get Shane Bieber?
The answer is different this year, no? You’d be getting only one year of the righthander — and you’d be getting the scratch-and-dent version. His stuff is on a steady decline, his numbers were down last year, and he was slowed in the second half with elbow inflammation.
He’s set to make $13,125,000 million this year. Would he be a better bet than Lorenzen? Sure. But at that money, I’d have been a quicker to sign Montgomery, even for a bit more, than to part with prospects for one year of Bieber.
Matt Gian: One player we’ve heard little about this spring is Jonah Heim. Based on last year’s performance, he was a borderline top-5 catcher in baseball. Do you think he can repeat his success?
Such a good player. Hits from both sides, playable power, will take a walk. Frames well, throws well, calming influence on a pitching staff. Moving Elvis Andrus’s contract for Heim and Acker is a low-key candidate for one of the 10 best trades Jon Daniels made.
Can he repeat? No reason to say no for the 28-year-old. The only concern I have is the unnatural workload that was thrust on him late last season. Heim started the last 30 games, including all 17 in the playoffs. That’s not normal for a catcher, and presumably the reason the Rangers slow-played the start of his camp, holding him out of action defensively until the fifth game on the spring training schedule.
Dusty Dean: Can you explain “minor league options”? I’ve heard you and others reference them all my life and we definitely are dealing with some guys on the 40 that appear to be out of them. I just don’t understand how many options a player starts out with and what effectively causes a player to “lose” an option. Is it as simple as a one-time call up? It seems like it can’t be.
You instinct is correct. The more precise term would be “option year.” Once you’re on a 40-man roster, whatever team has you can send to you to the minor leagues in three different seasons without having to run you through waivers. That can happen up to five times within one season, but collectively counts as one exhausted option.
One wrinkle: Players with three exhausted options but fewer than five full seasons of pro service — in the major leagues and minor leagues combined — are eligible for a fourth option.
Also, players with more than five years of major-league service time can reject an option to the minors.
Trey Finley: Is Cam Cauley a player in the mold of a Josh Smith? Or is his ceiling higher?
Dwayne Apple: Has Cam Cauley made the thought of trading Ezequiel Duran easier? Does he have the potential to replace Smith at the utility spot next year?
Interesting comparison between Cauley and Smith, who joined the Rangers eight days apart in July 2021, Cauley signing for a well-above-slot $1 million out of the third round of the draft and Smith as one of the four players the Yankees included in the Joey Gallo trade.
I would say Cauley is valued more today than Smith was when the trade was made. Cauley is coming off a year split between Low-A and High-A, which is also where Smith played for the Yankees the year of the trade. The difference is Cauley was 20 years old that season, while Smith was 23.
Smith reached Frisco at the end of that 2021 season, and between his four stops (Low-A with the Yankees, High-A with both clubs, and Double-A with Texas) he hit a robust .309/.429/.535 (.962 OPS) with 26 stolen bases. Cauley’s High-A/Low-A year was a less productive one at the plate, as he hit .245/.333/.411 (.744 OPS) with 36 steals. But Cauley was 2.3 years younger than the average High-A player that year; Smith was a tick above league average at that level.
None of that is to denigrate Smith’s minor-league numbers or what Texas saw in him. He’s an extremely valuable player in his role, especially since he’s added outfield to his quiver (he was strictly an infielder at LSU and as a pro until reaching Triple-A). But I think evaluators probably put an MLB-starter grade on Cauley right now, on the assumption that his development continues on this trajectory. He’s been one of the best stories in camp.
Had Cauley opted to go to Texas Tech rather than take the Rangers’ offer in 2021, he wouldn’t have been draft-eligible again until the league convenes this July 14 at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Instead, according to at least one ranking, he and Sebastian Walcott are the top two prospects in the Rangers system, Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter excluded.
Now, as for whether Cauley’s emergence makes the idea of trading Duran more palatable, I suppose. The key with Duran is the league likely considers him to have more everyday-player potential than Smith, which means the Rangers must weigh whether Duran’s value on the market exceeds his value on the roster — and more importantly, assuming it does, when (and for whom) to pull the trigger in moving him.
Cauley’s development — even though it might not have been as evident in the numbers in 2023 as in the immeasurables — probably did make it easier to part with Thomas Saggese and Luisangel Acuna. That’s not to say the Rangers would have walked away from the Montgomery and Max Scherzer trades were it not for Cauley’s presence — the stability across the infield with the big club was obviously a bigger factor — but it didn’t hurt that Cauley was around.
Zach Dennis: I live near Hickory and plan to catch a few games there this season. Which players should be on my must-see list?
Todd Snively: It’s been awhile since I have seen this from you, but looking forward, what do you think the 26-man roster looks like next year, three years, and five years from now? To make it interesting, with and without hypothetical trades.
See, now this is why you guys are the best. Now I’ve got another two story ideas in the hopper, and I’ll put these close to the top.
Short answers for now, based on assumed roster assignments: Walcott, righthander Brock Porter and outfielder Anthony Gutierrez for the Crawdads. There’s a chance, I suppose, that Gutierrez might start out back at Down East, where he spent 2023.
And it’s going to be a blast watching Tomball’s Shane Baz take the ball every fifth day here in 2027.
Very interesting stuff
Good article Jamey.