{"id":618539,"date":"2026-03-11T13:35:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/618539\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T13:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:35:26","slug":"who-the-rangers-already-know-will-be-on-the-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/618539\/","title":{"rendered":"Who the Rangers Already Know Will Be on the Opening Day Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas Rangers <\/a>have less than three weeks to figure out what their opening day roster will look like coming out of spring training. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Rangers<\/a> will be in Philadelphia for opening day against the Phillies on March 26 and 26 players will make the trip. It will be the debut of Skip Schumaker as Rangers manager, who previously managed the Miami Marlins in 2023 and 2024. <\/p>\n

If you like our content, choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of his decisions are going to be hard. These won\u2019t. These are the players that Texas<\/a> knows will be on the roster come March 25. <\/p>\n

Pitchers\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter. | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Starters: Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jack Leiter, MacKenzie Gore, Jacob Latz\/Kumar Rocker<\/p>\n

Relievers: Latz\/Rocker, Robert Garcia, Chris Martin, Cole Winn.<\/p>\n

The first four spots in the rotation are set. The question is whether Latz or Rocker gets the fifth spot. Based on how both pitchers have thrown in camp so far, the question still doesn\u2019t have an answer. But the good news is both have been good enough to give the Rangers a level of confidence that both can be on the roster at the same time. One will start and one will relieve. Ideally, it would Rocker starting and Latz relieving. <\/p>\n

As for the bullpen, Rangers manager Skip Schumaker has already said that Garcia and Martin will get the early chances to close out games. That would indicate both are locks, barring injury. Winn has thrown well in camp and was a valuable option as a multi-inning reliever last year. <\/p>\n

Outside of that, the bullpen has a wealth of candidates but no one with real guarantees to be on the team. Both Tyler Alexander and Alexis D\u00edaz are in camp on MLB deals but are cheap enough to let go if they\u2019re not good enough. The Rule 5 draft parameters won\u2019t save Carter Baumler if he doesn\u2019t perform. Texas could be quite draconian with what looks like four remaining spots. <\/p>\n

Position Players\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Rangers left fielder Brandon Nimmo. | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Catcher: Kyle Higashioka, Danny Jansen<\/p>\n

Infielders: Josh Burger (1B), Josh Smith (2B), Corey Seager (SS), Josh Jung (3B)<\/p>\n

Outfielders: Brandon Nimmo (RF), Evan Carter (CF), Wyatt Langford (LF)<\/p>\n

DH: Joc Pederson<\/p>\n

Utility: Sam Haggerty<\/p>\n

The Rangers have committed to Higashioka and Jansen as the tandem. Higashioka\u2019s balky back is worth monitoring. But barring injury they\u2019re set. Smith has been hitting left-handed pitching well in camp, as has Carter, key questions for both players to make the roster. Smith is the player the Rangers want to win the job, and he\u2019s played well enough to lock it in. <\/p>\n

Haggerty is the only player that has played well enough in camp to be guaranteed a job off the bench. He\u2019s shown he can play second base capably enough to be a back-up there when needed. That leaves two spots off the bench. One will be an infielder with versatility and the other is likely to be an outfielder with versatility in the corners. Texas is going to give Andrew McCutchen as much rope as possible to win the latter job. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Rangers have less than three weeks to figure out what their opening day roster will look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4,149,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-618539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-rangers","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-rangers","13":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116210809776305059","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618539","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=618539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}