At the trade deadline last season, the Texas Rangers made moves and seemingly created the greatest bullpen in all of Major League Baseball.
They acquired Mike Adams from the San Diego Padres and Koji Uehara from the Baltimore Orioles, both K:BB freaks who were capable of locking down the seventh and eighth innings for the Rangers.
Or so we thought.
Adams got off to a shaky start but quickly got his feet under him as an American League reliever, but the numbers were still a drop-off from what he did for the Padres.
Adams posted a 2.10 ERA, giving up six earned runs and three home runs in 25 2/3 innings after the trade. Before the trade, he had a 1.13 ERA, allowing six earned runs and two home runs in 48 innings.
Uehara's drop-off was much worse, and harder to explain considering he came from a team in the AL East that obviously faces some tough lineups.
With Baltimore last season, Uehara posted a 1.72 ERA in 47 innings with 62 strikeouts and eight walks.
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After coming to Texas, Uehara worked just 18 innings and had a 4.00 ERA, hitting an all-time low in the postseason when he posted a 33.75 ERA in just 1 1/3 innings of work before Ron Washington completely lost trust in him.
Uehara has expressed interest in returning to Baltimore via trade, which could happen.
Now, the Rangers are trying to make up for the deals that went wrong last year. Fans assumed Adams would be the set-up man for new closer Joe Nathan, but now that's not even a certainty as the Rangers have expressed interest in Oakland A's closer Andrew Bailey, who would likely take over the set-up role in Texas, moving Adams to the seventh inning. Conventional wisdom says Uehara is not in the Rangers plans for next season, which is unfortunate considering how excited they were to land him at the deadline last season.
