SURPRISE, Ariz. — Let’s be honest: Nobody ever accused baseball managers of being orators. They don’t go back and cite lines from the speech Buck Showalter delivered to his Rangers at Luke Air Force base one year. It may have looked like Patton, but it wasn’t Patton. There’s never been a Churchill in the big leagues, neither in name (thanks, Baseball-Reference) or words.
The best thing that can be said about a start-of-spring meeting and speech is that it was quick.
Nobody is going to remember the words, but you hope they may remember the message.
“Clubhouse culture is usually the theme for me,” new Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said a few moments after addressing the team Sunday. “But I also think that having fun coming into work every single day helps a clubhouse culture. No matter what role you have on a team, if you’re not having fun coming to work every day, then this thing ain’t gonna work. So I think that it starts and ends with having fun coming to work.
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“I think [a winning culture] is how you win on the margins. I think that’s the separator, because there’s a lot of talented clubs in this league, and I think that’s how you can challenge projections — with culture.”
Simple enough message. Now comes the hard part: Making it resonate. Among the Rangers’ issues last year, and there were plenty, was the clubhouse culture. Or rather the lack of it. To the not-so-casual observer, it often looked like the Rangers, particularly the position players, were too caught up and dragged down by their own travails to offer much to anybody else.
That included encouragement, whether a teammate had just struck out or homered. Yes, it’s important to lift a teammate up when he’s down, but as Schumaker has said previously, the definition of a good teammate, to him, is somebody who finds joy in the success of others.
How was a young vet like Josh Jung to pull himself out of an offensive quagmire if everybody else was too focused on their own slumps and routines?
Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager talks with manager Skip Schumaker (55) during a spring training workout at the team’s training facility on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Surprise, Ariz.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
So much of this played out visually in the dichotomy between Corey Seager and the since-departed Marcus Semien. Both prepared for the game differently and never found common ground. It led to an ever widening-gap between the two supposed pillars of the club and forced younger players to seek out one or the other, but rarely both. It wasn’t a clubhouse of bad people, but it had bad vibes.
According to media out of New York, where Semien now calls home, the situation was so rife with “conflict” or was so “toxic,” the Rangers were willing to eat long-term money to move on from Semien.
Sure, perhaps that was part of the reason the Rangers ultimately traded him; more significant, though, was the fact that his offensive production, according to the weighted Runs Created Plus metric, was one of the bottom 20 among full-time MLB hitters the last two years. The Rangers traded him because he had aged into a sub-par offensive player, something they were fully aware was a possibility when they signed him before 2022. Seager will get his chance to speak on the relationship Monday. Though, knowing Seager, it’s unlikely he will offer much.
On this particular case, Schumaker isn’t really qualified to discuss specifics. He wasn’t around the team daily and he’s not trying to “fix” someone else’s culture, just to instill his own.
About fixing things, though, Jake Burger may be more qualified. He had experience with Schumaker in Miami, having previously sat through one of the manager’s start-of-spring talks, but also witnessing the clubhouse dysfunction in real-time last.
“I don’t think it needed ‘fixing’,” he said. “Just a little nudge in the right direction. There are so many awesome dudes in that clubhouse. The additions are all good. Everybody in the clubhouse, even last year, is a good dude. It’s just that we need to kind of realign our thoughts a little bit to get out of the me and more into the we.”
Said pitcher Nathan Eovaldi, who has two World Series rings and is considered an all-time elite teammate: “It was a good talk. He was direct and to the point: Find a way to have joy in the success of others. Don’t be negative. It was all about the clubhouse culture and pulling for one another. That’s how great teams win.”
It certainly sounded like the Rangers heard the message Sunday. Now comes the bigger ask: Remembering it.
“There are separators,” Schumaker said. “There are complainers and competitors. If you have a couple of complainers, they’ll suck the life out of that clubhouse. That’s what you are trying to stay away from. The competitors are the ones that are doing everything they can to help you win the day. And I think the more competitors that we have, the better clubhouse culture we have.”
So, what’s it gonna be this year: Are the Rangers going to be competitors or complainers?
Sunday in Surprise: See photos from another day at Texas Rangers spring training
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