Daniel Bard Gets a Chance With Texas Rangers

Once seemingly poised to replace then Boston Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon in the coveted late-inning role, Daniel Bard is fighting to stay in affiliated baseball with his career plagued with a puzzling lack of control on the mound. Now 28, Bard will attempt a return to the majors with the Texas Rangers after signing a minor league deal on Friday.

A first round draft pick out of the University of North Carolina in 2006, Bard rapidly ascended the Red Sox farm system. Boasting a high 90s fast ball and a dominant slider, he posted a 1.93 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP in 73 appearances covering 74.1 innings in 2010. That season, he struck out 76 batters and allowed 45 hits.

In 2011, Bard remained one of the game’s top set-up men, logging a 2.05 ERA and a0.80 WHIP in the first half of the campaign, holding hitters to a .161 average. Then, like most members of the Red Sox pitching staff in September that year, he imploded. Bard suddenly lost command of his pitches, getting tagged with a gaudy 1.82 WHIP in 11 games and 11 innings. The culprit? Nine walks and a hit batsman that contributed to 13 earned runs.

Undeterred by the power right-hander’s September struggles, the Red Sox decided to move Bard to the starting rotation instead of promote him to the closer’s role vacated after the 2011 campaign by Papelbon, who signed a free agent deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. The decision was ill-fated as Bard recorded a 6.22 ERA and a 1.74 WHIP (including 43 walks compared to 38 strikeouts, nine home runs allowed and eight hit batsmen) for Boston.

The 2012 season was so disastrous for Bard that he had worse numbers at Triple-A Pawtucket, including a 7.03 ERA and a 1.87 WHIP in 31 games with 10 hit batsmen and nine wild pitches in 32 innings. Last season, he continued to regress while spending time at three minor league levels, including the rookie Gulf Coast League and short-season Single-A Lowell, before he was waived by the Red Sox in September.

Bard was signed by the Chicago Cubs and former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, but he never appeared in a game in the Cubs organization and became a free agent in December.

Earlier in the offseason, Bard underwent thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in his right shoulder and is not expected to be ready for spring training, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is considered a long-term project and is a longshot this season to be a part of a Rangers bullpen that is projected to include closer Neftali Feliz, Joakim Soria, Neal Cotts, Tanner Scheppers, Robbie Ross and Jason Frasor.