ORLANDO, Fla. — The Texas Rangers — in potentially this exact order of priority — must rebuild their bullpen, find a major league catcher and pad their rotation depth sometime ideally between now and the date that pitchers and catchers report.
That isn’t necessarily a new or unexpected development given how the most-recent season and early declarations from the club’s decision makers transpired. This much, however, is a somewhat fresh wrinkle: The Rangers need to replace a Gold Glove-caliber iron man second baseman who, in four seasons with the team, only missed meaningful time when a foul ball broke his left foot.
Do they have another one of those hidden in the cupboard?
“There are very few Marcus Semien’s that play 162 games,” Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young said Monday at the Waldorf Astoria.
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OK, so, let’s slightly repackage the expectations: Do the Rangers have an internal candidate that can hack it as an every-day second baseman after the club dealt Semien to the New York Mets? Or, more specifically and directly, can Josh Smith fill that role for a full season?
“He’s got to go earn it,” Young said. “That’s our expectation. He’s a really, really good player, but he’s got to go do it. We’d love to see him go get it.”
Smith, the club’s super utility option for each of the last two seasons, might have an inside track to the job given his big-league tenure, offensive profile and body of work when compared to other internal candidates.
The club’s decision makers did not explicitly list Smith as the in-house favorite for the gig. But Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said Monday that Smith has a “great shot at the role,” in addition to infielders Ezequiel Duran and Cody Freeman, while Young said that “it’s his job to win.”
It would then be his job to maintain. Smith’s offensive production dropped considerably in the second half of each of the past two seasons. His on base plus slugging percentage fell by an average of .237 percentage points after the All-Star break in the last two years. He registered a .861 OPS in the first half of the 2024 season but just a .565 OPS in the second. The gap narrowed last season, from a .769 OPS in the first half to a .592 OPS in the second, but it still mirrored a troublesome trend of longevity.
Young acknowledged that the Rangers haven’t “done Smitty any favors” with his super-utility usage. He played seven defensive positions last season — including 60 games at shortstop, 32 at third base and 27 at first base — and five the season prior as the primary fill-in for the team’s injured starters.
“It’s hard to work at all those spots and thrive in all those spots,” Young said. “Does that change this year? I can’t say. It’s got immense value within the industry to play all those positions well.”
Schumaker said that Smith has worked this fall to prepare his body for a full-season workload but, in the same breath, acknowledged that second-half slumps can be impacted by a player’s mental state as much as their physical durability.
General manager Ross Fenstermaker said that good starts can persuade players to reset their goals and in turn press or overreach. He believes that Smith is a “smarter and wiser player because of it” and that the 28-year-old has had conversations with Schumaker about full-season consistency.
“He is motivated to show that he’s not only a first-half guy,” Schumaker said, “but he’s a second-half, really productive player as well.”
Smith’s abilities fit the club’s offensive desires at his best. He was a popular All-Star snub two seasons ago when he slashed .290/.380/.442 before the break, prioritized line drives and worked counts better than most on a swing-happy roster.
That player, Young said, is an everyday starter.
“That plays very, very well in our lineup,” Young said, “and that’s what we’d like to see more of.”
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