Texas Rangers’ rebuild would be perfect time to see if Jonathan Hernandez can start
The list of pitchers the Texas Rangers have attempted to transition to the rotation from the bullpen, after C.J. Wilson and an All-Star season by Alexi Ogando, is a mess of blown-out arms and burned-out careers.
Neftali Feliz was first in 2012, followed by Tanner Scheppers, Robby Ross and Matt Bush. Ogando dealt with injuries after his breakthrough 2011 season.
The Rangers’ track record of developing starting pitchers, either in recent seasons or since their first season in 1972, is just as grim.
The notion of trying the switcheroo again makes fans squirm, even if the pitchers’ minor-league histories and the club’s payroll say it’s worth a shot.
Fans can breathe easy, for now.
Jonathan Hernandez’s immediate future, meaning in the 2021 season that is supposed to start April 1, is as a reliever who can log multiple innings and perhaps record the final three outs on occasion.
He’s fine with that. As for his future, well, this relief thing is working out just fine so far, so his thoughts aren’t too occupied by visions of pitching every fifth day.
But the Rangers find themselves in a unique position this season and probably next. They aren’t likely to contend in 2021, and they are likely to have an unorthodox rotation filled with starters who are going to be held to low-innings limits.
It’s too late for a Hernandez experiment this season, but it might become a front-burner discussion next offseason if he remains as dominant out of the bullpen as he was in 2020 en route to being selected by media as the Rangers Rookie of the Year.
“If he pitches the way he did last year, then we can’t rule it out long-term,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “If he’s as consistent in the strike zone as he was last year, then, obviously, we’re going to have a really healthy conversation about the future and if we want to go that route.”
Fox Sports Southwest will air on Friday night an hour-long virtual Rangers awards show to recognize the club’s best from the 2020 season. Isiah Kiner-Falefa was the Player of the Year, the since-traded Lance Lynn was Pitcher of the Year, Zoom-master Woodward won the Good Guy Award, and Jose Trevino took home the Richard Durrett Hardest Working Man award.
Hernandez, the happy-for-now reliever, will be honored, too.
“I did a pretty good job last year,” he said. “I just want to keep doing it after that.”
But 2022 is a possibility, especially if the Rangers’ rebuild only progresses by a few floors this season.
Gradually building Hernandez up next season wouldn’t cost the Rangers precious games in a playoff hunt, and he wouldn’t even need to fill a full-time rotation spot as was the hope for Feliz in 2012 after consecutive trips to the World Series and for Scheppers and Ross after all kinds of injury madness broke out in spring training.
Bush never made it to the regular season as a starter, but enough damage was done in spring training to overcook his elbow.
The 2021 rotation will be headed by Kyle Gibson, the most experienced starter, who posted a 5.35 ERA in 2020. Jordan Lyles, who was even worse, will be a starter, and so will Japanese free-agent pick-up Kohei Arihara.
Dane Dunning, the key piece in the Lynn trade with the Chicago White Sox, and Kyle Cody will make starts, though on an innings limit in their first full seasons back from Tommy John surgery.
Both pitched well in their MLB debuts last season.
Beyond that, there are left-handers Kolby Allard, Joe Palumbo, Brock Burke and Taylor Hearn to consider. Wes Benjamin, too. Another lefty, John King, could get a long look after his MLB debut in 2020.
All have flaws, namely that they haven’t logged many innings recently, lack experience and/or are coming off injuries. They won’t be able to fill a rotation spot for the full season, in other words.
Nor will righties Tyler Phillips, Jason Bahr and Jharel Cotton, who will also be in camp.
All should add innings this season and have a longer leash when 2022 comes around, but none of them has the stuff Hernandez has.
He throws a turbo sinker as hard as 100 mph and complements it with a wipeout slider. He throws a change-up, but doesn’t really have need for it in short stints.
Hernandez, who started in the minors, would benefit from better command, though it’s not like he was a walk machine last season. He can be a strikeout machine, as well as a broken-bat machine.
That’s a lot of machinery to not want to at least see how it would perform in the starting rotation, even with that broken track record and all those discarded elbow ligaments of past bullpen-to-rotation experiments shouting against doing that with Hernandez.
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
