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Texas Rangers President of baseball operations Chris Young announced that he would like to acquire at least one more starting pitcher this season.
Texas He has a solid core in his rotation with Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. The hope is that Cody Bradford is fully healthy for spring training and that Kumar Roker can fix the control issues that hampered him last season. But in baseball, you can never have enough pitching. Young, a former MLB pitcher, believes in the axiom.
The Rangers are operating on a tighter budget this season, as Young has pointed out multiple times this offseason. When it comes to starting pitching, the market tends to be inflated. Texas is currently operating at $189 million projected for the 2026 competitive balance tax cap, more than $50 million below that. Let’s say Texas has $15 million to spend on a starting pitcher. Here are three reasonable options.
Tyler Mahle
The Rangers are likely dealing with Mahle at some level. Now that the market is starting to move, it’s possible the 31-year-old could sign a deal soon. After missing three months with shoulder fatigue, some teams will be fired. The advantage of “Rangers” is that they know Mahlen’s doctors well. If Texas is OK with that, a deal similar to the first deal they gave Nathan Eovaldi before the 2023 season is reasonable. It was a two-year contract with an option based on pitching.
When the right-hander was on the mound, he was spectacular. He went 6-4 with a 2.18 ERA, 66 strikeouts and 29 walks. It all depends on his shoulder and how the Rangers feel about it.
Zack Littell
Littell falls into the perennial starter category, left-hander Patrick Corbin fell into that rotation last season. The Tampa Bay Rays traded him to the Cincinnati Reds at last year’s deadline and he went 10-8 with a 3.81 ERA in 32 starts, 130 strikeouts and 32 walks in 186.1 innings.
Littell began his career as a reliever, moved to a part-time starter role and has been a full-time starter for just two seasons. But he threw more than 300 innings over the last two seasons combined, .500 record (18-18) and almost every rotation. He has limited walks throughout his career. He is an option for less than $15 million per year.
German Marquess
On paper, the 30-year-old right-hander would be a difficult pass for the Colorado Rockies. He went 3-16 with a 6.70 ERA in 2025. He pitched for the worst lineup in baseball. But it was his first full season since Tommy John surgery. He made nearly every turn in the rotation, and the thin air in Colorado is no joke.
He spent his entire career in Colorado and had quality seasons, going 11-7 in 2017, 14-11 in 2018 and 12-5 in 2019. Has not had a winning season since an All-Star campaign in 2021 (12-11, 4.40 ERA).
The bet here is that getting him out of Colorado and putting a better batting order behind him will yield better results for Marquez. The good news is that he could be cheap on a one-year deal that could allow the Rangers to add a second veteran starter.
