Joe Barlow Back With The Rangers
On February 16th the Rangers signed Joe Barlow to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.
Joe Barlow was with the organization in 2021-2023. In 2021 and 2022 Barlow was used as a leverage arm and even closed games logging 24 in the two years. In his rookie year Barlow logged a 1.55 ERA in 29 innings with 27 strikeouts. In 2022 Barlow tossed a 3.86 ERA in 35 innings with 28 strikeouts. However, Barlow was designated for assignment on July 30th in 2023. Barlow in 2023 threw 9 2/3 innings and posting a 4.66 ERA. Barlow dealt with illness and being optioned a couple times in 2023.
This move doesn’t mean that he is on the team. This move is more of “let’s see what he can do” kind of move. If he is good they got him for cheap, and if he isn’t great then it was low risk. Joe Barlow works with three pitches, those being a four-seam fastball, slider, and curveball. Barlow’s fastball sits in the mid 90s, while his slider sits in the high 80s and curve ball sits at around 80. His slider is his main pitch, then his fastball is his second most used pitch. While his curveball is used around 2% of the time.
In 2021-2022 his best whiff pitch was his slider which he got a whiff on about 30% of the time. Kind of a trend with the Rangers latest bullpen signings, Barlow’s slider doesn’t have big horizontal break on it. It is a slider that is faster and has sharp break. Barlow could be useful if he goes back to his 2021 rookie year form, if he does he may find a spot in the bullpen.
