Is Rangers' Breakout Player Lurking on Pitching Staff?

Could the Texas Rangers have a breakout player on their pitching staff for the 2022 season?

CBSSports.com seems to think so. The site published a list of 30 breakout players for the season, one from each team. The aim was to pick a player from each team that would spend the majority of the season on the 26-man roster and outperform expectations for 2022.

The Rangers’ selection was right-handed pitcher Glenn Otto:

Glenn Otto

Andy Ibáñez, Texas' probable starting third baseman, had too good of a run to end last season to include. We're rolling instead with Otto, who came over as part of the Rangers ' return on Joey Gallo. Otto has good stuff but has suffered through command and health woes during his professional career. He might end up in the bullpen; that's fine, he'll probably find a fair amount of success there.

Otto is a Texas native, played his college baseball at Rice and was a fifth-round pick of the Yankees in 2017. He worked his way through the minors, but his 2018 season was curtailed due to a blood clot in his shoulder and the 2020 minor-league season was canceled due to COVID-19.

Last season before joining the Rangers’ organization, he went 6-3 with a 3.17 ERA and 103 strikeouts in more than 65 innings at Double-A Somerset, and 1-0 with a 4.35 ERA and 12 strikeouts in more than 10 innings at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Taylor Hearn

Surprise, Arizona

Jonah Heim

The Rangers optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock after the trade, where he went 2-1 with a 2.70 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 20 innings before he earned a promotion to the Rangers on Aug. 27. He faced the Astros in his Major League debut, throwing five scoreless innings and striking out seven hitters. He finished the season with the club, going 0-3 with a 9.26 ERA with 28 strikeouts in more than 23 innings pitched.

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