Trade deadline ideas and a murky future

Given the schizophrenic nature of a Rangers‘ season, the easy way to sum up the team would be: We still aren’t sure.

It would also be a bit lazy.

They are 97 games in at the All-Star break. Only once in their history have they played more games at this point. There are more data points than ever to suggest that what the Rangers have been is pretty much what they are: an offense so inconsistent that not even the best pitching and defense in baseball has been enough to get them above .500. That would seem to say so much.

And yet …

Rangers

They enter the second half of the season 3 ½ games out of a wild card spot and something as simple as a singular three-week stretch of complete baseball could vault them into a playoff spot. Given that they still have six games remaining against division-leading Houston, it might put them into the conversation for the AL West title.

All that said, “complete baseball” means something like a 14-6 or 15-5 20-game stretch. They had two 14-6 stretches in 2024, one in July and another that started in mid-August. On the other hand, their best stretch this year: A 13-7 run in the season’s first three weeks.

It’s all a way of saying that even though we should know so much about the Rangers, our best guess on the rest of the way is, well, just a guess. That in mind, here are 10 things I think I think about these Rangers:

— The hitters have received so much scrutiny this season that it has almost overshadowed the work of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Almost, but not entirely. Still, it bears repeating that in these two, the Rangers have as good a 1-2 combination for a playoff series as any team in the majors.

These are their composite numbers: 1.99 ERA, 9.16 strikeouts per nine innings, 1.68 walks per nine innings and a 5.45 strikeout-to-walk rate. If they were one super pitcher — Jacob Eovaldi — they would rank first among MLB qualifiers in ERA and seventh in strikeout-to-walk rate. They’d each probably pitch twice in a best-of-seven series and when they pitch the Rangers are 21-14 (.600). It can’t be overstated how good they’ve been. It’s been perhaps the best half of starting pitching in the franchise’s history.

Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob deGrom (left) talks with pitcher Nathan Eovaldi before throwing a bullpen session during a spring training workout at the team’s training facility on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in Surprise, Ariz.(Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer)

— What Kevin Pillar said about the Rangers a couple of weeks ago was probably ill-advised, given that he spent only seven weeks with the team. But it doesn’t make it necessarily wrong, either. Pillar may not have had a long stretch with the club, but it’s not inaccurate to say the Rangers aren’t the closest-knit of teams. When they win, the narrative becomes “they are all business.” When they lose, it becomes “well, they don’t have fun.” It’s not warm and fuzzy. That’s not a necessity for winning.

— But Chris Young has acknowledged the lack of “connectivity” in the dugout as it relates to the offense. It’s another way of saying this team doesn’t seem to have taken many team-centric at-bats and has not moved the line.

— Where all of this dovetails is here: If the offense doesn’t get on an extended roll, one thing the Rangers are going to have to ponder over a long winter of discontent is why both holdovers and newcomers to the team all have consistently regressed. With the exceptions of Josh Smith, Sam Haggerty and second-year players Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter, the eight other players with at least 100 plate appearances this year have OPS lines below their career averages. The same was basically true in 2024, as well. The Rangers have tried changing hitting coaches. This may take some serious internal deep-diving to figure out why hitters seem to be getting worse.

— If the Rangers don’t rebound, among other things that will need to be considered are how to proceed with Corey Seager and Marcus Semien in the middle. They committed $500 million to the core of their infield ahead of 2022. The World Series win was huge, but it seems near impossible to have them for four years with only one winning record to show for it.

— Short of moving the aces Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, shortstop Corey Seager or a pre-arbitration talent like Wyatt Langford, it’s hard to see where the Rangers would get real foundational type of talent toward any kind of retooling. Perhaps if the Rangers ate all of the money remaining in the contracts of Jon Gray (if he’s back before the deadline) and Adolis García, maybe they could essentially buy their way to a better prospect. But otherwise, the motivation might be to simply shed money. That would make it appear to be more of an ownership decision than baseball operations.

— Can’t help but think that the most prudent path for this team is to not make changes and instead let this season play out. The Rangers have tried lots of things to get the offense going to this point. Maybe it’s time to simply let the situation play out and see what happens, while at the same time plotting a potentially much bigger makeover for the offseason. Young is intense, competitive and has high standards, but the best tack for now, might be to let this team make a case for or against itself for the future.

— Along those lines, rather than buy, the Rangers might have the best possible bullpen additions already under contract. While Gray is stretching out to start, bringing him back as a multi-inning leverage pitcher seems like it might be as good as the Rangers could do on the market. Pair Gray and Robert Garcia at the back of the bullpen and you’ve got a righty-lefty mix. And everybody else that has worked so hard in the first half can be backed off just a little. Not sure when Josh Sborz gets back because the velocity is still a bit behind, but if the Rangers can put together a nice run, how good would it be to add a fresh arm like Sborz for September and potentially the postseason?

— It will be interesting to see where Sebastian Walcott plays the majority of his games over the second half in the minors. If the Rangers determine they are going to move on from Adolis García after this year, it makes sense to get him started in right field where he’d have seemingly the quickest path to the majors. If he remains on the infield dirt, it might be an indication the Rangers are considering him in the infield in 2026, maybe even at third base.

— Still not sure what to predict on Bruce Bochy’s future. There are times when it seems like the unpredictability of this team can be no fun for a Hall of Fame manager, but those seem to fade fast and are replaced by affirmation that the manager lives for figuring out this kind of riddle. He called his San Francisco Giants team in 2012 “torture.” They won the World Series. He’d live through that kind of torture again.

Texas Rangers planning to place Jake Burger on IL before season’s home stretch begins Rangers to pay out Nathan Eovaldi’s All-Star bonus despite lacking official recognition

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Trade deadline ideas and a murky future

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