{"id":93420,"date":"2025-01-06T21:51:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T02:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=93420"},"modified":"2025-01-06T21:51:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T02:51:27","slug":"rangers-sign-chris-martin-strengthen-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/06\/rangers-sign-chris-martin-strengthen-bullpen\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Sign Chris Martin to One-Year Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">After a busy week leading up to Christmas, when the Texas Rangers <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/22\/washington-nationals-trade-for-nathaniel-lowe\/\" target=\"_self\">traded<\/a> their long-time first baseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lowena01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nathaniel Lowe<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/23\/joc-pederson-signs-with-texas-rangers\/\" target=\"_self\">signed<\/a> veteran slugger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pederjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joc Pederson<\/a>, the front office has been relatively quiet going into the new year. The Rangers&#8217; inactivity soon ended when it was announced this evening that the team had signed veteran relief pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=martich02,martin022chr&amp;search=Chris+Martin&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Martin<\/a> to a one-year deal. In a corresponding move, the team designated right-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/festama01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Festa<\/a> for assignment.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Texas Rangers tonight announced that the club has signed right-handed relief pitcher Chris Martin to a one-year Major League contract for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>To make room for Martin on the club\u2019s Major League roster, right-handed pitcher Matt Festa has been designated for\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Texas Rangers PR (@TXRangersPR) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TXRangersPR\/status\/1876437363502776652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Rangers Sign Reliever Chris Martin to One-Year Deal<\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Signing Martin is another move to stabilize a bullpen that was one of the worst in the league through the 2024 season. He is one of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/rangers\/2025\/01\/06\/texas-rangers-bolster-bullpen-sign-arlington-native-chris-martin-to-one-year-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">six relief pitchers<\/a> the Rangers have signed this offseason, and while the team has made a handful of big moves, signing Martin is one of their most significant so far.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> Martin is now 38 years old and has established himself as one of the most reliable relief pitchers in MLB. He holds a solid 3.38 ERA through ten seasons and finished last season with a 3.45 ERA through only 45 games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This will be Martin&#8217;s second stint with the Rangers, as he spent two seasons in his hometown of Arlington from 2018 to 2019 before <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/07\/31\/texas-rangers-trade-chris-martin-to-atlanta-braves\/\" target=\"_self\">a trade<\/a> to the Atlanta Braves. He spent last season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/02\/red-sox-offseason-preview-building-for-contention\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Red Sox<\/a>. During his first tenure in Texas, Martin quickly became one of the most reliable arms in a bullpen that was shaky at best before his arrival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Rangers front office hopes Martin can recapture the success he had in his initial stint with the team and give them a consistent arm in a bullpen <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">full<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> of unproven and inexperienced relief pitchers.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Overall, Rangers fans should welcome having Martin back on the roster. The front office has made it clear that they are looking to be competitive once again going into 2025, and moves like this prove the Rangers are serious about their claims and are looking to get back to the top in a highly competitive American League West.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a busy week leading up to Christmas, when the Texas Rangers traded their long-time first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and signed veteran slugger Joc Pederson, the front office has been relatively quiet going into the new year. The Rangers&#8217; inactivity soon ended when it was announced this evening that the team had signed veteran relief [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5380,"featured_media":93426,"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":[2956,423,28509,5663],"class_list":["post-93420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rangers","category-mlb","category-news","tag-chris-martin","tag-joc-pederson","tag-matt-festa","tag-nathaniel-lowe"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93420","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\/5380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93427,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93420\/revisions\/93427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}