Texas Rangers sign former 2-time All-Star pitcher Who Will Strengthen The Squad
The Texas Rangers are taking a flyer on a former 2-time All-Star pitcher.
The Rangers on Tuesday signed Johnny Cueto to a minor-league contract.
Cueto was apparently drawn to the Rangers because he views the defending World Series champions as a contender, and because of his relationship with the team’s manager, Bruce Bochy.
Cueto spent 2016-2021 with the Giants. Bochy managed San Francisco for the first four of those seasons.
Cueto won 19 games in 2012, 20 games in 2014 and 18 in 2016. His most recent productive season came with the White Sox in 2022 when he went 8-10 with a 3.35 ERA. The 38-year-old went 1-4 with a 6.02 ERA over 13 games with the Marlins last season.
The Rangers entered play on Tuesday 12-11, which was good enough to place them first in the AL West.
Against all odds, Terry Francona may find his way back into an MLB dugout.
Longtime ESPN reporter Tim Kurkjian appeared Thursday on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland. During the appearance, Kurkjian shared some surprising information about the former Cleveland Guardians manager Francona.
“Was told Tito is going to get healthy and then he’ll be back [managing] in a year and a half,” said Kurkjian. “He loves the game. [It’s] part of his fiber in every way. [I] would not be shocked to see him back.”
Francona had spent the previous 11 seasons as Cleveland’s skipper and won AL Manager of the Year in 2022 (the third such honor of his career). But Francona has battled multiple health issues in recent years and failed to finish both the 2020 and the 2021 seasons due to his physical condition (with his issues in 2020 being especially severe). After another brief hospitalization in 2023 that caused him to miss a handful of games, Francona decided to step down following the season.
The Guardians are doing quite well with 39-year-old Stephen Vogt as their new manager, sitting at an AL-best 18-7 so far this season. But it sounds like Francona, who has been around Major League Baseball for more than four decades and is still younger than several current MLB managers at 65, is determined to get back into managing as soon as his health allows for it.
MLB umpires have received scrutiny this season over some inconsistent strike zones, and Texas Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer thinks he has a solution to the problem.
Scherzer began a rehab stint Wednesday at Triple-A Round Rock, a league that uses an automatic system to call balls and strikes. The former Cy Young winner said he was not a fan of the removal of the human element from the game, but does think the electronic strike zone could be used to implement his own plan to improve the standard of umpiring.
