Fastest runner in Texas Rangers camp might be reliever who found himself on the mound
A spring ago, and as recently as Dec. 13, Delino DeShields was the undisputed fastest player on the Texas Rangers’ roster.
That changed Dec. 14, when he was sent to the Cleveland Indians as part of the Corey Kluber trade.
So, here’s a question: Who has taken over for DeShields as the fastest Rangers player?
There is some splitting of hairs here.
The Rangers have 30 position players on their 68-man spring roster, but only 13 are going to make the Opening Day roster. Eli White, Leody Taveras, Scott Heineman and Nick Solak can really move.
But of the entire 68-player group, the fastest might be a pitcher.
A former outfielder, but still a pitcher.
Left-hander James Jones can still pick them up and put them down with the fastest of them even though he hasn’t officially been an outfielder since 2015. He quickly needed Tommy John surgery, falling in line with the rest of the Rangers’ pitchers.
His journey back to big-league camp hasn’t been fast, but he doesn’t regret the change in career paths. From it has come a fresh perspective that has allowed him to reach the cusp of his first MLB appearance as a pitcher.
“If you would have asked me that two years ago, man, I would have said I should have never done this,” Jones said. “But looking on it now, it developed me off the field, and I appreciate it. I feel like I needed to set the groundwork for me to even be consistent in the big leagues.”
Like others before him, Jones learned to let go of external expectations and to stop trying to appease others. It’s not being selfish, as Jones is very coachable and the kind of guy a team wants in its clubhouse, but rather removing outside pressures in order to focus on the right things.
Jones knows how to work now. He didn’t know that when the Rangers acquired him from the Seattle Mariners in a trade that also included Tom Wilhelmsen and sent Leonys Martin to the Rangers’ division rival.
It’s not just what he needs to do to succeed on the mound, like adding velocity to his slider and constantly working on fastball command, but all the things that go into that.
“Everybody has a grand scheme of perfect timing,” Jones said. “When I made the switch, I was like, ‘I’m going to show them and jump the whole system.’
“Going through that Tommy John hit me and gave me time to reflect on what’s been going on upstairs. I realized I was a big-time people-pleaser,” said Jones, who added that he would too often allow other people to define who he was — and that definition would even affect how he saw himself. “I didn’t get my values from knowing who I am and what God created me as.”
Jones said he didn’t have the right foundation as a rookie in 2014, when he stole 27 bases but never matched that. He had pitched in college, so he didn’t enter the position switch blind when it was discussed with the Rangers.
Nevertheless, he struggled before and after the elbow injury, including a 7.34 ERA and a .338 opponents average in 2018 at four levels.
But he is coming of a season in which he posted a 2.67 ERA at Double A Frisco and Triple A Nashville. He struck out 71 in 64 innings and walked only 33, and opponents batted only .191 against him.
“I knew he always had a good arm. He was our center fielder,” said manager Chris Woodward, a Mariners assistant coach in 2014 and 2015. “In a lot of ways, in 2014, he changed our team with his energy.
“He always told me he could throw off pretty hard off the mound, so I wasn’t surprised to see him go that route. I was just intrigued by what his stuff looked like. ... He’s one of those guys I’m always pulling for. I can’t wait for the opportunity to potentially bring him up.”
Jones in big-league camp again. And that’s tells him something.
“It shows the hard work I’ve been doing the past four years has been paying off,” he said. “I’ve just got to stay prepared day in and day out, and keep the same mind-set that all you can do is control what you can control and be on top of preparation for when the opportunity comes.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 1:47 PM.
