SURPRISE, Ariz. — It was about this time last spring, a mid-camp off day, when Chris Young started to hyperventilate. Figuratively. Had nothing to do with the desert flowers in bloom, though they can cause an awful bout of allergies.
This was about something no antihistamine could help: The Rangers offense. Became a year-long condition.
With just two weeks until the 2026 season opener, he is breathing much easier. Forget the wonders of modern medicine. It’s a miracle what a clear, clean approach to hitting can do.
“What I’m seeing is much more of a nine-vs.-one, or 13-vs.-one mentality,” Young said just two days after Evan Carter hit a first-inning grand slam and a day before Corey Seager hit a three-run homer as the third batter of the game. “If we’re going to go up there and each individual is going to have a quality at-bat, that’s going to lead to the next quality at-bat after that and so on, and, at some point, that’s going to result in production.”
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Hey, don’t get him wrong, the big first innings were nice. And a big departure from 2025 when the Rangers managed eight first-inning outbursts of at least three runs on the way to ranking 22nd in runs for the season and 26th in OPS. But, more importantly, Young is seeing trends – “process stats,” they like to call them – that suggest the Rangers are making better decisions. Better decisions are a more reliable indicator of better in-season results.
Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young looks on during a spring training workout at the team’s training facility on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Surprise, Ariz.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
At this point a year ago, the Rangers were swinging at nearly 33% of pitches outside the zone. It’s down almost 25% this spring. Along with that, their swing-and-miss rate overall is down 5%. Their walk rate is nearly double what it was at this point. Their strikeout rate is down by 5%. They appear to be slugging fastballs, a huge issue for them each of the last two seasons. At this point last spring, they were slugging .440 on the pitch. It fell to .404 for the full season, sixth worst in the majors. This spring: .456.
It’s not that Young wasn’t seeing the team he built to slug. Actual results in spring training, especially the first half, aren’t really significant at all. It wasn’t the results. It was the process. To him, it looked like there wasn’t any.
The Rangers were chasing more than 30% of pitches outside the zone. Regardless of whether in the zone or outside, they were swinging and missing nearly 26% of the time. The walk rate was poor. Nothing suggested smart-decision making.
The Rangers weren’t going to swing their way out of that. Not that they didn’t try. In fact, too many swings in the batting cages may have only worsened their issues as the season progressed. It certainly didn’t lead to better results, perhaps only to more fatigued players still practicing the same bad habits.
“The early indicators in spring training, the metrics we valued, which indicate or suggest how an offense is going to perform, we were not hitting our benchmarks in those areas,” Young said. “This wasn’t just one or two players. This was across the board. It suggested an offense that wasn’t cohesive and connected.”
Young expressed those concerns to hitting instructor Donnie Ecker and anyone else who would listen. He felt like he’d also been too passive about things when he saw the same things a year prior. And he vowed he wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Jake Burger and Josh Jung were striking out too much. Carter didn’t look right at all. Adolis Garcia was intent on swinging at everything. And Marcus Semien was not making hard contact.
After much discussion, the consensus was to believe in the team as it had been constructed. There wasn’t much other choice anyway. And Young hoped he was simply overreacting. He wasn’t.
Over the next nine months, Young acted. The Rangers moved on from both Semien and Garcia. They changed hitting coaches. Managers, too. And a team-first approach was emphasized all offseason by Justin Viele, who stepped up from being No. 2 to the primary hitting instructor.
Viele tried, as every new coach does, to simplify the message and be more direct in his talks with hitters and, eventually, with the whole group this spring.
“One of the messages I shared in our first meeting was about intent over volume,” Viele said. “It’s not about the total number of swings. It’s about how intentional you are about what you are doing. I don’t need cardio hitting to take 100 or 200 swings; I need the intent to be dialed in from the first swing you take.
“I was clear what the expectation was offensively for us and how we were going to be successful. And it needed to start right away. The training needed to be better. The on-field work needed to be better, more disciplined. I think they heard the message, but you still have to go out and take everything seriously. They have to work on the right stuff. And, you know, they have.”
Will it carry over? Spring training numbers are no guarantee. But judging by how last year’s spring went and the season followed, it’s certainly trending in a better way.
And everybody is breathing a bit easier.
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