{"id":65561,"date":"2024-01-25T20:53:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T01:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=65561"},"modified":"2024-01-25T20:53:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T01:53:26","slug":"david-robertson-signs-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/25\/david-robertson-signs-rangers\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Reliever Signs a One-Year Deal with Rangers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the oldest, yet most reliable bullpen arms has officially come off the market.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/roberda08.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Robertson<\/a> has signed a one-year deal with the Texas Rangers, according to ESPN&#8217;s Jeff Passan. Per Passan, the deal is in the range of $11-12 million. Between the New York Mets and Miami Marlins in 2023, Robertson tossed 65 1\/3 innings with a 3.03 ERA and a 1.194 WHIP. He is expected to provide a reliable presence and solid production to the back end of the defending champs&#8217; bullpen.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Right-handed reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/roberda08.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-01-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Robertson<\/a> and the Texas Rangers are in agreement on a one-year contract in the $11-12 million range, pending physical, sources tell ESPN. The World Series champs bulk up their bullpen with the veteran closer who has 175 career saves.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JeffPassan\/status\/1750690531359793299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 26, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>David Robertson Signs With Rangers<\/h2>\n<p>Robertson is a battle-tested, versatile arm that can handle any situation. Texas, no doubt, was intrigued with not only Robertson&#8217;s production, but the flexibility he could give manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/bochybr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bruce Bochy<\/a> when using arms late in games. Robertson has the ability to close, set up, or put out fires in the middle innings.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran relies on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/riverma01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-01-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mariano Rivera<\/a>-esque cutter that had a 14 Run Value last season. He threw it 53.4 percent of the time last year at an average speed of 93.3 mph. Batters hit only .183\/.252\/.255 of it, and the pitch&#8217;s late movement certainly helped Robertson produce a Barrel percentage in the 80th percentile.<\/p>\n<p>Overall in 2023, Robertson struck hitters out at an above-average rate (29 strikeout percentage) and generated an elite 31.2 Whiff percentage. He walked hitters at a slightly high 9.3 percent rate, but produced great strikeout and ground ball rates (44.2 percent) to make up for it.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">David Robertson finishes off the 5-out save and the Mets win it! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fS44vZEr3d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/fS44vZEr3d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 SNY (@SNYtv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SNYtv\/status\/1672739240273117189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>While he never gave up more than two runs in an outing with the Mets (he did that just once), Robertson gave up 2 or 3 runs four times in 22 games with the Marlins. His numbers in Miami look poor at first. But when removing the four blowups, they look as good <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/12\/mets-half-grades-pitching\/\" target=\"_self\">as they did in New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest red flag with Robertson&#8217;s profile is his age. He will be 39 in early April and will no longer be effective at some point. However, he has a reputation for taking care of his body and relying on intelligence, not stuff, to retire hitters. These traits help older pitchers last longer, and Robertson is worth the risk on a short-term deal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/143615892@N05\/47529857132\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Robertson<\/a>&#8221; by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/143615892@N05\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IDSportsPhoto<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/?ref=openverse\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the oldest, yet most reliable bullpen arms has officially come off the market.\u00a0David Robertson has signed a one-year deal with the Texas Rangers, according to ESPN&#8217;s Jeff Passan. Per Passan, the deal is in the range of $11-12 million. Between the New York Mets and Miami Marlins in 2023, Robertson tossed 65 1\/3 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4683,"featured_media":65917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1071,35],"tags":[226,1275,549,2262],"class_list":["post-65561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rangers","category-mlb","category-news","tag-bruce-bochy","tag-david-robertson","tag-mariano-rivera","tag-mlb-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}