The Texas Rangers will be hoping that 2025 plays out more like 2023 than how 2024 went as they try to work their way back into contention following a down year.
ARLINGTON, Texas — As 2024 draws to a close, the Texas Rangers are turning their backs on a disappointing season of baseball and looking forward to the prospect of returning to some postseason play. To get there, they have revamped a good amount of their roster, taking an active approach to addressing needs while looking at players with good peripherals who may not be at the top of everyone’s wish lists but can still benefit the team.
Players like Jake Burger, Joc Pederson, and Kyle Higashioka might not be flashy names like Juan Soto or Blake Snell, but given what the Rangers needed to accomplish, they should provide some much-needed pop and power to the lineup.
Re-signing Nathan Eovaldi as the headliner so far this winter, and bringing on relievers Jacob Webb, Hoby Milner, Robert Garcia, and Shawn Armstrong help to fortify a pitching staff that has needed some proven depth for several years. Still, to get back to October baseball, the Rangers have to make some promises that they must keep in 2025.
Revive the Offense
The front office has checked off the boxes. Yes, the lineup slated to go into 2025, coming right out of September, could have just had an off year, experiencing a hangover coming off a World Series-winning year. But the drop in offensive production from the Rangers was precipitous.
From the tops of all of baseball in 2023 to ranking in the bottom third in average, on-base percentage, and slugging even though they ranked third in batting average with runners in scoring position (ranking just outside the bottom third in RBIs in that situation), the Rangers frequently sustained long stretches of poor offense.
With Josh Smith being a surprise to lead the way with the bat for most of the season, players like Marcus Semien, Adolis Garcia, and Jonah Heim greatly regressed. Corey Seager, after shouldering the team in 2023, did his best to do so in 2024 but didn’t have much support around him in the lineup and ended the year on the injured list.
Youngsters Josh Jung and Evan Carter were each lost for large chunks of the season to injury and heralded rookie Wyatt Langford was slow to acclimate to the big leagues before taking off later in the year.
As a result, production was inconsistent. This is where the power-hitting that the Rangers have acquired this winter comes into play. Each of the three offensive acquisitions that Texas has brought in ended 2024 with slugging over .450.
Catcher Kyle Higashioka (.476 with 17 homers), first baseman/DH Jake Burger (.460 with 29 homers) and outfielder/DH Joc Pederson (.515 with 23 homers) each displayed game-changing power, but they will need a rebound effort from the likes of Garcia, Jung, Heim, and Semien to give the Rangers a fear-inducing lineup like the one they weaponized in October in 2023.
Keep pitching depth as depth
Texas had two fantastic, lockdown relievers in the back end of the bullpen last season in Kirby Yates and David Robertson. Both of them hit free agency this winter. Behind Yates and Robertson was Jose Leclerc, who was also testing the free-agent waters, but behind that, there were several role players and failed starters who turned relievers.
As starters turned relief options, Jack Leiter, Dane Dunning, Owen White, Cole Winn, and even Jose Urena all were called upon to step into roles that they weren’t necessarily trained for. Certainly most did an admirable job, but the Rangers took measures to address their juggled depth this offseason. Even with a limited budget, the Rangers went through free agency and picked up Milner, Armstrong, and Webb on short-term, low-dollar deals. In trading Nathaniel Lowe to Washington, they picked up Garcia.
All four have proven relief backgrounds to complement the returning Josh Sborz, Grant Anderson and others. What the additions accomplish is push those “others” to a depth role without having to rely on them in key situations.
With Texas linked to potentially bringing back Yates or bringing aboard a veteran setup man such as A.J. Minter or Chris Martin, one true lockdown piece might be the last piece of the Rangers’ seemingly eternal bullpen shuffle.
Be better prepared for rotation calamity
As bodies and arms of already aging hurlers accrue more mileage, it’s not going to get any easier for Texas to keep their rotation healthy. Certainly, the prospect that Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle will be undergoing a full, supposedly healthy offseason coming off their respective Tommy John surgeries gives hope, but for how many innings can the Rangers truly count on them after they combined for just 23 ⅓ innings in 2024?
Jon Gray, who ended the season on the IL, has a history of injuries, which makes him another risk in the rotation. Cody Bradford had something of a freak injury and spent most of the summer on the IL before coming back with success in the season’s final few weeks. Eovaldi, who returns, was the team leader in innings but has had injury stints in each year with Texas and enters the season at 35 years of age.
Even if members of the rotation start going down with injuries, Texas does now have some bullpen depth filled with actual relievers that can help them to keep their minor league starters in the minor leagues getting good starting reps to be better prepared for the long haul of the season.
That means pitchers like Leiter and Kumar Rocker can be stretched out as starters and await the need in the Texas rotation, rather than be pressed into duty in the Rangers’ bullpen. As long as Texas can keep some of their veterans on the mound, and their bullpen reconfiguration succeeds, on paper, they look like they are more equipped to absorb starter injuries than they were going into 2024.
What resolutions do you think the Rangers should make as the calendar flips from 2024 to 2025? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.