Texas Rangers star Nathaniel Lowe believes revamped rotation is as good as any other: "Going to compete with every team in Major League Baseball"
The Texas Rangers quietly had an excellent offseason, bringing in Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi to boost the top end of their rotation. They're poised, on paper, to potentially make some noise in the American League West.
Star first baseman Nathaniel Lowe believes the Rangers rotation is as good as any rotation in baseball and is excited for what this season will bring.
"Our top end is going to compete with every team in Major League Baseball."
Nathaniel Lowe on the revamped rotation in Texas:
@Rangers | #StraightUpTX | #PlayersWeek https://t.co/C49HSdMeJU
Lowe loves the new additions, but praised the workhorses that paved the way for them:
"Our top end is going to compete with every team in Major League Baseball. That's an absolute fact. I think that a detail that can get looked over is that there are still major league starters returning from the last year and the year previous who ate a lot of innings for us as we went through a lot of struggles."
He also added that the new pitchers would be instrumental in other ways that aren't out on the mound every five days:
"It takes a lot of guys on a starting staff to get through a 162 game-stretch... There are a lot of guys on the top end and the bottom end that are improving, who see these guys come in and hopefully take it to heart that this is the level my game needs to be at to be a major league starter."
Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi are veteran aces who will improve the pitching through their own performances, but also through helping other guys get better. Will it be enough to get Texas back to the playoffs? Lowe certainly seems to think so.
Expectations for the Texas Rangers in 2023
The Texas Rangers finished fourth in the AL West last season with a record of 68-94. There's really nowhere to go but up, especially after adding players like deGrom and Eovaldi.
The projections expect them to improve pretty significantly this year. Fangraphs expects them to win 83 games and finish slightly above .500. However, that likely won't be enough to get them anywhere near the playoffs.
The American League is very deep and so is the West with the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros there.