Texas Rangers left-handed pitcher Cody Bradford, now onto his fourth season with the team and seventh overall with the organization, has evidently learned the company line.
“You can never have too much starting pitching,” Bradford said Monday, in lockstep with Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young’s go-to phrase, at one of the club’s Winter Warmup events. “We had eight or nine starting pitchers last year and, that’s just what happens, you end up with five at the end of the year.”
His own injury contributed to the attrition.
Now, he plans to contribute to the solution.
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“I just want to not only show the teams, but show the fans, that I can be the same version of myself that I’ve always put forth,” Bradford said. “If not a better version.”
The 27-year-old Aledo native and Baylor alum missed the entirety of last season after an internal brace procedure in June derailed what could’ve been his first full and healthy season in the club’s rotation.
Bradford plans to throw his first bullpen Wednesday to extend what he described as a “smooth” rehab process. He hopes to make his first minor league rehab start soon after spring training concludes and, in alignment with Young’s comments earlier this month, remain on track for a May return. Those who undergo an internal brace procedure are generally expected to pitch at full strength 10 months after the operation.
“That would be starting in the big leagues and up to a pretty good pitch count,” Bradford said. “That’s the goal.”
The other?
“I haven’t had a full season in the big leagues,” Bradford said. “I would love to prove that I can do that. Sometimes that’s out of our body’s control, or out of my control as a person, so I’d love to prove that I can be a major league starter.”
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Bradford split time between the bullpen and rotation when he debuted in the 2023 season. He posted a 3.03 ERA in 13 starts two seasons ago but missed more than two months with a lower back strain. He was in line to earn a rotation spot last spring before an elbow sprain developed into an injury that required surgery.
The year off, Bradford said, allowed him to add muscle in the weight room and better understand how his body operates from a mechanical standpoint. He’s tweaked how his lower body transitions into each throw in an effort to put less stress on throws, manipulate his spin pitches better and add “maybe a tick or two” to his fastball, which runs in the 90 mph range.
Bradford said that it’s a “cloudy statement” to suggest that a direct correlation exists between elbow surgery and an increase in velocity. He believes that the combination of time off and a full year spent in the gym may contribute more to the spike that Tommy John surgery recoverees than the operation itself.
“I’ve gotten six months [in the gym], and I really don’t like the cliche of ‘the best shape I’ve ever been in,’ so I’m not going to use that,” Bradford said, “but my body feels really good right now.”
The Rangers will take that. The club still wants to bolster its rotation depth and remains active in both the free agency and trade market with less than a month before pitchers and catchers report. They have three certified locks in right-handers Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. The last two rotation spots, as the roster currently stands, will be claimed by some combination of Bradford, right-hander Kumar Rocker and left-hander Jacob Latz.
Bradford said that Latz — a fellow southpaw who’s bounced between the rotation and bullpen — is “definitely capable of being a big league starter” after he had a 2.72 ERA in eight starts last season.
The track record suggests that Bradford is as well.
The next step is to prove that.
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