Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the Texas Rangers last winter was who the team would tab as their closer.

From Robert Garcia to Jakob Junis to Chris Martin, many names came up as potential candidates.

At the same time, when most were playing some sort of pick-your-closer game, Jacob Latz was competing for the Rangers' fifth starter spot.

It wasn’t like Latz just randomly had his name in the running to be a part of the Texas rotation as he was coming off somewhat of a breakout season.

In 2025, Latz served as the Swiss Army knife for manager Bruce Bochy in what would be his final season at the helm of the Rangers.

Throughout 85.2 innings across 33 appearances (8 starts), Latz posted a very strong 2.84 ERA and 1.23 WHIP.

As Spring Training rolled around, Latz continued to get guys out at a high clip as he put up a 1.79 ERA with eight strikeouts in six appearances.

Despite the strong numbers for Latz, first-year manager Skip Schumaker and his staff opted to give the fifth starter spot to Kumar Rocker.

As the season’s early stages played out, to no one’s surprise, Latz continued to retire batters at a high clip out of the bullpen.

With no one having grasped the role, closer Schumaker decided to give Latz a crack at it, and the rest was history.

For much of the year, Latz seemed unhittable, and it wasn’t just in the ninth inning that was the case.

Latz was called on for multi-inning saves throughout the course of the year, and each time he delivered.

Overall, Latz would become the 11th pitcher in Texas franchise history to post 30 or more saves in a season.

To go along with his 30 saves, Latz put up an ERA of just 2.13 and was the Rangers’ lone representative at this year’s All-Star game, where he came on and struck out Luis Arráez.

Now, as we head into 2027, the Texas bullpen no doubt has its fair share of questions once again.

The Rangers will have to find out what to do with the innings of Tyler Alexander and Jakob Junis, who are both free agents after combining to pitch 127.1 frames.

However, unlike last season, they will return the bullpen’s anchor and hope that Latz can roll his sucesses from a historic year over to 2027.