{"id":25043,"date":"2025-07-26T08:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T08:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/25043\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T08:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T08:02:07","slug":"rangers-activate-jon-gray-dfa-luke-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/25043\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Activate Jon Gray, DFA Luke Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 25:\u00a0Jackson has been unconditionally released, the Rangers announced.<\/p>\n

July 23: The Rangers announced Wednesday that they\u2019ve reinstated right-hander Jon Gray<\/a> from the 60-day injured list. To make space on the active and 40-man rosters, reliever Luke Jackson<\/a> has been designated for assignment.<\/p>\n

Gray, 33, is in the final season of a four-year, $56MM contract signed in free agency. He\u2019s been a solid if unspectacular presence in the middle of the Texas rotation, tossing a combined 387 1\/3 innings of 4.16 ERA ball while fanning 22.4% of his opponents versus a 7.5% walk rate. Gray has yet to pitch this season after suffering a fracture when a comeback line-drive struck him in the forearm late in spring training.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not immediately clear when or whether Gray will slot back into the rotation. The Rangers had given some thought to using him out of the bullpen over the winter, and the rotation in Texas has generally been strong. Kumar Rocker<\/a> has been the least-effective Texas starter overall, but he\u2019s rattled off a 3.34 ERA over his past six starts. Jack Leiter<\/a> has pitched well of late as well. There were also plenty of trade rumblings about Gray in the winter, but his value isn\u2019t exactly at a high point after missing the entire season to date.<\/p>\n

At least for today, there\u2019s no urgent rush to answer the question. Gray pitched on July 19, so his would-be turn in the rotation isn\u2019t up yet. Texas is off tomorrow, too, affording them extra time to plan things out. Patrick Corbin<\/a> gets the nod in tonight\u2019s start against the visiting A\u2019s. The Rangers have Rocker listed as probable for Friday, a TBD listed for Saturday and Leiter listed as Sunday\u2019s probable starter. Gray\u2019s return and tomorrow\u2019s off-day could impact plans.<\/p>\n

Jackson, 33, leads the Rangers with nine saves but hasn\u2019t pitched especially well. He currently owns a 4.11 earned run average with rate stats that make even that number feel a bit fortunate. The right-hander\u2019s 15.8% strikeout rate is the eighth-lowest mark among the 175 major league relievers to have tossed at least 30 innings this season. Only 17 of those 175 relievers have a higher walk rate than Jackson\u2019s 12.5% clip, and he\u2019s also plunked a pair of batters. Metrics like FIP (5.01) and SIERA (4.79) paint a rather unfavorable picture.<\/p>\n

The Rangers signed Jackson to a one-year, $1.5MM deal in free agency. He\u2019s already earned $450K of incentives based on appearances. He\u2019s one game shy of a $175K bonus, but if the Rangers were truly concerned about him reaching those incentive milestones, they\u2019d likely have made a move sooner. Jackson earned $75K for reaching 20 games, $100K for reaching 25 games, $125K for 30 games and $150K for 35 games.<\/p>\n

Texas will have five days to trade Jackson, place him on outright waivers or place him on release waivers. He has enough service time to reject an outright and retain the remainder of his guaranteed salary anyhow, so it seems unlikely he\u2019d accept an outright upon clearing waivers. A release is the most probable outcome, given that any team trading for Jackson would remain on the hook for the rest of his incentives (which continue in increasing increments up through 60 appearances). Upon clearing release waivers, he\u2019d be free to sign anywhere for only the prorated league minimum, and the remainder of those incentives would become moot. Texas would be on the hook for the rest of his $1.5MM guarantee, minus the prorated minimum for any time he spends on another club\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 25:\u00a0Jackson has been unconditionally released, the Rangers announced. July 23: The Rangers announced Wednesday that they\u2019ve reinstated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,20307,20308,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-25043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-jon-gray","11":"tag-luke-jackson","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}