Texas Rangers Star Ace Pitcher Projected To Have Incredible Comeback Season

The Texas Rangers enter the 2025 season looking to right their wrongs of 2024 after missing the playoffs as the defending World Series champions.

For all the glory winning the first World Series banner of the franchise's storied history brought, the next year was a major flop, being eliminated from playoff contention with still eight games remaining in the year.

The regression of the offense was obviously a major reason for 2024 going the way it did, though injuries across the board on the pitching staff were extremely detrimental as well. One player who was not extremely consequential in either the championship winning campaign or subsequent year missing the postseason entirely is right-handed pitcher Jacob deGrom.

After signing a five-year, $185 million contract with the Rangers two years ago, deGrom has made a total of just nine starts for Texas. Now, the former ace is supposedly healthy and ready to go, potentially due for one of the most epic comeback seasons baseball has ever seen.

Using Steamer projections from FanGraphs, David Adler of MLB.com put together a list of players who are due for big years and named deGrom to the list.

"DeGrom is projected for a monster year in 2025," Adler wrote. "His projected 2.86 ERA is the best among AL starters. His projected 12.2 K/9 and 34.2% strikeout rate are the best among all MLB starters. His projected 206 strikeouts would give him his first 200-K season since 2019. And his projected 5.1 WAR would make him the most valuable pitcher in the AL. That's the deGrom we all want to see."

Not only would over 200 strikeouts be the first time deGrom has accomplished the feat in five years, it would likely mean it was the first fully healthy season he's had since then.

While the righty was beyond solid in the shortened 2020 season, he has not pitched a full workload since that 2019 year which culminated in him winning his second consecutive National League Cy Young award.

The two-year run from 2018-2019 is some of the most dominant stuff we've seen from a starting pitcher in a very long time. Making a full 64 starts, deGrom posted a 2.05 ERA with a 0.941 WHIP and 524 strikeouts in 421 innings pitched.

That's the version of deGrom the Rangers hoped - and thought - they were getting. He's been effective when he's able to be on the mound, but he simply has not been available enough through the first two years of the contract to justify the deal.

If these projections prove correct however, not only would deGrom's career be right back on track, the Rangers would have themselves the shiny new ace they signed two years ago but have not received to this point.