With the Rangers' surprising season in the books, let's take a look at the season on a position-by-position basis.
2015 No. 5 starter
The guy: Martin Perez
Perez underwent Tommy John surgery after a promising start to the 2014 season and after a 14-month layoff he returned in July to the tune of a pretty nice start on the road against the Houston Astros.
His third start showed exactly what you expect from a guy coming off Tommy John — inconsistency. That's the night he allowed eight earned runs on seven hits in one inning of work in the wacky 21-5 loss to the Yankees that seemingly put the nail in the Rangers' coffin for the 2015 season. Of course, we all know what happened from that point, and Perez had a lot to do with the Rangers' success.
His next start was a near-complete game against the Giants. After that, he made 10 starts in the regular season and only had two in which he allowed more than three earned runs (four and five).
It was an overall better-than-expected year from Perez in his 14 starts, especially when you consider the track record of young pitchers returning from Tommy John. He'll slot in as the definite No. 4 starter in 2016, as things stand now, and possibly even the No. 3 guy, but Perez as a No. 4 starter would be pretty amazing.
Overall, we'll give Perez a B for the season.
