Acquisition of Jonathan Lucroy pays dividends for Rangers’ pitching staff
Aug 30, 2016, 1:45 PM | Updated: 2:04 pm
ARLINGTON – An interesting comment from Mariners manager Scott Servais on the Mariners pregame show Monday led to some enlightening insight into the Rangers’ approach to setting their roster. During his daily meeting with the media Monday in Texas, Servais was asked what he had seen from Rangers starter Yu Darvish since returning from Tommy John surgery. He said that there didn’t appear to be much of a dropoff, then added this:
“It looks like he and (Jonathan) Lucroy are working well together – just from the outside. He’s pitching a little differently, I think the catcher might have something to do with that.”
At first glance, many would see the move to acquire Lucroy as an attempt to upgrade the Rangers offense, but according to Dallas Morning News beat writer Evan Grant, the move was made to help compensate for what the Rangers lacked in pitching.
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“I don’t know that I can overstate the impact that Jonathan Lucroy has had since he came over here,” Grant said on the roundtable segment of the Mariners pre-game radio show. “He has made a big difference in this pitching staff.”
Grant said that the Rangers went into the trade deadline thinking that a pitching upgrade would most benefit the club down the stretch and in the postseason. That pitching, however, was not available – or available at a price Texas was willing to pay – so they went to plan B, which was to help the pitching with better defense.
“This is a guy who has a great reputation as a pitch framer, a great reputation for temperament behind the plate, for having control of the game, and just in watching a month of Jonathan Lucroy doing prep for games, I’ve been blown away,” Grant said. “How much he puts into it, how hard he studies, this is a guy who doesn’t waste effort.
He spends the right amount of time doing the things he needs to do to get this team very ready and he’s been an offensive plus at the plate.”
Lucroy has posted .268/.358/.606 splits with seven home runs and 16 RBI’s in 23 games with the Rangers. While it is tougher to quantify his impact on the pitching in such a small sample, the Rangers’ staff has contributed a 4.2 WAR in August, more than twice the WAR they contributed in any other month this season.
This was an interesting approach, upgrading the catcher to upgrade the staff, but not the first time the Rangers have done it. Grant said signing Adrian Beltre in 2011 came with a similar approach.
“When they couldn’t sign Cliff Lee at that time and wanted to remake their pitching staff … what better way to do it than to get a guy that’s going to give you incredible defense, get a lot of those ground balls and give you some offense?” Grant said. “That’s what Lucroy has done behind the plate. He’s had an impact on all the pitchers, he’s also had an impact offensively.”
Lucroy came at a high price but one the Rangers were able to afford because of their rich farm system. He appears to be paying dividends now and, in the end, could prove more valuable than any single addition to the pitching staff the Rangers could have made.
