ARLINGTON — Marcus Semien is not one to reflect. He’s always looking forward, not backwards.
It doesn’t matter how things look. Sure, he’s in a walking boot and will be in it for at least another three weeks before he can even test how he’ll move, much less swing. Sure, there are less than five weeks remaining in the regular season. Sure, the Rangers’ playoff chances — down to 6.6%, according to FanGraphs on Wednesday morning – are getting slimmer daily, as if they were on Ozempic.
What Semien is focused on is what he’s always focused on: work. Even if right now work means getting out of the boot, pulling on his uniform, doing a little upper-body weight-lifting, playing a little cribbage and doing a whole lot of watching.
“I haven’t thought about this as being a finished season yet,” Semien told The Dallas Morning News ahead of Wednesday’s homestand finale with the Los Angeles Angels. “I’m just focused on staying off of this foot so that it can be ready, just in case, we’re in a position to play postseason baseball, and my foot is, you know, able to do it.
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“I still feel like I’m a big part of this team, even though I’m not on the field. I love the game of baseball. I haven’t necessarily been watching this much from the dugout. But you know that doesn’t mean I hate it. I’m watching the game, cheering the guys on right now.”
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In other words, he’s doing everything he can at the moment to stay busy and contribute, which can’t be an easy task for a guy who is second in MLB in games played over the last five seasons. But it’s where he is at the moment.
With so much time on his hands, it would be easy to drift off into this oft-frustrating season. His offensive numbers are going to dip for a second straight season. Last year, his OPS+ dipped to 103, which indicates his performance was about 3% above league average (the league average is 100). This year, it’s fallen to 95, which puts him in negative territory. He once again got off to a dreadful start at the plate, which has become something of a career-long trend. He tweaked his approach and other elements of his offensive game, but ultimately returned to trying to simply pull the ball in the air.
It allowed him to rebound. From May 30 until he fouled a ball off his left foot last week, breaking a bone and suffering a Lisfranc (midfoot) sprain in the process, he slashed .270/.338/.464/.801. That’s remarkably close to his full-season numbers from 2019-24, when he slashed .260/.331/.466/.797. Of course, you can’t just disregard the first two months of the season.
“When you are tinkering every single day, it’s probably not in your best interest,” said Semien, coming as close as he could to actual reflection. “So there’s a point where I said ‘Hey, try this for a series.’ I had some success. Stuck with it a while. Then something would feel different, something evolves, pitchers found ways to get you out, so you have to reevaluate.
“We don’t show up in the same shape or mindset every single day, because our body is going through it physically. Those are just the challenges of every single year. I would have liked to have something that felt better to me in the batter’s box earlier in the year, but that just wasn’t the case. But before I went down, I felt like I was in a pretty good head space. I battled through some things.”
If that was actual reflection, there may be value in it for Semien. The future is only going to get tougher. Though he stays in superb shape and his on-field workout regimen is second-to-none, age is undefeated in the game. At 35 next season, he’s going to be old for a second baseman.
Ask Bret Boone or Ian Kinsler about turning 35 and how it impacted their careers. Kinsler OPS’d .831 the year he turned 34; afterwards, he was a sub-.700 player and was done two months after turning 37. Boone was a .931 guy at 34; he was done by 36.
The Rangers will have Semien under contract for three more seasons whenever 2025 comes to an end. He’s probably seen his last days as a leadoff man and is maybe a bottom-half-of-the-order hitter when the first 2026 lineup is posted. He’s still a spectacular defensive player and he’s still got some power. If nothing else, this season has underscored that he must continue to change as he ages.
He’s not tackling that heavy topic just yet.
There is still the prospect of more baseball to be played in 2025. When that’s exhausted, then he’ll focus out further and maybe take longer stock of what the 2025 season presented that he can use for the future. There will be a time to reflect. It is not now.
“I’m still preparing myself to contribute this year,” he said “And I’ll keep doing that until they tell me that’s not going to happen.”
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