Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections are a good measure of what to expect from players in the upcoming baseball season. We'll take a look at the Rangers' projections on a position-by-position basis. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Today we'll look at the projections for the Rangers in the No. 3 starting pitcher role, which looks to be held down by Derek Holland, who has been up and down throughout his career.
Holland: 28 starts, 170 2/3 innings, 4.54 ERA, 7.43 K/9 IP, 141 strikeouts, 55 walks, 27 home runs allowed
These projections would have Holland with a better season than last year, when he was riddled by injury and illness that caused him to lose 20 pounds and velocity on his fastball. But they aren't as good as his 2011 season, which might just go down as the outlier in Holland's career, when he was arguably the best pitcher in the American League from the all-star break on. He is right at 90 starts in his career, which is the magic number baseball folks look at to be able to judge what a pitcher actually is. So if that's the case, it looks like the Rangers have an average pitcher who can be great at times and awful at others.
