The Nathan Eovaldi situation

The Nathan Eovaldi situation

The Texas Rangers’ 2024 tailspin was briefly halted yesterday when the Rangers stomped the Baltimore Orioles by an 11-2 score, putting an end to a six game losing streak and allowing Texas to start their home series this week on a more positive note.

Nonetheless, Texas is now eight games back of the Seattle Mariners for first place in the American League West, eight games out of the third Wild Card spot (nine games out of the second Wild Card spot), and increasingly looking like sellers at the July deadline. Not where we expected to see things play out for the defending champion Texas Rangers in 2024, but whatevs, they won it all last year, and so I’m generally more chill about the situation than I would be otherwise.

I should probably do a post about the guys on the Rangers who could get traded this month. Andrew Heaney, as I’ve mentioned before, is someone I could see the Rangers dealing even if they do just a soft sell — or even if they somehow climb back into the fringes of the race and convince themselves they should be buyers — but eight of the twelve pitchers currently on the active roster are free agents at the end of the year, and in a market where there aren’t expected to be many sellers and everyone wants pitching, the Rangers could do some brisk business at the deadline.

But that’s not for today. Today, I want to talk about Nathan Eovaldi.

The Rangers signed Eovaldi to a two year, $34 million deal after the 2022 season, and that’s looking like one of the best free agent signings in team history. I will admit that, at the time, I wasn’t terribly enthused, but thought it was fine at that price point. I will also admit that I was wrong for not being terribly enthused.

Eovaldi has a player option for 2025 that vests if he throws 83 more innings this year. That player option is for $20 million, and the chances of Eovaldi picking up that option if he is healthy enough to throw 83 more innings this year are about the same as the chances of Michael Young voluntarily having a clown at his birthday party, so we can effectively treat Eovaldi as being gone after 2024.

If the Rangers decide to make Eovaldi available in late July, there well be interest, to put it mildly. Eovaldi has been remarkably consistent in recent years, with ERAs between 3.45 and 3.87 in each of the past five years. He has solidified a reputation for being a big game pitcher with big time playoff performances for a pair of World Championship teams, and a career 3.05 ERA in 79 playoff innings. He’s also considered an elite clubhouse guy, one of the best teammates in the game, someone who makes the other pitchers on his team better. The one knock on him at this point is health — he’s pitched more than 155 innings just twice in his career, has been on the injured list both years he’s been with Texas, and is always at risk of being sidelined. But total package, Eovaldi would be one of the best rental pitchers available at the deadline, if he’s available.

I asked on Twitter whether an Eovaldi/David Robertson package would fetch the Rangers more than they gave up for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton last year, when they gave up a pair of fringe top 100 prospects (plus John King) for a quality rental starter and a good rental reliever. Really, though, one would think that an Eovaldi/Robertson package would likely bring back more than that.

(The Rangers traded three prospects that were fringe top 100 guys heading into this year in deadline deals in 2023 — Thomas Saggese and TK Roby to the Cardinals in the Montgomery/Stratton deal, and Luisangel Acuna to the Mets in the Max Scherzer deal. Don’t go look at their stats this year. Or, well, maybe do go look at them, and it will remind you why teams are willing to deal prospects, even really good prospects, in win-now moves.)

Now, we know that the Rangers aren’t going to want to be sellers — this is a team, after all, built to win now, and if there is even a glimmer of hope in late July I suspect that the front office and ownership will want to play things out with this group. There’s also the optics involved in a big sell-off right after winning the World Series, the p.r. buzzkill that comes from throwing in the towel, and yes, getting under the luxury tax this year to reset penalties and adding prospects to a farm system that hasn’t had a great 2024 has value, but there’s a “same ol’ Rangers” vibe to that I think the organization would like to avoid.

So stand pat with Eovaldi, even if there’s single digit playoff odds at the end of July? (Note: I haven’t looked at the playoff odds in over a month, and am not planning on starting now. Life is too short to go out of your way to ingest things that are just going to make you unhappy.)

Maybe. Of course, you can’t give Eovaldi a qualifying offer — he was tendered one by Boston after the 2022 season, which is why the Rangers lost their third round pick, and players can only be tendered the QO once in their careers — so if you hold onto him, you’re getting nothing from him other than innings for the final two months in a hopeless cause, and whatever mojo and mentorship he can provide to whatever young pitchers might be hanging around in the Rangers dugout and clubhouse in August and September.

What I am wondering, though, is whether the Rangers wouldn’t be inclined to talk extension with Eovaldi, say, over the All Star Break. Gauge Eovaldi’s interest in staying in Texas. See what he’d want to commit to another few years with the Rangers in lieu of going to free agency.

What would an extension look like? Presumably at least two years guaranteed — I don’t think that, at age 34, Eovaldi would be willing to forego free agency in order to tack just one year on his deal, unless it is a really big number for one year. Maybe the second year is a player option. Maybe its a three year deal with the third year vesting based on innings.

Given his injury history, I don’t think that Eovaldi gets more than three years guaranteed on the free agent market, even if he finishes the season healthy. He’ll be entering his age 35 season, has had Tommy John surgery twice, and has had several trips to the injured list since TJS #2. He’ll be in demand, but on short-term deals, and with the price impacted by the health history.

I’m guessing the number would be around $25 million per year on an extension. Sonny Gray’s deal signed last season, coming off his age 33 season, would seem to be what Eovaldi’s side would be using as their benchmark. Gray got 3 years, $75 million, with a $30 million fourth year mutual option at $30 million with a $5 million buyout. Eovaldi is a little older than Gray, has a little more of an injury history, so he might not get quite that much, might not get quite that long, but I’m thinking it wouldn’t be too far off of that.

If the Rangers were to extend Eovaldi — or sign him this offseason, which would also be a theoretical possibility — it would allow them to head into 2025, when they will be in “win now” mode even if they lose 90 games in 2024, with a front four of deGrom, Eovaldi, Mahle and Gray in the rotation. If they don’t bring Eovaldi back, well, they’ll likely still have to go and get a Prove Starter for the rotation anyway, because they’re not going with Dane Dunning and Cody Bradford and Jack Leiter and Emiliano Teodo battling it out for the final two rotation spots of what they are anticipating will be a playoff contender.

So yeah, just a thought. Maybe they start talking extension, or have already reached out. Or maybe not. We shall see.