Texas Rangers Free Agent Profile: Patrick Corbin

When the Texas Rangers signed Patrick Corbin, fans didn’t think much about it. They thought that he was going to fill in for Jack Leiter until he came back, then he would be cut or moved to the bullpen. I am going to admit that I was part of that crowd.

He turned out to be much more than that. Corbin ended being part of a rotation that dealt with injuries and he was solid arm that ate innings throughout the season. There isn’t much more that the Rangers could have asked for.

Performance Last Year

Corbin was a solid back of the rotation arm with a 7-11 record in 30 starts with a 4.40 ERA. He issued 51 walks compared to 131 strikeouts.

That may not jump off the page to people, but Corbin was considered the worst pitcher in the MLB before the Rangers picked him up. This is his best ERA since 2019 when he helped guide the Washington Nationals to a World Series victory.

He was also great at eating innings with 151 under his belt. He wasn’t a pitcher that was going to blow away the opposing hitters, but he did his job and gave the Rangers a solid five or six innings every five days.

His advanced stats show the same thing as his regular stats. He does get good extension which leads to his good fastball run value. His chase rate is also good more than likely coming from his fastball.

The rest of his stats aren’t great including his xERA and xBA showing that he was getting a bit lucky compared to what should have actually been happening.

However, his stats are much improved from the previous year. Thank you Mike Maddux. His extension is still really good and his ground ball rate is a lot higher compared to 2025.

The funny thing that I see from the two years are that his breaking ball value went from being really good to really bad and his fastball did the exact opposite. It seems like the Rangers had him focus on his fastball at the expense of his breaking ball.

It worked for Corbin, so I don’t see an issue with it. His exit velocity improved as did his barrel rate percentage. There are many other stats that improved for him, but those are a few that stand out to me as a reason for how he improved the way that he did.

Pitch Mix

He throws six different pitches with them being a sinker, slider, cutter, four seamer, changeup, and a curve ball.

The slider was his most thrown pitch with a 33.5 percent of the time. This pitch had a whiff rate of 39.3 percent and collected the most strikeouts of any of his pitches with 49 strikeouts. It had a put away percentage of 16.6 percent. The batting average he allowed on it was .264 with the expected batting average supposed to be .254, so it shows that he was getting a bit unlucky with that pitch.

His next most used pitch was his sinker with 28.3 percent. It collected the second most strikeouts with 46 behind his slider, however it was not as good as his slider. Hitters had a .270 batting average against it with an expected batting average of .295. It did have a 18.9 put away percent while only generating a whiff rate of 12.1 percent. It is interesting to see that it generated a higher put away percent and lower whiff rate compared to the slider.

His cutter is the next pitch up with a usage rate of 25.2 percent. It generated the lowest batting average from opposing hitters with them hitting .257 against it. Its put away percentage was right behind the sinker with 18.8 percent and compiled a whiff rate of 23.3 percent.

His changeup was the pitch that got the highest whiff rate out of his arsenal with 40.2 percent. Surprisingly, it had a lower put away percentage than all the pitches ahead of with just a 13.4 percent rate. It only got nine strikeouts as Corbin only went to the pitch 9.2 percent of time which is probably the reason for the low strikeouts and put away percent.

The four seamer is up next with just a 3.2 usage percent. Hitters had a .286 batting average against it, which is not great, but the expected numbers show that it was even worse with an expected batting average of .330 against it. It did have a whiff rate of 17.1 percent and a put away percent of 3. Corbin didn’t control this pitch the best, but he was able to put it to some use and sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

His curveball is his last pitch which was hit or miss, literally. He got his highest whiff rate from this pitch with 40 percent, however batters hit .500 off of it. So either hitters were missing it completely or they were getting a hit off it. It had a zero put away percent and that makes sense as hitters probably got hits off it when he went to it and that made him think twice about going to the pitch when there were two strikes.

Verdict

The Rangers should look to bring back Patrick Corbin next year. They have quite a few of their starters from last year slated to be free agents and you can never have enough arms. The pitchers under contract from the rotation last year are Jack Leiter, Jacob deGrom, and Nathan Eovaldi.

Leiter and Eovaldi dealt with injuries last year and deGrom has an extensive injury history, so it wouldn’t hurt to have an insurance plan in the form of Corbin. His market value according to Spotrac is $5.49 million, that seems a bit high to me and maybe Corbin would be willing to come back for a bit of a discount for the team that was able to help him look good again.