Cole Ragans

Ragans made his big-league debut with nine starts last season and posted a 4.95 ERA, 1.48 WHIP and 27:16 K:BB over 40 innings. The Rangers revamped their starting rotation during the offseason with the additions of veterans Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney, Nate Eovaldi and Jake Odorizzi, leaving the 25-year-old with extremely slim odds of making the Opening Day roster. Ragans is unlikely to be much of a factor in Texas' rotation in 2023, and if he is it means the club is enduring some serious injury issues.

A projectable 6-foot-4 lefty, Ragans only logged 7.2 innings after the Rangers selected him with the 30th overall pick in 2016, so he entered 2017 as a bit of a mystery. However, we soon learned that his low-90s fastball and low-80s changeup already grade out as plus offerings, so naturally he was able to dominate hitters in the Northwest League. He had the worst walk rate in the league (14 percent) and still finished second in K-BB% (20.8 percent) because he was using that fastball/changeup combo to strike hitters out at an ace-like clip (34.8 percent). It's obvious that his command/control needs a lot of work, but he has the size, handedness and feel for a changeup that cannot be taught. His curveball also needs some work. Ragans has No. 2 starter upside and plenty of time to work on improving his weaknesses. Entering his age-20 season, approaching 100 innings would be a big accomplishment, as he still needs to show he can go deeper into games and eventually handle a starter's workload.