Texas

Rangers

Eovaldi had a great spring and still appeared strong today with his eight strikeouts and his velocity up by one mph from last year. Unfortunately, he gave up two homers anyway and both came with men on. Last year, he allowed multiple homers just twice in 22 starts. Probably not a coincidence is that those outings came back-to-back not long before a shoulder injury got him shut down for the final five weeks. Still, we’d expect him to bounce back nicely next week versus the Orioles.

The Rangers were scoreless until Burger took Kyle Backhus deep in a 5-0 game in the ninth. Burger, though, had already had a pretty nice day by that point. It’s his first three-hit game since last Aug. 16. The 29-year-old needs to take a step forward against righties to be a useful regular for the Rangers, but as the likely everyday cleanup hitter for now, he should offer mixed-league value.

The Rangers have said they wanted to get Carter in the lineup more against lefties, but it won’t be against Cristopher Sanchez on Opening Day. Instead, Wyatt Langford will shift over to center field, and Sam Haggerty will enter the lineup in left field. The Rangers’ full Opening Day lineup is: Brandon Nimmo RF, Wyatt Langford CF, Corey Seager SS, Jake Burger 1B, Andrew McCutchen DH, Josh Jung 3B, Josh Smith 2B, Danny Jansen C, and Sam Haggerty LF.

Season No. 18 for McCutchen, who wound up 9-for-21 with a homer and six walks this spring. He did play left field a couple of times in Grapefruit action, but he’ll likely mostly be employed as a DH against lefties for now.

The Rangers needed to free up a 40-man spot for Andrew McCutchen, but they did that by DFAing Dairon Blanco instead of putting Bradford on the 60-day IL. It suggests they have a pretty good feeling he’ll be back before the end of May. He might be a middle reliever then, but if he’s needed to start, he could be of interest in deeper fantasy leagues.

Freeman was shut down for 4-6 weeks about five weeks ago now. There haven’t been any updates since, but if things are going as hoped, he should be playing in minor league games before long, and he could be a threat to Ezequiel Duran’s spot on the Rangers bench in a month or so.

The Rangers claimed Blanco off waivers from the Royals on March 8 and then reassigned him to minor league camp only a day later. He has option years left, so another team could pick him up without being forced to keep him on the roster. He could have real value to a contender as a September/October pinch-runner, and it’s not like he’s been overmatched at the plate while having hit .257/.312/.416 in 285 career plate appearances with Kansas City.

It looked like Sborz had a real chance of making the team after a decent run this spring in his return from shoulder injuries, but Rule 5 pick Carter Baumler got the nod over him. Texas will go with a bullpen of Robert Garcia, Chris Martin, Cole Winn, Jakob Junis, Jacob Latz, Jalen Beeks, Tyler Alexander and Baumler. It doesn’t leave them much flexibility that Garcia and Latz, their two best lefties, are the only guys there who can be sent down.

Leiter walked none to finish the spring with an 18/3 K/BB and a 3.38 ERA in 16 innings. There’s not much in Leiter’s numbers to support him as an above average starter, but with his velocity, even modest improvements in his command or his changeup would still have the potential to lead to a breakthrough. He’ll start the Rangers’ second game of the season Saturday against the Phillies.

Pederson had been without an extra-base hit this spring, even though he entered the day with a 58% hard-hit rate. His .175/.298/.250 line seems extra discouraging for a 33-year-old already coming off a dreadful season, but we’d be more concerned if he weren’t averaging 95 mph off the bat. That said, while we’d expect Pederson to bounce back enough to help the Rangers this year, it’s unlikely that he’ll be much of a fantasy factor as a platoon guy who doesn’t hit for average or steal bases.