{"id":822159,"date":"2026-10-05T13:54:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/822159\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T13:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:54:31","slug":"one-texas-rangers-player-they-should-be-building-around-in-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/822159\/","title":{"rendered":"One Texas Rangers Player They Should Be Building Around in 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9t\">The Texas Rangers need to change. President of baseball operations Chris Young has acknowledged that. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9y\">During his end-of-season press conference last week, he made the case for what he wants the franchise to be in the future. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"a3\">\u201cWe need to get younger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to get more athletic. We need to get more dynamic, and those are going to be off-season goals of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"a8\">That means the Rangers aren\u2019t going to be built around Corey Seager, Jacob deGrom or Nathan Eovaldi, its aging core. It doesn\u2019t mean they will build around Brandon Nimmo, either. So, then who?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"ad\">There is one player that fits Young\u2019s description. It might seem unorthodox, but building this team around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/rangers\/onsi\/why-ezequiel-duran-solution-rangers-winning-postseason-awards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ezequiel Duran<\/a> \u2014 specifically in his image \u2014 should be what the Rangers strive for in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Why Build Around Ezequiel Duran<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01m44s389h48s3aqcwr1.jpg\" alt=\"Texas Rangers shortstop Ezequiel Duran (20) throws to first base.\" title=\"Texas Rangers shortstop Ezequiel Duran (20) throws to first base.\" width=\"360\" height=\"203\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"au\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Texas Rangers shortstop Ezequiel Duran. Credit: Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/rangers\/onsi\/three-reasons-why-ezequiel-duran-rangers-most-valuable-player-in-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Duran<\/a> came into his own this season. He emerged as the team\u2019s super-utility player and fashioned a season that might allow him to win both the American League Silver Slugger and Gold Glove at utility player. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"b5\">Duran slashed .260\/.320\/.419 with 17 home runs and 83 RBI. He set single-season bests in home runs, RBI and stolen bases (11). He played a career-best 153 game in part due to injuries to Josh Smith, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/rangers\/onsi\/rangers-notes-josh-jung-nathan-eovaldi-gaining-momentum-injury-return\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josh Jung<\/a> and Corey Seager. He showed an aptitude for seven different positions, including two that he barely played before this season \u2014 center field and right field. He played many of those positions at a Gold Glove level. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"ba\">He\u2019s younger than most of the players on the team. He\u2019s clearly athletic. He\u2019s versatile. He\u2019s proven he can hit for power and average. In 2023 he showed what he could do in a limited sample at a set position when Seager was hurt. He batted .300 for May. Now, he\u2019s mastered the art of producing at any position on any given day. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"bf\">Duran has also proven durable. If this question had been posed after the 2023 season Jung might have been the answer. And he had a career season in 2026 in many respects. But he missed more than a month due to injury and that\u2019s been the issue his entire career \u2014 availability. Even in the World Series season he missed nearly two months with a fractured thumb. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"bk\">For all those reasons, Duran is the answer \u2014 or, in his case, the solution \u2014 to what ails the Rangers in terms of roster construction. Texas doesn\u2019t need eight utility players. But it needs players that embody Duran\u2019s best qualities at set positions every day. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"bp\">If Texas does that this offseason, the Rangers should get better. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" preventdefault:click=\"\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\" on:click=\"q-BKH5TN-7.js#s_lDqay9E5m5g[0]\" q:id=\"bv\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Rangers need to change. President of baseball operations Chris Young has acknowledged that. During his end-of-season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4,149,1567,69,3240],"class_list":["post-822159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rangers","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117388644923627014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822159","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=822159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}