Texas Rangers Rumors: Adam Ottavino could be a perfect late-inning addition

The Texas Rangers are currently in the midst of a rebuild, but this offseason presents a unique opportunity to add an impact option to their late-inning mix.

According to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Rangers have checked in with free agent reliever Adam Ottavino.  Although the Rangers are not known to be aggressively pursuing Ottavino at this time, he would be a phenomenal addition to the late-inning bullpen mix.

Throughout the 2018 regular season, Ottavino appeared in 75 games and compiled 77.2 innings pitched for the Colorado Rockies.  During these outings, he put together an incredible 112 strikeouts alongside a 2.43 ERA, a 0.991 WHIP, and a 2.74 FIP.

Despite being used primarily as a roving set-up man to cover the big situations between the sixth and eighth innings, Ottavino was able to compile 6 saves.  Even though he had 5 blown saves last season, the Rockies won all 11 games in which he had a save opportunity.  This is primarily due to the right-handed relievers ability to keep each of his appearances under control.

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For example, throughout the aforementioned 75 appearances last season, Ottavino only surrendered 3 earned runs one time, 2 earned runs five times, and 1 earned run six times.  As he was able to put together 63 appearances without allowing an earned run last season, Ottavino would be a tremendous boost to the back-end of the Rangers bullpen.

According to FanGraphs, Ottavino threw a 93.9 mph fastball 42.8% of the time last season while mixing in a devastating 81.4 mph slider 46.4% of the time.  The remainder of his pitch-type percentage came from an 87.0 mph cutter (10.2%), an 87.5 mph change-up (0.2%), and a 90.7 mph split-finger (0.5%).  FanGraphs also placed his fastball value at 9.8, his slider value at 9.5, and his remaining pitch values at a combined 0.7.

Even though the Rangers are in the midst of a rebuild, the opportunity to close games may be appealing for Ottavino.  As the Rangers will eventually need reliable late-game options when their rebuild is complete, it may also make sense to outbid other teams for the services of a valuable reliever while the opportunity presents itself.  This is a similar strategy the New York Yankees took when they re-signed Aroldis Chapman to a record-setting relief contract ahead of their rebuilding season in 2017.

Furthermore, if the Rangers are able to sign Ottavino and their current rebuild takes longer than they expect, he could end up a very valuable trade asset that could help the team acquire impact players.  This is another strategy the Yankees used during the 2016 season when they traded Chapman to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for four players, including 2018 All-Star and Rookie of the Year finalist, Gleyber Torres.