{"id":467243,"date":"2025-12-09T05:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T05:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/467243\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T05:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T05:27:11","slug":"rangers-had-luxury-of-an-iron-man-at-second-in-marcus-semien-can-josh-smith-replace-him-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/467243\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers had luxury of an iron man at second in Marcus Semien. Can Josh Smith replace him?"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The Texas Rangers<\/a> \u2014 in potentially this exact order of priority \u2014 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. <\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t necessarily a new or unexpected development given how the most-recent season and early declarations from the club\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Do they have another one of those hidden in the cupboard?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few Marcus Semien<\/a>\u2019s that play 162 games,\u201d Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young<\/a> said Monday at the Waldorf Astoria. <\/p>\n

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OK, so, let\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got to go earn it,\u201d Young said. \u201cThat\u2019s our expectation. He\u2019s a really, really good player, but he\u2019s got to go do it. We\u2019d love to see him go get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, the club\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

The club\u2019s decision makers did not explicitly list Smith as the in-house favorite for the gig. But Rangers manager Skip Schumaker<\/a> said Monday that Smith has a \u201cgreat shot at the role,\u201d in addition to infielders Ezequiel Duran and Cody Freeman, while Young said that \u201cit\u2019s his job to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would then be his job to maintain. Smith\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Young acknowledged that the Rangers haven\u2019t \u201cdone Smitty any favors\u201d with his super-utility usage. He played seven defensive positions last season \u2014 including 60 games at shortstop, 32 at third base and 27 at first base \u2014 and five the season prior as the primary fill-in for the team\u2019s injured starters. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to work at all those spots and thrive in all those spots,\u201d Young said. \u201cDoes that change this year? I can\u2019t say. It\u2019s got immense value within the industry to play all those positions well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s mental state as much as their physical durability. <\/p>\n

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 \u201csmarter and wiser player because of it\u201d and that the 28-year-old has had conversations with Schumaker about full-season consistency. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is motivated to show that he\u2019s not only a first-half guy,\u201d Schumaker said, \u201cbut he\u2019s a second-half, really productive player as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s abilities fit the club\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

That player, Young said, is an everyday starter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat plays very, very well in our lineup,\u201d Young said, \u201cand that\u2019s what we\u2019d like to see more of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the Rangers need to move Wyatt Langford to center field<\/a>Texas Rangers land on latest hitting coach, rounding out Skip Schumaker\u2019s staff<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The Texas Rangers \u2014 in potentially this exact order of priority \u2014 must rebuild their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[4805,5,3246,386,4,149,14902,185,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-467243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chris-young","11":"tag-marcus-semien","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-rangers","14":"tag-skip-schumaker","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-texas-rangers","18":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115687957994076588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}