Yerry a Ranger no more
With the 2024 regular season over, it is time for us to go back and take a look at the players who appeared for the Texas Rangers this season.
Today, we look at pitcher Yerry Rodriguez.
Yerry Rodriguez’s 2024 season was remarkably similar to his 2023 season. He split the season between AAA and the majors, didn’t pitch particularly well in AAA, pitched even worse in the majors, but because he was on the 40 man roster and was optionable, he would find himself in the major league pen from time to time.
Yerry actually broke camp with the Rangers in 2024. Did you remember that? I didn’t. He pitched in the third game of the season, throwing two shutout innings against the Chicago Cubs.
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there.
Yerry had two separate stints in the bigs for the Rangers in 2024. He stuck around on the big league roster for about three weeks at the start of the season, appeared in six games, allowed runs in four of them, and ultimately got sent back down in mid-April with a 10.50 ERA and an 11.33 FIP. Walking 6 batters in 6 innings and allowing three bombs will mess up your stats.
Brought back at the beginning of May, he did a little better, allowing six runs in 11 innings, but was once again homer and walk prone — 5 walks and 2 homers allowed — and after an unpleasant two run, 1.1 IP outing in Philly, was sent to Round Rock again, never to return to the Rangers.
Yerry got battered around for Round Rock after being sent down the second time, allowing 12 runs in 6 outings covering 6.1 IP before being designated for assignment in late June to make room for either Justin Foscue (activated from the 60 day injured list) or Derek Hill (purchased from Round Rock). He was then traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Josh “What If God Were” Mollerus. Rodriguez gave up 8 runs in 2.2 IP in his first two outings in the big leagues for Toronto, and was released at the end of the season.
I have just discovered that Rodriguez signed a minor league deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and thus will presumably be toiling at AAA for them in 2025.
Rodriguez only stuck around as long as he did because he was granted a fourth option for the 2024 season, due to how little time he spent on full season active rosters prior to 2024. He’s a cautionary tale of how difficult pro baseball can be as you move up the ladder.
For Yerry’s career:
In low-A: 1.82 ERA
in high-A: 2.08 ERA
In AA: 2.63 ERA
In AAA: 5.25 ERA
Pretty easy to see where he hit the wall, huh?
In case you’re curious, Yerry has an 8.17 career major league ERA in 36.1 IP. He did put up a 6.88 ERA in his 12 outings for Texas in 2024, for what it is worth.
And who knows, maybe Josh Mollerus will make it to the majors one day.
Previously: