As we sit less than a month away from the beginning of the Rangers' 2025 season, how is the bullpen shaping up? Late inning relief was perhaps the biggest question mark for this team as they arrived in Suprise, so Kevin & Cory look at the options that have separated themselves during Spring Training. Could late signee Luke Jackson end up closing games for this team?
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00:00Let's start with Luke Jackson.
00:19Yesterday in relief of Tyler Mallee, Luke Jackson had a leadoff walk.
00:24Not ideal.
00:25And then he struck out three straight Cincinnati Reds with his slider.
00:31Bruce Bochy.
00:32Again, this is his quote, not him actually speaking.
00:36It's just getting better and better with him and what I'm seeing.
00:39The stuff is good.
00:40Good inning for him, for sure.
00:42I think the Rangers are hoping that Luke Jackson is going to be the next kind of like Kirby
00:46Yates post-surgery success.
00:48I'm not necessarily to say like he'll always be in the ninth inning or anything like that,
00:52but he was rough before he had surgery 5.09 ERA in 52 games with two teams last season.
01:02Bochy said there's probably three to four spots available or like competition in the
01:07bullpen.
01:08And Luke Jackson has performed really well.
01:11And perhaps he will take one of those spots and get some high leverage looks for you.
01:14All right.
01:15So how many spots would there be in the bullpen total?
01:20Is it eight?
01:21I believe that is correct.
01:23Or is it not?
01:24Seven?
01:25Seven.
01:26Yeah.
01:27Well, it kind of depends on how you're working some things.
01:28I really want to use the Matt Hicks quote right here, but yeah, there's a good chance
01:31you'll have eight.
01:32So he's already got a couple in mind or a few in mind that are like Matt Hicks quote
01:36is fantastic.
01:37There's already a few in mind that are taken, but there are plenty.
01:41It's certainly four is a lot of places to be open because you're already saying, I really
01:46hope those three that we've already decided on are locked, locked it up.
01:51These other four, that's a lot of places.
01:53So Luke Jackson is an interesting character because we know he can throw like we knew
01:58that the sliders got to work and if that sliders work and that could be really nice, but having,
02:03you know, older arms in the bullpen that know how to pitch very important for this.