Jacob Latz: The Rangers' Secret Weapon in a pivotal stretch

There are few players on the Rangers that have been better than Latz and he has been the best part of the bullpen. He has been versatile occupying a number of roles including being the long man in the bullpen, being an opener, and even being a starter.

Latz was a bit of an afterthought coming into the year, but now he is anything but that. He has been great all year and I'm sure there is one game that sticks out to fans. On June 24, he was set to be an opener, go a few innings and then turn it over to the rest of the bullpen.

Latz had other ideas as he went six innings while allowing a pair of runs on only a single hit. Rangers fans would say you're lying if you told them this a year ago.

Let's look into his numbers this year compared to last year to see how he has taken this leap.

He has appeared in 19 games this year and amassed a ERA of 2.81 in 41.2 innings along with 41 strikeouts, 17 walks and a .5 WAR. This is a big difference from last year where he appeared in 46 games with a 3.71 ERA in 43.2 innings with 40 strikeouts, 27 walks and a -.3 WAR.

That is a quite notable improvement from Latz. He has cut down on his walks while increasing his strikeout numbers and he almost has matched his inning total from 2024. His ERA has improved too as he has cut .90 off of it. Diving into his advanced statistics gives an idea of why Latz has taken a step forward.

Most of his run values have increased with most taking leaps. His overall pitching run value increased from -3 to 7, his fastball run value increased from -2 to 5, and his breaking run value increased from -3 to 3. The only value that decreased was his offspeed run value which went from 1 to -1.

All of the values that are in the positives rank above league average and are considered good by baseball savant's metrics. If you don't know what run value means, it measures the runs that a pitcher prevents or allows. In 2024, Latz created 3 runs, but now he has prevented 7 runs this year. That is an insane jump for him as it is a 10 run difference and just shows how good Latz has been compared to last year.

Go further into the stats, his xERA, xBA, chase percentage, whiff percentage, strikeout percentage all went up from the previous year.

His whiff percentage is the thing that stands out the most as it fells into the great category with him generating a whiff on 33.2% of his pitch or nearly 1 out of every 3 pitches. That is an elite metric.

Due to his great whiff percentage, his strikeout percentage has gone up from 20.8% to 24.6%. His barrel rate has also gone down, which shows that teams are having a tougher time getting their barrels on the ball.

However, there are also some metrics that could point to some regression. His xERA is at 3.31 which is higher than his ERA at 2.81. His average exit velocity is below league average at 90 miles per hour and his hard hit percentage is at 43 percent.

These metrics show that Latz is getting hit hard and that he is getting a bit lucky as he should be letting up a little more runs than he actually does. However, he could right the ship and these metrics could decrease or he could continue to do what he currently is.

Even if Latz does regress, he will still be a weapon out of the bullpen and he is someone that Rangers fans should trust. Latz has taken a step forward and been a light in a year that has been pretty frustrating for the Rangers.