Rangers sign Dallas Keuchel for minor league deal

Signed guards Dallas Keuchel To hold a minor league, according to the team’s announcement. The 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner will soon report to Triple-A Round Rock.

The Texans became the third team in the year to throw the dice on Keuchel. The All-Star twice started the season with the White Sox, playing the final season of the three-year free agent deal he signed during the 2019-20 season. Keuchel thrived in the first season of that deal, posting a 1.99 ERA through 63 1/3 innings during the shortened campaign. He couldn’t sustain that production over a longer showing the following year, as the Southern veteran was hit hard for 5.28 ERAs across 162 frames last season.

While Sox certainly hoped Keuchel could make a comeback this year, that didn’t prove the case. He was marked for a 7.88 ERA from his first eight starts with the South Sides, posting a strike rate and walking rate of 12.2%. Chicago released him in late May, and he entered the open market after he passed unclaimed waivers. The Diamondbacks added him in a minor league deal a few days later, and he’s back in the big business in the desert by the end of June. Arizona coach Brent Strom worked closely with Keuchel during his heyday with the Astros, but their second stint together proved to be short.

Keuchel only started four times with Snakes. It served 22 rounds (20 gains) through 18 2/3 frames, even though it did post an 18:7 strike-to-walk ratio. However, the amount of difficult contact he surrendered was enough for Arizona to cut him off in a few weeks.

There is no danger for the Rangers to try their hand at getting Keuchel back on the right track. The White Sox stays in trouble over his salary, and Texas will only be responsible for the pro-rata portion of the $700,000 minimum salary if he’s making big business. The lack of turning depth was a problem, with both Taylor HearingAnd the Glen Otto And the Spencer Howard Post an ERA of 5.40 or higher. Keuchel is adding 11 years of MLB experience and a solid list of career awards to the upper echelons of the organization, even though his results in 2022 were worse than those of Hearn and Otto.