Rangers Sign Outfield/Pitcher Hybrid. No, No, Not That One.

It’s not Shohei Ohtani—Stand down, everyone—but Texas has reportedly signed Anthony Gose to a minor league deal. Gose has played at the big league level as an outfielder with the Blue Jays and Tigers with middling results, but that’s not where the intrigue lies in this signing. No, this bit of news on an otherwise slow Rangers News day is the result of one little number: 99.

That is the number that measures, in miles per hour, Gose’s fastball last season in High-A ball

Of course, velocity isn’t everything. Here are a couple of other numbers:

10⅔ – that’s the number of innings Gose pitched in 2017.
7.59 – Gose’s ERA. Again, this was in High-A ball
14 – strikeouts in those 10⅔ innings. Okay, I’m officially interested, even if he did also walk 6.

Gose will play both ways with the Rangers, pitching in relief and playing centerfield.

— anthony fenech (@anthonyfenech) November 30, 2017

Perhaps this is a coincidence. Perhaps it is all part of an elaborate ruse to let Shohei Ohtani know: Hey, we’re about that life, man. But Gose is now one of a handful of current Rangers minor-leaguers with both pitching and hitting statistics on their baseball reference page (not counting, say Brett Nicholas, who eephus-pitched his way into history against Ichiro and the Marlins in a blowout last season).

Jairo Beras, once a highly-regarded outfield prospect, also logged 14 strikeouts in A and High-A ball last year as he transitioned to pitcher (he did so in 14⅓ innings, and walked 9 en route to a 5.02 ERA). James Jones (who also had a 99 connection: he wore the number on his jersey) made the leap in 2016, though it didn’t go as well: he suffered a UCL injury that required him to undergo Tommy John surgery and miss most of the 2017 season. Preston Beck has only really pitched in blowouts, but he has a respectable 4.15 ERA in 4⅓ innings at AA and AAA in the last two years. 

Of course, the big hope is that Texas will have one more such player in the fold by the time Spring Training rolls around.