In 2013, Tanner Scheppers was a candidate for the final slot on the AL all-star roster that is determined by fan vote. It's understandable, considering he was one of the league's elite setup men and compiled a rock solid 1.88 ERA in a ridiculous 76 2/3 innings of work.
Since then, he's been one big stint on the disabled list and he saw nothing close to that level of effectiveness in 2014 and 2015.
In that time, the Rangers have totally overhauled their bullpen and made it one of the best in the game after the emergence of rookie Keone Kela and the trade deadline acquisitions of Jake Diekman and Sam Dyson last season and the winter trade for Seattle's Tom Wilhelmsen. In the midst of all that, Scheppers wants people to know he's still around.
“People think I don’t play baseball anymore,” he told the Star-Telegram in the Frisco stop of the Rangers Winter Caravan over the weekend. “From every experience you go through you want to learn something from it, so I definitely broke down the year and analyzed everything I possibly could in order to make myself better. I just want to improve and take that as an experience and not a norm and go from there.”
It's frankly going to be tough for Scheppers to crack the big-league roster in 2016, but competition never hurt anyone and it's going to be good for both he and the rest of the right-handed bullpen arms, and if he can make it that means he's doing something very right, and that would obviously be a good thing.
