Will Brandon Nimmo trade fix Texas Rangers’ disappointing lineup?

Will Brandon Nimmo trade fix Texas Rangers’ disappointing lineup?

The Rangers traded away their captain this week, but what did they get back in Brendan NMO and cash considerations? Talk about all that more on this episode of Locked on Rangers. Let’s get into it. You are Locked On Rangers, your daily Texas Rangers podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. You are locked onto the Texas Rangers, the first and best daily Rangers podcast. I’m Bryce Patrick, a crimically addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for 12 seasons, including all seven as the founder and host of this podcast. Thank you all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. If you already can follow me on Twitter, Bryce Patrick. You can follow the show at lockedom rangers. Hit subscribe onto your favorite podcasting platform and on YouTube with the best way you can help grow the show to comment nearly any single thing below. Now, on today’s show, I’m talking about what the Rangers get in Brandon NMO, why he might be exactly what this Rangers squad needs, what position he’s going to play, and why I am still a little scared that uh this might not be the best trade for the Texas Ranger. But before we get into all of that, today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today. Now, the Rangers shocked the baseball world. Not just Rangers fandom, but Mets fandom as well. Two guys who were pretty integral to their teams. Both of them, well, one of which was a captain. One of which might have been named a captain next year in Brandon NMO. Rangers sending off Marcus Simeon, the captain of the first and only so far World Series championship in franchise history. just over two years after he helped the Rangers lift that trophy for the first time in the franchise’s history. But enough about Marcus Simeon today. I want to focus on Brandon Nemo and what he brings the Rangers. I talked a little bit about it on yesterday’s show with Sully about kind of a national big picture perspective of of why this trade happened and trying to make some sense of it and I came to what feels like a pretty logical and basic conclusion you know AAM Fraser the rule there where usually the simplest explanation is the right one and the simplest explanation for this trade is that the Rangers had good defense last year and they needed offense. Both these guys are big contracts that each team didn’t particularly love. And so the Rangers said, “Hey, we’ll give you this guy who’s making a whole lot of money for three years, and we’ll take your guy who’s making a decent chunk of change for five years.” The Rangers did also acquire cash considerations. No, that is not an actual prospect, but they are receiving $1 million per year for the next five years of this contract. And not only are they receiving it just as a lump sum, but the Mets are just retaining that salary. So, not only are the Rangers getting $5 million off, they’re also getting $1 million per like per year. All this money counts towards the salary cap. It counts towards the Mets salary cap, not the Rangers, or I guess luxury tax if we want to call it what the name actually is. But what did the Rangers get in Brandon NMO? They got a left-handed hitting now corner outfielder. He’s not going to play center field, although he has played primarily center field for the majority of his career. He has played 1,000 games in the outfield in his career. Just 14 at DH. 551 of those games were in center field. 459 of those games were in left field and 93 of them were in right field. But Brandon Nemo has been a solid above average hitter for his basically the entirety of his big league career. There haven’t really been many down years for Brandon Nemo. I mean, the only year that he had an OPS plus below 100, below league average was his rookie year, or I guess the the first stint of his rookie year in 2016. He played 32 games that year, only 80 played appearances. Not exactly a huge sample size. The next year, played 69 games, had a 115 OPS+. The lowest OPS plus that he has had been two two of the last three years have been two of the three lowest OPS plus years of his career. a 114 OPS+ last year and 106 the year before that. But before that, for his entire career, he’s been about 24% better than league average with the bat. And the Rangers could use somebody who is that. Last year, the only guys who had an OPS plus 24% better than league average or more were Cory Seager at 151 and then White Langford at 127. So, not even all that much more. And that’s just his career average. That’s not even going with the best seasons that Brandon Nemo has had. The best season was a 8.88 OPS for the 2020 season. That was a great season for him in that c covid shortened season. He has been fairly durable. That’s another thing that the Rangers are getting there and giving up a very durable player and they’re getting back a pretty durable player who is a few years younger than Marcus. Really not all that much younger than Marcus, but still younger. He’s heading into his age 33 season where Marcus I believe is heading into his age 35 season. Yes, that is correct. I did remember that correctly. And he’s been just a pretty solid player. In the first episode I did about this trade, immediately after I got news of the trade happening, I said Brandon Nemo is is fine. He’s fine. And you know what? A fine hitter is what the Rangers needed more of in 2025. If they had more just fine hitters to above average hitters, maybe the season season goes differently. Maybe the Rangers ha have a slightly different winning percentage. Maybe they win just a few more games that they didn’t across the course of that season because this was the best pitching staff in all of baseball. This was the best pitching staff in all of def of baseball because the Rangers had the best defense in all of baseball. It wasn’t just that the Rangers pitchers were great, which they were. The Rangers had some great pitching, but the Rangers needed a little bit more offense to get that thing cooking. And NMO, he provides a decent level of offense. Now, NMO’s never going to be a Cory Seager level hitter. He’s not going to be even peek at Dololis Garcia levels of hitter, but he’s going to be solid, fine. He’s going to bring that on base percentage, which the Rangers did not have last year. They could not walk anywhere. mainly because if they had a few more games from Evan Carter, I think they would have had a much higher on base percentage. But I mean, a lot of the guys that were primary guys in this lineup, Jake Burgerer had an awful walk rate, Adolles Garcia had an awful walk rate, Josh Young had a pretty pretty terrible walk rate last year. And so adding a guy like NMO really helps bolster that. And there are some concerns that the Rangers lineup is just a little bit too left-handed at this point. The projected opening day lineup features NMO a lefty, Cory Seager a lefty, Jock Peterson a lefty, Evan Carter a lefty, Josh Smith a lefty. More than half of the lineup, five guys are left-handed hitters. But with Nemo, he is one of those rare lefties for his entire career. He has hit left-handed pitching, not quite as well as he’s hit right-handed pitching, but he’s been more than servesable against left-handed pitching for his entire career. Over,200 played appearances, nearly 1300. a 759 OPS around a 350 on base percentage, slugged around 400. That’s a fine hitter. That’s it’s a decent hitter. And especially for a lefty against lefties, this guy does very very well. And he can also hit right-handed pitching well, too. An 820 career OPS against right-handed pitching. This has just been a solid bat. And last year, something the Rangers did not do was hit well in the clutch with runners in scoring position. The Rangers were horrendous at it. And last year, Brandon Nemo was awesome with runners in scoring position. A 310 batting average in 182 played appearances with runners in scoring position. An 888 OPS. That is fantastic. Truly fantastic. That is what the Rangers are looking for. A guy who can drive some guys in. Now, maybe Nemo ends up leading more towards the top of this lineup versus the middle of the lineup where he’ll have more driving in run opportunities. I’m thinking maybe we see Wyatt Langford leading off. Maybe we see Cory Seager hitting second or third, Nemo hitting I think the the top three of this order is going to be in some combination. I don’t know which one specifically. Wyatt Langford, Cory Seager, Brandon Nemo. I I think those are going to be the top three. Now, which order they go in, I don’t know. I kind of would prefer it be Langford leading off, then Seager hitting second because that’s where Seager feels most comfortable. And then Nemo, but also you got Seager that’s more of your run driving in kind of a guy. not as high of an OBP as in years past we have seen Brandon NMO run and well Corey Seager is not going to be you know causing any havoc on the base paths and Brandon NMO has done that the last couple years the speed has dropped off a little bit because of the new rules with the amount limiting the amount of times that pitchers can try and pick off a runner and just making things just that little bit easier on base runners. For the last two years he’s combined to go 28 for 29 in stolen base attempts. That’s really solid for a guy whose speed has dropped off a little bit. The defense has also dropped off. He’s just more of a a little bit below league average defender out there in left field. So maybe that ends up being where he stays or maybe he moves to right field. We talk a little bit about that and how this affects the rest of the outfield the Rangers have and more right after this. This show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA’s back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if it’s the start of the game and you want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets from everything to who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Let’s look at how this trade has impacted the Rangers World Series odds for 2026 according to FanDuel. The Rangers uh yeah, they are still way down there in 19th. Yes, the 19th best World Series odds behind the Giants, the Royals, the Reds, just barely ahead of the Rays, and somehow the Diamondbacks aren’t higher up there. I I don’t I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but the Rangers at plus4,500 to win the 2026 World Series. Right now, head to FanDuel because they are giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Head to FanDuel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Shout out to every locked on Ranger your first listen every single day. On tomorrow’s show, I will be talking with uh actually no, I will be doing that episode that I recorded immediately before the Rangers broke this news and traded for Brandon Nemo. I will put a qualifier on there for for those who aren’t listening today who who think, “Wow, Bryce really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Wh why did he not mention Simeon or Nemo at all?” because I’m not throwing away an entire episode of the week of Thanksgiving right before I’m going out of town. So, um hopefully you can get a laugh at uh hearing exactly what I said about 5 minutes before the Rangers ended up making this trade and making some of those points kind of irrelevant. I did bring up the point though that I thought, you know, cutting costs of Adel Garcia and Jonah and Josh Bors were not the last cost cutting move that the Rangers were going to make. But I digress. Let’s get back to Brandon NMO. Where does he play? Primarily for the last couple of seasons, he has been a left fielder. He has not played right field since 2020. So it it’s been a hot minute since NMO has played in right field. Usually the main difference between left fields and right fielders there is that you put the guy with the strongest arm in right field. That’s why we saw Adolles Garcia playing out there in right field for so long because his arm was truly fantastic. Nemo, his arm strength is a little bit below league average. the arm run value is is just all of it’s right about league average. The sprint speed a little bit below average this year. So maybe we see a little bit of of Wyatt Langford out there in right field as opposed to left field, although he’s been pretty comfortable in left field for the Texas Rangers. The arm strength is just a little bit better for Wyatt Langford. The sprint speed is pretty significantly better out to bug average pretty significantly better for Wyatt Langford than it was with Brandon Nemo. But maybe that ends up being a little bit different in in how it actually plays out during the season. I still think that the Rangers outfield is probably going to be NMO in left field. I think it’s going to be Wyatt Langford in right field and then Evan Carter in center field on days where there’s a left-handed starter on the mound. I still think we see Nemo as an everyday player because he has hit lefties so well in his career because the Rangers have so many lefty platoon splits. I mean, I talked about the amount of guys that the Rangers have that are left-handed hitters in their opening day lineup. And Nemo is going to be the best bat um lefty on lefty that the Rangers have on their roster. Evan Carter has been pretty awful, but also hasn’t had all that much time to have at bats against lefties. So, I’d imagine he’ll get some next year. Josh Smith was great against left-handed pitching in 2024, but last year was pretty awful. Jock Peterson, we’ll see what all that happens. what all happens with that next year, but I would anticipate that the Rangers don’t have a whole lot of Jock Peterson starting against Leies. So, I think Nemo probably slots in there in left field, but maybe the Rangers feel differently. Maybe the Rangers say, “Hey, Wyatt Langford is super comfortable out there in left field. He’s providing exceptional defense out there in left field.” But I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how the Rangers go about this because the Rangers will get defensively worse with this move. This is There is no doubt about that. I don’t think Brandon Nemo is suddenly become is going to become a gold glover. It’s not just because the Rangers moved on from Marcus Simeon, although I think there will be a defensive downgrade there at second base because Marcus Simeon just won a gold glove and he’s been a truly elite defensive second baseman ever since he made the switch to the position back in 2021 with the Blue Jays. I mean, since he’s been there, he’s been awesome defensively. He won a gold glove and a silver slugger that year with Toronto. And the only reason he hasn’t won a silver a gold glove every single year is because Andre Jimenez is one of the best defensive players in all of baseball and he haven’t played second base in the American League. But still, even with Andre Jimenez being incredible defensively last year, Marcus Simeon still takes home the gold glove. But also, you’re losing a gold glove caliber right fielder in Adulles Garcia. And so you’re replacing that every day with Brandon Nemo. I think another reason that this trade makes sense for the Rangers, especially right after moving on from Adidas Garcia is because the Rangers were going to have to put somebody out there every day in one of those remaining outfield spots, whether it was left field, whether it was right field. And the obvious internal candidate was Alejandra Ozuna. And as much as I like Ozuna, I think Ozuna is a fun, scrappy player. I think maybe eventually he could be an everyday outfielder. I don’t know that he’s going to get the chance if Evan Carter is an everyday player and is healthy. If Wyatt Langford is is still Wyatt Langford, unless Wyatt Langford just gets abducted by aliens or something, I I don’t think that he is there’s no scenario where Wyatt Langford is an everyday outfielder for the Rangers. And Brandon NMO, you don’t make a trade like this for a player like this to make him not an everyday player. And I don’t think the Rangers are going to move him to DH. His his defense isn’t bad. It it’s just not great. and Ozuna kind of becomes that fourth out outfielder, which I think is a more a more fitting role for the kind of player Ozuna is this year. I mean, offensively, there was a lot of screaming and moaning about how Adulas Garcia is so awful. He can’t do anything offensively, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. He he still drove in 75 runs last year, still hit 19 homers, and did have a 665 OPS, which is not great. It’s not what the Rangers needed. It’s why he’s no longer a member of this Texas Ranger squad. But some of the guys that are behind him were were not that much better or were actively worse. Alejandro Ozuna had a sub600 ops last year in 176 plate appearances. That’s not a tiny sample size. It’s not a huge one. And I think his numbers or you look at his expected numbers and some of the, you know, ways that he went about stuff. I I still think he could be a decent bench bat if you need a guy to just come in and pinch it and work a walk in a certain situation. Ozuna can definitely do that. He provides that kind of on base value the Rangers haven’t had. And NMO also provides that as well. That has been for his career his carrying tool is that NMO does not chase. He knows the strike zone very well. And adding another hitter like that will lengthen this Rangers offense. One of the things that the Rangers did well in 2023 is that they work counts. They trusted the next guy in their lineup. They had a lot of guys in that lineup who could, you know, really work an at bat. I mean, Evan Carter is one of the best at working those at bats. Marcus Simeon works really hard at bats. And so having him in the leadoff spot was was very very helpful. And having guys, you know, elsewhere in that lineup like Mitch Garver, like Robbie Gman, who also really worked at bats all the way up and down the lineup and Jonah occasionally did as well. But adding another guy like Anmo who who can get on base, who could just get you more base runners and get you some some decent power and can get you a guy who drives in some runs, I I think that improves this Rangers offense a pretty decent amount. But I am a little worried about some of the recent trends with Brandon Nemo. Mainly his carrying tool, the on base percentage. Normally that’s not a tool that you worry about, you know, declining. that that is normally a pretty safe tool to bet on where guys in free agency if they are great at getting on base if they are good at working walks of knowing the strike zone usually that does not go away usually that does not get worse that is a a tool that can carry you into can get you long contracts like Brandon Nemo got I mean he signed an 8year contract that is that’s a long contract he’s going to be 37 at the end of that contract but the last couple years the walk rate has has dropped off the on base has dropped off. Excuse me. Last year, the walk rate really dropped off. The year before, the walk rate was still there, but the on base was not really where it had been in seasons past. For his career, he’s around a three. He’s a 364 on base guy. For the last couple years, he’s been about 40ish points below that. He had a couple of seasons where he had a an on base north of 400. Actually, three seasons back in 2018, he did that. In 2020, he did that. And in 2021, he did that. was rocking a a on base in the 360s the two years after that in 2022 and 2023, but the last couple years he’s been in the 320s. That’s not what you’re looking for for a guy at the top of your lineup that that is such an on base heavy guy. The walk rate this year was around middle of the pack, actually a little bit below league average, which is not what you’d normally say for Brandon NMO. Now, in 2024, it was in the elite range, in the top 10% of baseball. this year in the 44th percentile. Not where you’re really looking for. The chase rate was still down. He was hitting the ball a little bit harder. He was, you know, the average exit velocity was a lot harder. Um, but he just was not getting on base at the level that you’re used to seeing from Brandon NMO. So, could a change of scenery be something that impacts that? could him being, you know, more in the top of the lineup and being a bigger part of this Rangers offense than maybe he would be a more important part of this Rangers offense that he would be as a part of the Mets offense. I don’t know. Know about that and more right after this. Shout out to everybody for making locked on Rangers your first listen every single day. On Friday’s show, I’ll be back talking with Grant Schiller, reviewing our debut taunt draft, looking at the players who we thought would be the most valuable, who had not made their big league debuts yet, and probably a little bit more talk about this Brandon Nemo, Marcus, Simeon trade. But what this means for the rest of this lineup is that well, the Rangers kind of have their top three solidified. They have a little bit more depth in this lineup. And overall, you’re also putting Josh Smith into an everyday defined role. Josh Smith is almost certainly no longer going to be an everyday utility player. I I just think that this has to mean he is going to be the Rangers everyday second baseman because there’s not a whole lot of second baseman on the market right now. I mean, truly, they’re just there are not all that many. There’s uh well no longer Gabber Torres cuz he signed he signed the qualifying offer to go back to the Tigers. Uh there’s Jorge Palano. I don’t think the Rangers are spending the 15 millionish per year that he’s going to take home. There’s Brendan Rogers. You could bring Andy Ivanz home for another bat who uh maybe would be the the right-handed platoon to Josh Smith at second base. We’ll see if that happens. Maybe Dylan Moore um could be another guy who is an option as a right-handed bat who crushes lefties and plays about 17 different positions. There’s also Adam Frasier out there. There’s Luis. Chris Young, please don’t do that. Please don’t do that to me. Don’t make the defense that much worse. cannot imagine going from Marcus Simeon, truly exceptional defensive second baseman, to Luis Aras, who is not even a good defensive first baseman, who is just a one-trick pony. And if you like batting average, you’re going to love Luis Ray. If you don’t like batting average, if you like literally any other metric to measure a valuable baseball player, you are not going to like Luis Sas. He is a very polarizing and interesting player and I have no idea what kind of a contract he’s going to land but I I have heard some rumblings that the Rangers may be interested in a play in Luis Aras specifically and that absolutely terrifies me out of my mind. But you look at the other guys who are everyday second baseman or primary second baseman. There’s really not all that much left on this market. There’s Luis Aras. There’s maybe John Birdie, DJ Lameheu. Yikes. That’s probably not happening. Um, Nick Madrickal, that’s about it. I mean, really, David Fletcher is the only other, you know, primary second baseman who who’s really even on this market. And I just I don’t I don’t see that happening for the Rangers. So, this this puts a lot of pressure on Josh Smith. that puts a lot of pressure on really Evan Carter as well to stay healthy because if the Rangers end up missing, you know, a hundred games or so from Evan Carter like they have the last couple years, I mean, their internal options, there’s not a whole lot there. You’re going to see a whole lot of Alejandro Ozuna out there. You’re going to see probably Wyatt Langford shift over to center field. You’re going to see Ozuna as an everyday player, which which is not something I think the Rangers really want to do. I think you’re going to see Sam Hagerty maybe be the Rangers second baseman against lefties. I I really I don’t know if they’re going to just trot Josh Smith out there against lefties every single day like they did in seasons past or because they were able to retain Sam Hagerty to avoid arbitration with him. Then maybe that means Sam Hagerty is going to be on the big league club every single day from the start of this season. I think there was also some thought that maybe we’d see a little bit of Cody Freeman on the big league squad. I don’t know if Cody Freeman is going to make this opening day roster, but he’s a guy who crushes left-handed pitching, plays 17 different positions, doesn’t play them all that well. He plays them fine, not particularly outstanding. Um, but he could be a guy who who plays a big role at some point in this season if there is an injury to the Rangers squad, but everybody else in that lineup that gets a little bit a little bit deeper, maybe puts less pressure on some guys like Jake Burgerer. Maybe it push less Maybe it does put less pressure offensively on Evan Carter. It just puts more pressure on him to stay healthy. But if Evan Carter is in this lineup every single day, maybe he ends up being the leadoff guy. Maybe they they go a little bit different. They move Jock Peterson down in this lineup and you see Evan Carter as the Rangers, you know, leadoff guy. Then you go Wyatt Langford, Seager, and then NMO behind Seager. It gives the Rangers some flexibility with what they can do with their lineup. And maybe it deepens them just a little bit because Marcus Simeon when he’s going, when he’s hot, he is incredibly hot and he can carry a team. But when he’s cold, he has been ice cold. I mean, the last couple of seasons, it has been really brutal to start the season. Offensively, three out of his four seasons, the first month of the season, Marcus Simeon has been awful for stretches, long, long stretches. This year we we saw it be the first, you know, six weeks of the season. It wasn’t quite as bad as his first season in Texas where he still finished the year with a basically six win season and 25 home or yeah, 25 homers and still looking like a pretty solid player. 26 homers, excuse me, his first season in Texas. 20 season 20 homers every season that he was fully healthy, which was all but his most recent season. But maybe Nemo just gives that extra insurance that okay, this guy’s going to be at least okay. But if the offensive fall-off continues, then this could get really ugly in a hurry for the Texas Rangers. There is a world where the Rangers lose this trade and lose this trade badly because Marcus Simeon is not what he was offensively, but he’s still providing d value defensively at second base. That is a premium defensive position. He is still providing that value in the clubhouse of being a leader. And you don’t see that many captains in Major League Baseball these days. And you don’t seem that many guys who are about to be captain named captain of the Mets. A guy who was there for 10 seasons and traded. But NMO had a full trade clause. He waved his no trade clause to come to Texas. He wanted to be a part of the Texas Rangers and a part of what the Rangers were building. This was not a trade that Chris Young said he was actively searching out. uh or at least that’s what he said earlier this season that said, “Hey, we’re not actively look looking and searching to move on from guys like Cory Seager or Marcus Simeon or Jacob Grom or any of the big contracts on this roster. This might just be something that happened to find them. David Stern, the the president of baseball operations for the Mets, maybe kicked the tires and said, “Hey, we need a little bit more defense. We we got this guy NMO where it seems like things have probably soured at least at least from NMO’s perspective on his relationship with the Mets because if you’re waiting waving your no trade clause for a team that you have been with for the entirety of your baseball professional career, then things probably aren’t that good there. I mean, it was a a rough end of the season for the New York Mets. You may remember when the Rangers were playing them, the New York Mets were fighting, clawing, clawing, scrapping for that last postseason spot. and they could not hold on to it. And NMO was a part of that team. He was there in the midst of all of that trial and tribulation. And NMO just provides a solid bat in this line that I’m hoping he can continue. I mean, maybe he’s not going to be a 145 OPS plus guy anymore. Maybe he’s not in the 125 or 130 range. You really hope so for the amount of money the Rangers are paying him and for how long they’re paying him. if it already starts to go south and the offensive value isn’t even there and the defensive value isn’t there, this could get ugly in a hurry for the Texas Rangers because if the on base is still not there and if the power starts to drop off too. I mean, the Rangers have not really hit for power very well. Left-handed bats have not hit for power very well in Texas at home. I mean, a lot of the Rangers everyday players were significantly better on the road than they were at home. Cory Seager has been one of the few who has hit particularly well at Globe Life Field. But maybe it’s a little bit of a case of of the Rangers park factors. Maybe it’s a case of the baseballs changing. I talked a little bit about that on yesterday’s show as well of just it seems like the baseballs are a little less juiced in 2024 and 2025 than they were in 2023. They that’s also why the Rangers offense fell off an absolute cliff and some of the guys who were, you know, average to above average hitters in 2023 were not that in 24 and in 25. I don’t know exactly what the root causes there. At least for Young, it was a season where he barely played and when he played he was very very hurt. And this year it was just it was just a bad season for Josh Young and a bad season a really bad season offensively for Jonah. I don’t know exactly where this is going to end up for the Texas Rangers, but the Rangers, it comes down to the Rangers needed to do something after two seasons of offensively falling off a cliff. They needed a boost in their lineup, and this was one of the creative ways that Chris Young could go about it. I thought he did a great job last year heading into the season. I thought that that was a lineup that was much more suited to compete. I thought that was a lineup that had more backfield options to where if if some of the guys who regressed in 2024 regressed in 2025, I thought he did enough to build himself in some redundancies of guys like Jake Burgerer, who I thought was going to be better than he ended up being. I thought bringing in a guy like Jock Peterson who had been one of the most consistent hitters for the last 12 seasons, I thought that was a surefire way to say, “Okay, even if some of those guys regress, even if you know Marcus Simeon still is not great offensively, even if you know Josh Young has another less than stellar season offensively, even if Jonah is an absolute nothing and Adul Garcia continues to regress offensively, then we’ve got some ways to backfill and add some some beef to that position. It didn’t end up working out, but with the self-inflicted payroll limitations, this is one of the few ways where the Rangers could actually go about getting better offensively. At the end of the day, that’s something they needed to do very, very badly. I think Brandon Nemo adds that solid bat that the Rangers have been lacking. And because the payroll has been limited by ownership and they’ve been very very loud and and boisterous about how poor they are. If you’re not going to be able to sign somebody in free agency, making a big gamble of a trade like this is one of the few ways that I think this offense could get better. It may not actually end up working out, but I see Chris Young’s vision and I see why he did it. Brandon NMO may be the piece that puts the Rangers back into contention next year. or there’s a chance that this is a big old swing and a miss for the Rangers yet again. That’s going to do it for today’s show. Thank you’all so much for listening and subscribing. And until next time, don’t forget to enjoy baseball.

The Texas Rangers traded multi-time all-star and World Series winner Marcus Semien just four years into his seven year contract. The New York Mets sent outfielder Brandon Nimmo to Texas in exchange for Semien.

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