The Texas Rangers are near the top of the list of biggest disappointments in Major League Baseball for each of the last two seasons.
After their World Series championship in 2023, the Rangers have played two profoundly mediocre campaigns, and the offense has been the main culprit. This was a team with four All-Star starters two years ago, and that didn’t even include Corey Seager, who got a late start to the year but wound up finishing second in Most Valuable Player voting.
All four — catcher Jonah Heim, second baseman Marcus Semien, third baseman Josh Jung, and outfielder Adolis GarcÃa — have had back-to-back underwhelming seasons. And with an important deadline approaching, it appears two of those four could be gone at any moment.
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Rangers were actively looking to trade away GarcÃa and Heim, who have gotten more expensive in arbitration than Texas would like, and even if they’re not traded, they both could be off the roster by the end of the week.
“The Rangers are trying to deal outfielder Adolis GarcÃa and catcher Jonah Heim before Friday’s tender deadline,” Passan wrote. “If they can’t get a deal, both are nontender candidates.”
GarcÃa and Heim will be a free agents in a year’s time, and both have really had just one standout season. The former had just a .665 OPS this year and turns 33 in March, while the latter had a measly .602 OPS and turns 31 in June.
As vital as both All-Stars were to the only title in franchise history, it’s hard to envision too many takers at this point, knowing that whichever team acquires them will only be getting them for one year, even if that year is relatively affordable in comparison to your average free-agent contract.
Plus, if GarcÃa and Heim are going to be non-tendered by the end of the week anyway, those interested teams might as well just wait until they hit the open market and try to buy in at a low point.
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