The Texas Rangers have signed veteran left-handed starter Patrick Corbin to a one-year contract, the club announced on Tuesday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move for Texas comes not long after right-handed starter Jon Gray was lost to a forearm fracture, the result of his being struck by a line drive during Cactus League play on Friday. Gray will open the 2025 season on the 60-day injured list, which means he won’t be available to return to the rotation until late May at the earliest.
As for Corbin, 35, he’s coming off another disappointing season with the Washington Nationals. In 32 starts and 174 ⅔ innings, Corbin in 2024 pitched to a 5.62 ERA while leading the majors in earned runs and hits allowed. Last season marked the final year of the six-year, $140 million contract he signed with the Nationals prior to the 2019 season. Suffice it to say, that contract turned out to be a disaster from the club standpoint. Corbin enjoyed a strong campaign during the Nationals’ championship season of 2019, but things fell apart from there. Over the final five seasons of the pact, Corbin put up an ERA+ of 73, or a park-adjusted ERA 27% worse than the league average, and a WAR of -2.3.
Given those recent performance trends, the Corbin signing reflects some level of desperation on the part of the Rangers, as they scramble to cover Gray’s innings over the initial weeks of the season.
Texas, which won the World Series for the first time in franchise history in 2023, backslid badly in 2024 with 84 losses and a third-place finish in the American League West – ahead of just the Los Angeles Angels and the Athletics. With a strong veteran core and some impressive young talent on the position side in place, the Rangers and Bruce Bochy will be looking to rebound in 2025. A rotation that now presumably includes Corbin, though, is a source of concern.
