Rangers starter Tyler Mahle has been diagnosed with a rotator cuff strain, GM Chris Young told the Texas beat this evening (relayed by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com and Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports). He’ll remain shut down entirely for the next two weeks and will not be back in MLB game action before the July 31 trade deadline.
Young downplayed the long-term concern but it’s obviously tough news for Texas in the coming weeks. Mahle, who has been on the injured list since June 12, has pitched well over his 14 starts. He carries a 2.34 earned run average across 77 innings. A modest 18.2% strikeout rate would have made it difficult to sustain that excellent an ERA, but he’d been a valuable part of Bruce Bochy’s rotation before the injury.
It could also have ramifications on the trade market. The Rangers are two games under .500 entering tonight’s series opener against the Orioles. They’re within 2.5 games of the final playoff spot in a muddled American League Wild Card race. While Texas surely hopes they’ll play well enough to buy, they’ve had a punchless offense all year. That may eventually knock them out of the playoff picture and force the front office to listen on at least short-term pieces.
Mahle is in the second season of his two-year free agent deal. He would have been one of the potentially available better rental starters if healthy. A trade now is much tougher to envision. Mahle would still be eligible to be traded while on the IL but would obviously have diminished trade value amidst a six-plus week absence for a shoulder injury. It’s tough to see the Rangers finding enough value to make a trade, especially if they’re hanging on the periphery of the playoff mix and expect Mahle back at some point in August.
Paradoxically, the injury could actually the front office some extra flexibility to add at the deadline. While it’ll be a little tougher to hang in the playoff mix without Mahle for the next month, they’ll have more breathing room financially if they do remain in contention. Mahle’s contract contains up to $5MM in incentives. MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald reported the specifics in April, writing that he’d earn $500K for getting to 100 innings, $1MM each at 110, 120 and 130 innings, then $1.5MM at 140 innings.
Unlocked performance bonuses count against a team’s luxury tax calculation at the end of the year. Texas clearly prefers to keep its CBT number below the $241MM base threshold. RosterResource estimates their CBT number around $234MM, though that’s unofficial. The Rangers have a few million dollars to play with — Seattle claiming Leody Taveras off waivers helped in that regard — but Mahle could have eaten up most or all of their remaining flexibility had he maxed out the incentives.
There’s now essentially no chance he’ll get to 140 innings. Even if he returned in early August, he’d probably only get another eight or nine turns through the rotation. He’d need to average seven innings per start across nine starts down the stretch to reach 140 frames total and max out his incentives. If he makes eight starts down the stretch and maintains his current average of 5.5 innings per start, he’d finish the season with 121 innings of work. Even that would be enough to unlock $2.5MM in bonuses, but if Mahle is still several weeks from a return come the deadline, that could open up another couple of million for the Rangers’ front office to work with this summer.
While having a bit of additional financial flexibility to work with in the event they decide to buy is good news, it comes attached to the reality that their rotation depth has now thinned noticeably for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, Texas recently welcomed Nathan Eovaldi back from the injured list. He’s now joined Jacob deGrom, Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter, and Patrick Corbin in a rotation that remains fairly solid even without Mahle on board, although they’ve exhausted the majority of their starting depth at this point and continued health from their remaining starters will be imperative if they hope to remain in the playoff picture going forward.
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