Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
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The epitaph of the Texas Rangers’ season hasn’t been written quite yet, as they remain within hailing distance of a wild card spot in the American League. They wouldn’t be anywhere near where they are without the efforts of Nathan Eovaldi, whose regular season ended in late August when he suffered a rotation cuff strain in his right shoulder. The 35-year-old hurler posted a gaudy 11-3, 1.73, line in 130 innings, giving the Rangers a matching set of veteran aces alongside a rejuvenated Jacob deGrom.
The club certainly is banking on a return to health from Eovaldi, as he is under contract for an AAV of $25 million per year through 2027. Though shoulder injuries can be scary, the Rangers should be heartened by the fact that he has regained pre-injury form multiple times earlier in his career. Eovaldi went seven seasons between ERA-qualifying 162 inning campaigns between 2014 and 2021, and for the most part, it wasn’t due to lack of effectiveness. He was a materially below league average pitcher only once (in 2019) over that span, and he missed the entire season in 2017 due to elbow surgery. Along the way, he has established as a clutch playoff performer, winning two World Series rings (with the Red Sox in 2018 and Rangers in 2023) and posting a 9-3, 3.05, record over 79 2/3 postseason innings.
The bottom line is that Eovaldi is an expert at making adjustments, sometimes due to injury, and sometimes just to optimize his existing arsenal. His 2024-25 performances offer a window to the latter. While he was pretty good last season, grinding out 170 2/3 league average innings, he was something different altogether this season.
In recent years, his arsenal has consisted of 4-5 different pitches – splitter, four-seam fastball, cutter, curve and slider. He’s pretty much assigned the slider to the dustbin of late, leaving him with the other four. And in 2024, for some reason, he got away from his curve as well, throwing it only 13.9% of the time. It narrowly missed qualifying for a pitch grade.
Each season, I assign pitch grades for each qualifying offering in the repertoire of starting pitchers with 135 or more innings pitched, based on pitch-specific bat-missing and contact management performance relative to league average. In both 2021 and 2023, Eovaldi’s curve earned an “A” grade, mostly because of very strong contact management results. Perhaps it’s a relatively stressful pitch for his pitching arm, but its limited usage left him three pitches that never have earned an “A” grade among them.
The splitter and four-seamer earned “B+” grades twice in his three qualifying seasons between 2021-24, while the cutter earned “B” grades twice over that span.
In 2025, his curve was his out pitch, earning a sterling “A++” grade, with a brilliant pitch-specific 56 Adjusted Contact Score, over two standard deviations better than league average. Both his splitter and cutter have been “B+” grade pitches, the former on the strength of above average bat-missing, the latter because of strong contact management. The four-seamer has actually been a slightly below average pitch this season, earning a “C+” grade due to subpar bat-missing.
A batting ball-based overview of Eovaldi’s 2025 season suggests he was a little bit fortunate on balls in play, but not as much as you might expect given his video game ERA. His best luck came on grounders – hitters batted .094 AVG-.107 SLG on the ground, which is obviously not representative of anyone’s true talent level. They “should have” hit .202 AVG-.221 SLG. Overall, while his 84 Adjusted Contact Score is solidly higher than his unadjusted 66 mark, he’d be the frontrunner in a tight battle for AL Contact Manager of the Year if he met the ERA qualification threshold. His 67 “Tru” ERA- (my batted ball-based proxy for ERA) might be well higher than his 42 ERA-, but it’s right in line with his 65 FIP-. I recently handicapped the AL Cy Young race in this space – if Eovaldi met the ERA qualification requirement, he would have been in 5th place, fractionally ahead of teammate deGrom.
So what does the future hold? His physical condition is obviously the biggest variable. There are other factors that make me a bit pessimistic. Great pitchers tend to have great fastballs – and at this point, Eovaldi’s weakest pitch is his four-seamer. His most frequently used pitch is his splitter, which he threw 31.4% of the time this season. In 2024, the only pitch grade qualifiers who threw their splitters more often were Kevin Gausman and Cal Quantrill, and they did so by very small margins. Splitters are relatively stressful pitches. And given recent usage trends, I surmise that Eovaldi’s curve (19.7% usage rate in 2025) also requires more than typical effort. He’s getting older, and the cumulative effect of his injuries is going to reach critical mass at some point.
But I’m not going to doubt this guy too much. He knows his body, he knows his arm, and he has repeatedly made the tweaks necessary to remain a solid contributor both qualitatively and quantitatively. Perhaps we haven’t seen the last successful iteration of Nathan Eovaldi just yet. And if his club sneaks into the postseason and perhaps make a successful run, don’t forget his role in getting them there.