Scott Lucas

It Begins
The Rangers play their first Spring Training game tomorrow, 33 days before Opening Day. That is ridiculously overlong. In that spirit, I have a 3,100-word report, but I’ll split it in half. Today, major news, prospect rankings, thoughts on the challenge system, etc. Tomorrow, all the incoming minor league free agents, returning Rangers, and where ex-Rangers landed. 

Walcott
Sebastian Walcott’s rehab of last fall’s sore elbow didn’t pan out, and he’ll soon undergo surgery, either the full-blown Tommy John or the slightly friendlier brace procedure. Regardless, he’s essentially out for the season, although some late batting action remains a possibility. Terrible news, but hopefully nothing more than a delay in his ascent. Despite spending all of last year in AA, he doesn’t have to be added to the 40-man roster until after 2027, so Texas doesn’t have to worry about a “wasted” option year or burned service time. 

Here Comes Mr. Jordan
In my report on the Gore trade, I mentioned preferring another starter in on an MLB deal rather than leaving the fifth spot open to competition. That’s nothing against Jacob Latz and Kumar Rocker, who could well prove up to the task. But even with strong rotations, Texas has needed an average of 40 starts from starters outside the top five during 2023-2025. 

Texas has acknowledged my preference, after a fashion, bringing in LHP Jordan Montgomery on a one-year, $1.25 million deal. He won’t be the fifth starter in April, though, as his elbow surgery less than a year ago likely pushes his return to July. 

Montgomery’s post-Texas career has been dismal. His outsized contract demand after the Series brought no takers, and he settled for a 1+1 deal with Arizona after missing the entirety of Spring Training. He ditched his agent, didn’t pitch well in 2024 and spent 2025 on a gurney. 

If he can regain form, he’ll be equivalent to a “free” trade-deadline acquisition. If not, well, it’s not as though the Rangers were pinning their hopes on him. He will be transferred to the 60-day IL but has to occupy the “regular” 40-man roster for at least a few seconds, so Texas cleared a spot by designating righty Zak Kent, acquired on waivers from St. Louis a month ago. Kent was promptly reclaimed by the Cards, but in any case he could have and very likely would have taken free agency.  

Farm Rankings
22 – ESPN
24  – Baseball America 
26 – The Athletic
28 – Baseball Prospectus

Not a surprise. Texas’s formerly mid-tier system lost several top-30 prospects to deadline trades and five more in the Gore trade. Rocker and Leiter graduated. 2024 top pick Malcolm Moore had a bad year. 

Sebastian Walcott and several promising pitchers remain, but the vaunted depth of the past is depleted, and obligatory top-30 lists have been backfilled mostly with low-level, high-risk types. 

When you focus on the farm, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of it as a thing apart from the Major League club. It’s worth remembering the farm is a means to an end, that being more wins in Arlington, and the operative question for any prospect may be less “how good can he be” than “what could we get for him.”

Top 100 Prospects
IF Sebastian Walcott
(all rankings pre-injury except FanGraphs)
#5 per ESPN
#7 per MLB Pipeline
#11 per Baseball Prospectus
#16 per The Athletic and Baseball America
#30 per FanGraphs

(I wrote this before the injury.) Walcott more-or-less maintained his stature despite a superficially ordinary line in AA (.255/.355/.386). As a 19-year-old in AA, he improved his plate control considerably while maintaining his homers. A 50-point drop in isolated power was due entirely to fewer doubles and triples. I don’t know what that means, if anything. Much as I’d love to see him in person in Round Rock in April, more time in Frisco is in order. 

(And now, back to the present.) The FanGraphs placement acknowledges Walcott’s injury, but he’d have ranked lowest among the various publications even if healthy. They’re ever-so-slightly more skeptical of his future for a variety of reasons: physical projection, instincts, eventual position, plate approach, swing.  

RHP Caden Scarborough
#65 per Baseball America
#71 per FanGraphs
#99 per ESPN

Easily the biggest riser in the system, Scarborough transformed his electric stuff into electric results more quickly than I anticipated. His BB+HBP rate was 8%; I’d have taken the over on that without hesitation and even given odds. In his final 11 regular season starts, he walked or hit 15 batters while fanning 58. 

For a different view, Baseball Prospectus had him 12th before the Gore trade. Not 12th overall, 12th in the Texas system (now up to 9th following the departures of Fien, Rosario and Fitz-Gerald, all ranked higher). And that ranking was decided mostly if not entirely by Friend Of The Report Grant Schiller! How dare he! 

But seriously, differing viewpoints are welcome. Put another way, if every publication ranked everyone similarly, that would come across as groupthink. BP’s primary issue is that Scarborough has considerable reliever risk because of immature offerings beyond the fastball and slider. Other publications aren’t as worried, but it’s a valid concern. 

IF Yolfran Castillo
#70 per FanGraphs

When I saw Castillo in person last March, I could easily envision this placement a year later. But not after his subsequent, middling showing in real games. FanGraphs’ love remains steadfast if not unconditional; their lengthy outro to his writeup stating that they’re ignoring Texas’s track record of transforming this type of player into a worthy big-leaguer. 

RHP David Davalillo
#89 per FanGraphs

I’ve seen him reach the upper 90s and overwhelm hitters in short spurts, but neither is his forte. The fastball doesn’t stand out, actually. What does is great control of a very deep arsenal (we’re up to seven pitches, I think) featuring an angry splitter. 

RHP Jose Corniell
#116 per ESPN

RHP Winston Santos
#103 per FanGraphs
#141 per ESPN

Elsewhere:
IF Gavin Fien (59th by BP, 76th by The Athletic, and 117th by ESPN)
IF Devin Fitz-Gerald (#133 ESPN)
LHP Kohl Drake (#162 ESPN)
RHP David Hagaman (#171 ESPN)
RHP Alejandro Rosario (#190 ESPN)

Service Time
When I updated by organizational charts, I noticed that Evan Carter had one year and 170 days of service time. 172 days are needed for a full year, so he fell two days short of getting free agency after 2029 instead of 2030 (assuming his career proceeds as hoped). The Rangers didn’t game him, though. Actually, he was recalled to Arlington sooner than I would have preferred, but the dismissal of Leody Taveras and injury to Kevin Pillar pretty much forced Texas’s hand. Carter at least has the consolation of a likely additional season of arbitration (again, assuming a quality career). 

Other Camp News
Both RHP Emiliano Teodo (back) and Marc Church (lat) are still recovering from injuries that limited their 2025s and won’t pitch again until March. Bad news, although I wouldn’t have considered them more than the longest of shots to make the active roster in the early going. 

I Challenge You
The challenge system is coming to MLB. Finally. For years, I’ve been watching ball-strike calls in AAA that were either fully automated or subject to challenge, then marvelling at these critical decisions being made in MLB with nothing more than someone’s eyes. (And this is not a criticism of the umps, most of whom are great at their jobs.)

The system is quick and unobtrusive, unlike a good number of baserunning challenges. Here’s an example from 2024, an embarrassingly out-of-focus video on my part but it conveys how seamless the system can be. 

In the early days in AAA, challenges seemed more random. A pitcher threw, didn’t get the call, said “that’s a strike brah” (or the Spanish equivalent) and impulsively patted his cap. Some of that is the nature of minor league ball; winning doesn’t matter per se, and performers might be thinking more about how an allegedly incorrect call affects them personally and less about how the call affects the game’s outcome. Over time, these decisions have become more strategic. Pitchers hardly ever challenge now and probably have been stripped of that duty by their coaches. (Catchers have a better view.) Challenges have also been saved for more meaningful situations and counts. 

Also, I’ve seen games in which plate umps were consistent but had a specific flaw that players were able to dispute. In one game, the plate ump simply wasn’t giving pitchers the bottom-right corner (from the viewpoint of the ump), so righties grabbing that corner with a slider would get a ball call. In the past, they’d just have to live with it, but in this game, pitchers on both teams repeatedly challenged and frequently won. They were able to reorient the strike zone to its proper size on the fly. 

In the long run, this should make umps more consistent and uniform. The ump who calls a good plate overall but gives the bottom-right corner to batters is going to have to adjust. 

(Warning: allusions to heavy math ahead) You may be familiar with run expectancy matrices, which show the expected runs scored in an inning given any particular number of outs and set of baserunners. With that, one can calculate the cost-benefit of stealing, trying to take an extra base, etc. This can also be done with individual ball-strike counts within all these out and baserunner scenarios, and from there we can calculate the breakeven success rate for issuing a challenge. 

Tom Tango, an overlord of sabermetricians, has recently done just that in a series of posts (1, 2, 3). If you’re into this stuff, I’d recommend checking it out. The thumbnail version: 

1)    Challenging is rarely worth the bother with fewer outs and fewer runners on base, even if you’re pretty sure the ump is wrong;
2)    Challenging is always with the bother with the bases loaded or with a runner in scoring position and two out, even if you’re pretty sure the ump is right. 

In American football, similar analysis has revealed which teams are optimizing 4th-and-X decisions. Likewise, with Tango’s work and future revisions, we should be able to determine which teams are wise and which are wasteful with their challenges. 

Tenders

As I half-guessed, Texas concluded the work week with a net loss to the 40-man roster despite several additions. The Rangers declined arbitration to C Jonah Heim, OF Adolis Garcia, RHP Josh Sborz and RHP Jacob Webb, making them free agents. I’m not a young man and know of impermanence, but in case I ever forget, baseball is there to remind me. The Rangers are down to ten players on the 40 predating the 2023 World Series. 

In July 2023, Heim suffered a torn wrist tendon sheath. The prognosis was a minimum absence of 2-3 weeks, possibly longer, possibly season-ending surgery. There was discussion of how often he’d play if he returned and whether he’d be able to swing right-handed against lefties. Not only did he return quickly and without a rehab stint, he played in 41 of the team’s final 45 games, 36 of them starting behind the plate. He then started every playoff game. He actually didn’t hit that well in the aggregate, but of course he had some critical hits and defense. A remarkable and likely career-defining run. 

Heim hasn’t been the same since, offering one good month and perhaps a couple of other adequate ones in the subsequent two years. I’m the polar opposite of a general-opinion sports columnist, but if that were my job, I’d have a great narrative about how Heim left everything on the field in late 2023 and just hasn’t had anything to give since. There were arguments for keeping him next year – he wouldn’t be that expensive, and the open market and internal options are wanting – but Texas can’t stand pat after 2025. 

The Rangers designated Garcia for assignment just before Spring Training in 2021, but no club made a claim, understandably. Garcia was three weeks from his 28th birthday, toolsy but with a dire BB/SO ratio and barely capable of sustaining a .300 OBP in AAA. I watched him in the “Alternate Site” minor league games that filled the gap between Spring Training and the delayed start to minor league season. Texas retrieved him during that time, and he never returned. 

I don’t need to recount Garcia’s critical hits, all of which are permanently etched in your brain, occupying the cells that are supposed to remember where you left your keys. Baseball Reference has a stat called Championship Win Probability Added, which is like the standard WPA except measuring how much the playoff performance contributes to a title. It’s a squirrelly stat that ignores defense and is heavily dependent on high-leverage events (for example, Nathan Eovaldi doesn’t get much credit for his heroics), but if you want to measure players by big moments, it’s great fun. By this stat, Garcia won 35% of Texas’s 2023 championship all by himself. He had two of the top three events plus five others that increased Texas’s likelihood of winning the Series by at least 2%. 

After the deeply disappointing 2024, Garcia entered this year wanting to hit 50 homers. Which… look, it’s nice to have goals, but I was just hoping for the midpoint between ’23 and ’24. Defensively, he got there, but the offense was even worse. From a purely statistical point of view, there are players so valuable defensively that even egregious offense can be overlooked. Leonys Martin (if you remember him) fit that description. But, if you’re a human running a team and filling out the card, you understandably reach a point at which you can’t tolerate what you see at the plate regardless of compensatory defense, and Garcia was reaching that point. Also, his defense was just good, not great. 

Baseball Reference actually bestowed 2.7 WAR upon him in 2025, but much of that so-called value rests on an extreme park-factor calculation that makes Globe Life far more pitcher-friendly than I believe is warranted. (See the fourth paragraph and the last footnote of my article on trying to divine the actual quality of Texas’s 2025 offense.) Fangraphs has him at 0.7, which I think is closer to the “truth.” Even during 2023, I never expected Garcia to stay beyond 2026 when Texas’s control over his fate expired. 

Sborz’s activation from the IL in April 2023 was unpopular in the online community. I recall some angry responses to the official announcement on twitter. My rejoinder: “I get it if you’re not a Sborz fan, but in that case you should be happy. If he’s bad he’ll be out of your life soon, if he’s good he’ll be good!” He was indeed good enough to stick, although the season was pockmarked with several bad stretches, and he ended up with a 5.50 ERA. Then, he went on an outrageous heater at the perfect time. Sborz recorded the final seven outs in the final game of the Series, and in the first four, Texas led by a lone run. He was Texas’s most valuable pitcher in the playoffs per the Championship WPA stat. 

He’s pitched only 16 MLB innings since, plus 22 in the minors on rehab. I’m sad to say he really didn’t look the part while in Round Rock late last summer. I was actually wondering whether he’d be designated for assignment during that stretch, but his health was such that Texas could just keep him on the IL. I’d be happy to have him back on a minor deal.

Garcia, Heim and Sborz were at their best when Texas (and you and I) needed them most, and that’s how they should be remembered. 

Emotions aside, the Webb decision is the one that’s actually perplexing to me. He was homer-prone but blandly competent and wasn’t going to cost more than around $2 million. Texas now has to replace an additional 66 innings. Pitchers who closed the 2025 season in relief for Texas and are still in the organization: Jose Cornieill, Luis Curvelo, Robert Garcia, Jacob Latz, plus the IL’ed Cole Winn. That list is why I thought Webb would be back. 

Every pre-arb player was tendered, but the likelihood of all remaining on the 40 until Spring Training is approximately 0.01%. 

Take a guess at which current Ranger has been on the 40-man roster the longest. Answer at bottom. 

40-Man Additions

Texas added RHP David Davalillo, 1B/OF Abimelec Ortiz and RHP Leandro Lopez.

The surprising omission was IF/OF Cam Cauley. Baseball America deemed him Texas’s toughest decision, while Fangraphs called him a “must-add.” I’d downgraded him from a sure thing to more-likely-than-not in the course of developing my preview. Cauley has defensive versatility, speed and some pop, all desirable qualities in the upcoming draft, and he’s improved his strikeout rate. On the downside, his career batting average is .240, fewer Ks have not resulted in more hits, and his walk rate is bland, so he reaches base at a below-average rate. I think the argument is if he can’t post a solid OBP in AA, imagine the results against MLB pitchers in early 2026, even in a bench role. Another argument is his potential. A regular? Josh Smith-esque utility? End-of-bench up-and-down type? The further down the list we go, the less drafting him and putting up with a possibly sub-replacement 2026 makes sense. Cauley didn’t make Baseball America’s initial list of potential draft picks but will probably be added to an update. If he remains a Ranger, I expect we’ll see plenty of him in Spring Training, and he’ll have a shot to reach the Majors during the season. 

The Rangers didn’t add any first-time eligibles from the 2021 or 2022 drafts, although they certainly would have added  Mitch Bratt and Kohl Drake, both protected after being acquired by Arizona. Remarkably, Texas is already down to just five players remaining in the system from the ’22 draft: RHP Kumar Rocker (1), RHP Brock Porter (4), IF/OF Chandler Pollard (5), RHP Luis Ramirez (7) and RHP Jackson Kelley (12). The Rangers had no second or third-round picks that year (for good reason!), and five of 18 didn’t sign, so the group was small from the jump. 

Per Baseball America, only 61% of the 27 first-time-eliglble first rounders were protected league-wide, a full 10% worse than the previous low in 2018. The Royals left picks from 2021 (high-school pitcher Frank Mozzicato, 7th overall) and 2022 (college OF Gavin Cross, 9th) unprotected. The Mets didn’t add catcher Kevin Parada, loosely linked to the Rangers in 2022 and drafted 11th overall. 

Answer

Ezequiel Duran was added to the 40 in November 2021. Longest in the organization is Jacob Latz, signed in June 2017. 

40 Man / Rule 5 Outlook

Tuesday is the deadline for protecting players on the 40-man roster in advance the Rule 5 draft. The Texas 40-man roster currently sits at 35 players. Nine are eligible for arbitration but not guaranteed to receive it. Another handful, including recent waiver or trade additions, are candidates for designation prior to Friday’s contract-tender deadline. So in these respects, the Rangers have generous room for prospect additions. Conceivably, Texas could have fewer than 35 on the roster by the end of business Friday. 

Conversely, regardless of budget constraints, they have other additions to make. Nine pitchers departed as free agents. Guess how many pitchers Texas has on the 40 with at least 50 innings of experience and expected to be at healthy next spring? Also nine, and that includes Josh Sborz, whose arbitration status is uncertain as I type. Texas doesn’t have a roster crunch per se but can’t add players heedlessly. 

Here’s my thoughts on potential 40-man additions:

RHP David Davalillo (Age 23, 1st-time eligible)
Yes. Next…

1B/OF Abimelec Ortiz (23, 2nd time)
While a late-season surge salvaged Ortiz’s 2024, I wasn’t especially enthused entering this season, and had I written this piece in late July, he would have been well down the list. He was hitting .234/.336/.411 while repeating AA as a bat-or-bust prospect, and my reaction to his early August promotion to AAA was more “might as well” than “it’s about time.” At Round Rock, he batted a revelatory .283/.388/.565 with nine homers in 41 games. Yes, a chunk of that success occurred in friendly Albuquerque, but the statcast data fully backed him up: 54% hard-hit rate, median and upper-level exit velos well above average, good launch angles, even a better-than-average whiff rate. He positively obliterated high fastballs, particularly on first pitches. I kept waiting for PCL pitchers to adjust, but they didn’t. They will eventually, so he’ll have to adjust in kind, but darned if he isn’t putting legitimate big-league punishment on the ball while maintaining his dignity against breaking stuff. I never wrote this glowingly about Blaine Crim in any R5 preview, but Ortiz at his best shines a little brighter, he bats lefty, and he can probably be indulged in RF for a spell. He certainly won’t be the most well-rounded prospect available if unprotected, which is the rationale for leaving him off. Still, I have talked myself into thinking he’ll be added. 

IF/OF Cam Cauley (22, 1st)
Baseball America deemed him Texas’s toughest decision. My immediate reaction was “no, he’s on, Lopez is tougher,” but let’s have this out. On the surface the choice seems easy: Cauley runs very well, can hit for power and play short and center (and elsewhere) ably. He batted .253/.325/.448 with 15 homers and 33 other extra-base hits as a 22-year-old in Frisco, a moderately aggressive assignment given his so-so 2024 in high-A. What’s not to like? He does have a better chance at being picked than post-2024 Cody Freeman because of that versatility, but unlike Max Acosta last year and Jonathan Ornelas after 2023, Cauley hasn’t quite closed the deal. While he’s genuinely improved his contact rate, reaching base isn’t his specialty, and he could be swamped in the short run against MLB pitching. Even though I’m skeptical he could stick on an MLB roster this soon, I lean toward selection.  

RHP Leandro Lopez (23, 1st)
For the first time, Lopez was fully healthy, effective and unleashed, improving his previously woeful control to shockingly well above average while broadening his repertoire. Is that enough? I have mixed feelings. It’s easy to become overly insular in this process, focusing too much on how each player rates within the organization  rather than the league at large. Ortiz’s data and Cauley tools will stand out in a Rule 5 draft. Lopez, perhaps not. Most opponents have similar players with similar stories. Lopez has a variety of risks (health, control, future role), and I’d strongly prefer him being nurtured at Frisco next year and reassessed. I seriously doubt he could hold an MLB roster spot throughout 2025, an argument for leaving him off for now, and that’s where I sit today. 

Wilian Bormie (24, 2nd)
Tempting. Bormie enjoyed a velocity spike in 2025, picking up four full ticks to an average of 96 and reaching triple digits on occasion. He also displayed grievous control at times. Too raw today, but one to watch in 2026. 

RHP Ismael Agreda (22, 1st)
Fangraphs’ mid-season prospect list described him conditionally as an “interesting roster candidate for the offseason.” My Bormie writeup generally applies here, with the exceptions of Agreda working as a starter much of the time but spending nearly the whole season at a lower level.

LHP Robby Ahlstrom (26, 2nd) 
Ahlstrom had decent results in 2025, but he’s fairly established at his point, If he didn’t force his way onto the roster during the season, I don’t know why he’d be picked now. A hot spring or in-season stretch could get him over the line. 

OF Aaron Zavala (25, 2nd)
I think not, but simply entertaining the idea shows how far he’s progressed. I omitted him completely in last year’s preview, and when I saw him in late March, I thought he’d be released rather than assigned to AA for a third time. He looked no different to me than his previous two years off elbow surgery. Zavala did in fact return to Frsico, where after a month he’d drawn a ridiculous 19 walks but still wasn’t hitting (.152 average, 283 slug). Then, out of nowhere, he produced his best month in three years. His initial foray in the PCL was short and bad, but upon return, he batted .275/.388/.500 with statcast data that mostly hovered around league averages. His time in AAA also revealed a surprisingly aggressive first-strike approach, contra previous passivity. 

RHP Josh Stephan (24, 2nd)
Stephan pitched last year’s Arizona Fall League championship game and was on the bubble for a 40 spot. I leaned against, and Texas declined. He reached AAA at the end of 2025 but didn’t improve his selection likelihood. 

3B Gleider Figuereo (21, 1st)
Figuereo’s season resembled Sebastian Walcott in that he sustained his homer power while losing a big chunk of his doubles and triples. He didn’t have the type of season needed to earn a 40 spot. Off-topic: Figuereo is one of a large number of Spartanburger hitters who made at best tepid cases for promotion to Frisco, which is severely lacking in warm bodies at present. Some combination of semi-aggressive promotions and free agents will be necessary. 

OF Trevor Hauver (26, 3rd)
No, but Hauver had a fine season in Round Rock after struggling mightily in 2024. 

RHP Dylan MacLean (23, 2nd)
Returning from elbow surgery, the 2020 4th-rounder had a respectable showing at high-A Hub City but will need to do that and more in AA to receive consideration. 

RHP Brock Porter (22, 1st)
To be honest, I hadn’t initially considered Porter because he was drafted out of high school in 2022, but he turned 19 two days before the cutoff, making him eligible this year to my knowledge. To be blunt, it doesn’t matter. MLB.com labeled him Texas’s toughest Rule 5 decision, but that’s just not the case. While he pitched well enough to maintain an on-field assignment in low-A after last year’s setback, that doesn’t even remotely translate to serious deliberation for a 40 spot.

LHP Bryan Magdaleno (24, 2nd) 
Magdaleno’s helium rise in 2024 put him in sincere contention for a 40 spot, but Texas and the league decided to wait and watch. Unfortunately, his control worsened from mediocre (14% BB+HBP rate) to calamitous (27%). 

RHP Gavin Collyer
Collyer actually became a free agent after the season. Keeping him around would have required a 40 spot before the end of the season or a new minor deal. He reaches the upper 90s and ranked very high on various “stuff” models, but that stuff didn’t get great overall results and was undercut by poor control. Collyer may yet reach his potential, but I can’t blame the Rangers for moving on. 

RHP Jose Gonzalez
Another free agent who’d crossed my mind as a 40 addition during the season, and someone I’d like to have back. I’m probably overvaluing him because I’ve been up to my ears in pitchers with awful control, and his is great. He’s probably good for 100+ quality upper-level innings somewhere in 2026. 

Arizona Fall League Wrap

Rangers-affiliated Surprise won the league championship tournament following a 16-10 regular season. In the final, RF Dylan Dreiling and CF Chandler Pollard entered midway and went 2-3, including Dreiling’s single to score Pollard as part of a seven-run rally.

Control has decayed in the minors, and fewer top-flight pitchers are assigned to the league than hitters. The results in 2025 were a combined walk and hit-batter rate of 17.1% and a league OBP of .391, both record highs. I’m offering a synopsis of Texas participants, but more than ever, I’d advise not reading too much into the performances. 

C Malcolm Moore
69 PA, .213/.275/.328, 4 doubles, 1 HR

Moore’s first full professional season wasn’t much fun. His hard-hit rate in the fall was adequate (42% compared to the 43% league average), but that contact was concentrated in the upper 90s, so his median and upper-level exit velocity was lacking. He also couldn’t take advantage of the wildness, swinging (and missing) more than average and drawing only three walks versus 22 strikeouts. 

OF Dylan Dreiling
55 PA, .271/.364/.438, 1 double, 2 triples, 1 HR

Dreiling’s fall was more fruitful and conducive to an April assignment to Frisco (to the extent the action here moves the needle). His hard-hit rate of 51% ranked 13th among 88 with at least 20 balls in play. 

IF/OF Chandler Pollard
50 PA, .289/.460/.342, 2 doubles, 10 walks, 8 SB

Pollard had a nice showing for a 21-year-old with virtually no experience above low-A. He hadn’t played in real games since mid-June following an injury immediately after promotion to high-A. His 36% swing rate and 10 walks in 12 games revealed a willingness to take what was given, which was plenty.  

C/1B Ben Hartl
31 PA, .125/.290/.208, 2 doubles, 4 HBP

Hartl’s statcast data was pretty grim, but he didn’t play often and I’m inclined to give him a pass. His specialty is getting hit, and he led the team with four HBP. 

IF Sebastian Walcott
5 PA, .500/.600/.750, double

Walcott departed early with forearm fatigue, replaced by Pollard. 

RHP Jose Corniell
18 IP, 7.50 ERA, 10% BB+HBP, 22% SO, .333/.402/.462 oppo line

Maybe I’m playing favorites, but I’m more interested in Corniell and Santos getting more post-injury work than how they performed. Fastball avg. 95.3, top 98.0, sinker 93.1, cutter 88.8, change 87.7, sweeper 81.1.

RHP Winston Santos
18.1 IP, 4.42 ERA, 15% BB+HBP, 22% SO, .254/.365/.423 oppo

See above. Santos threw four-seamers 63% of the time, averaging 96 and peaking at 99.6. He added a slider (avg. 84.6) and change (87.4). 

RHP Emiliano Teodo
4 IP, 2.25 ERA, 31% BB+HBP, 38% SO, .000/.313/.000 oppo

Teodo made only four appearances, none after the season’s midway point, and he walked five in four innings. 

RHP Joey Danielson
6 IP, 7.50 ERA, 30% BB+HBP, 27% SO, .269/.486/.346 oppo

Danielson was a mildly surprising selection, as he’d handled a full workload by modern standards (56 relief innings) in his first season out of college. His control faltered near midseason and was worse than ever in the AFL. His velocity was fine (95 four-seamer and sinker, 89 cutter, 86 sinker). Rest, then regroup. 

LHP Kolton Curtis
7.2 IP, 11.74 ERA, 24% BB+HBP, 20% SO, .314/.478/.400

Curtis’s change and slider generated a huge miss rate but not a huge miss total, because batters weren’t compelled to swing very often. The 21-year-old has potential but lacks control, and the tougher environment (both in competition and physics) was just too much right now.

Staying
RHP Trey Supak, RHP Peyton Gray and IF Richie Martin have re-signed. All finished last season at Round Rock. 

I promise that wasn’t a clickbait headline, because I don’t operate that way, plus you’re already here. Let’s runs some numbers.

Texas scored 4.22 runs per game compared to an AL average of 4.42. Globe Life, however, was historically pitcher-friendly in 2025. Here’s Texas’ Lowest Single-Year Park Factors For Runs (100 = neutral):

Single-year factors can be noisy, so using multi-year averages is better. How to weigh prior (and even subsequent) years is a judgment call, but when I give half credit to 2025 and half to the previous two years combined, I get a multi-year factor of 94.7.¹  The AL average was 4.42 runs per game. Applying the multi-year park factor results in a league-average rate of 4.19 runs per game, the lowest for the Rangers in 44 years. I’d say this contributes strongly to the perception of the offense. The park-adjusted league average runs per game during The Ballpark In Arlington era (1994-2019) was 5.04. The difference between an average offensive season then and in 2025 is a whopping 137 runs.²

The Rangers scored 4.22 runs per game versus the park-adjusted average of 4.19, so by my accounting, they actually scored five more runs than average. If you think that sounds crazy, Baseball Reference has a multi-year park factor of just 89, which would place the offense firmly in above-average territory and on equal footing with the pitching! That factor is incredibly low and based on a methodology that troubles me.³ Fangraphs has a three-year park factor of 97, which appears to be a simple average of the previous three years. Regardless, the conclusion is that the Texas offense wasn’t that bad. It certainly was early in the season, but on the whole, it ended up more-or-less average. 

This doesn’t make me feel any better about the season. Quite the opposite. It’s the sour cherry atop the Sundae of Frustration that was 2025.

The Rangers didn’t have so much a scoring problem as a distribution problem. Foremost, they were 21-29 in one-run games, exceptionally unlucky for a team that outscored its opponents. Also, when they scored seven or more runs, the opposition averaged only 3.35 runs per game. When they scored six or fewer, the opposition averaged 3.82, nearly half a run greater. 

Compared to the rest of the league, the Rangers allowed an additional 0.64 runs per game when which they didn’t score as much. Only three teams (Athletics, White Sox, Astros) had a bigger margin. Note that this is just bad luck, not a flaw to be corrected. It’s not as though a team knows in advance how many runs in a season it will allow and can manipulate their apportionment to individual games. The Rangers had a .397 winning percentage when they scored six or fewer, actually a middle-of-the-pack rate, but all twelve playoff teams were better. 

The Rangers were the only team in baseball without a win when the opposition scored at least seven runs. Honestly, winning the occasional slugfest pales in importance to how often a team allows that many runs in the first place. You’d much rather be 0-16 (Texas) than 2-51 (Athletics), but still, Texas is only one of two teams in the past five years without a single victory of this type in a season.  

As you’d expect, Texas was shut out more than average, although not at a franchise-historic level.

Incidentally, Texas’s best seasons at avoiding shutouts were 2001 (1 shutout, 87% less than league average) and 2022 (4, 65% less). Both were losing seasons. 

A big problem, especially from an emotional viewpoint, is that Texas genuinely did come out of the gate limping and spent most of the season playing catch-up. Here’s Texas’s worst in-season 54-game stretches (one-third of a season) in terms of runs scored versus the league average:

Texas didn’t reach a league-average level until Game 135, following a 20-3 banishment of the Angels. 

The biggest problem is that hit-first additions Jake Burger and Joc Pederson were supposed to provide improvement over 2024, and instead they were very bad. Also bad: Jonah Heim, Adolis Garcia, Marcus Semien, Josh Jung, Zeke Duran, the expelled Leody Taveras. That’s a lot of bad. 

As for the 81-81 record, the rotation was blameless. The bullpen was pretty good in the aggregate, less so in the specifics. There were 452 events in MLB last year that changed a team’s win probability by at least 33%. Of these, Texas’s bullpen had the second-most events and the third-worst cumulative win probability. Much of that is a function of opportunity. By virtue of so many low-scoring games, Texas’s bullpen faced more higher-leverage situations than most teams. It’s understandable that Texas wouldn’t rank well in negative events. Still, a few less instances of this sort would have translated directly into a few more wins. 

And that’s where we’re at. Some better one-run luck, one or two fewer shutouts, one or two fewer bullpen meltdowns, a couple of crazy 10-8 wins, and voila, we’ve a playoff team. 

In 2022, Texas was 68-94 despite being outscored by only 36 runs, courtesy of a 15-35 record in one-run games. That underperformance did result in the firings of the president and manager, but I did not enter the offseason thinking Texas would be trying to build on a 68-win season. Instead, the club felt much more like it had won 77, it’s most likely number based on run differential.

Not so in 2025. Despite all I’ve said, I’m not telling you to believe me and ignore your lying eyes. Despite park factors, distribution issues and bad luck bearing at least as much responsibility for Texas’s offensive malaise as the players themselves, the Rangers definitely did not feel to me like an 89-win team that was simply unlucky. 81 wins felt like an accurate account of the season and the state of the franchise at present. Put another way, how does “Texas’s offense was just unlucky, just stand pat and things should even out” sound? Terrible, right? 

I haven’t delved deeper than runs scored because this is already too long, but Texas had a 95 OPS+ by my accounting. That’s a better starting point to me, and honestly, even that seems a bit generous. There’s work to do. 

Footnotes:
1. In my personal stat analysis, I also give a little credit to the subsequent year, but for my 2025 multi-year factor I have to wait for 2026 to play out. 

2. If you’re unfamiliar with park factors and think “well of course the park wasn’t hitter-friendly, because the offense was so terrible,” that’s understandable, but that’s not how they work. Factors don’t care about quality, they just measure the combined output from both teams in the home park versus output in all the road parks. And in fact, the Texas offense alone didn’t stray that far from neutral, scoring 327 runs at home versus 357 on the road. It was the pitching that created such a pronounced difference, with 250 runs allowed at home versus 355 on the road. 

3. Baseball Reference excludes interleague games in their calculations for the stated reasons of no DH in the NL and absence of home-and-home series in interleague contests. The first reason is no longer valid. The second is still mostly valid (teams do have one interleague home-and-home each year; for example, Texas and Arizona in 2025), but I think the solution of ignoring those games is worse than the problem of keeping them. Interleague games are 30% of the schedule. 48 games are an awful lot to ignore. As I said, park factors are “noisy,” and limiting the calculations to 114 games exacerbates that problem. As it happened, the Rangers and their NL opponents tended to score much more in Texas’s park than on the road in 2025, so ignoring those games tilts the park factor even more toward pitcher-friendliness. That’s why BR’s factor is so low. Keeping interleague games in the mix, as I did, implies some assumptions about NL vs. AL parks that may not be wholly accurate, but I prefer the extra data. Note that park factors are already slightly askew because the calculations assume a balanced schedule, which isn’t the case. 

The 40

During Game 7, Texas had 47 players on the 40-man roster including seven on the 60-day Injured List. So, management has a bear of a task to whittle the number to something reasonable to accommodate 40-man additions and free agents, right? 

Actually, no. Texas had an MLB-high 12 free agents, so the roster has already decreased to 35. The Rangers acquired two players via waivers or trade from the A’s (catcher Willie MacIver and RHP Michel Otanez) but also removed OFs Dustin Harris and Billy McKinney. 

Six Rangers are within multi-year deals: de Grom, Eovaldi, Higashioka, Pederson, Seager, Semien

Nine are arbitration-eligible: RHP Josh Sborz (3rd and final time), RHP Jacob Webb (2nd), C Jonah Heim (3rd/final), IF Jake Burger (1st),  IF Ezequiel Duran (1st), OF Adolis Garcia (3rd/final), OF Sam Haggerty (3rd/final). IF Josh Jung (1st), and IF Josh Smith (1st, after narrowly missing Super-2 status last year). 

Garcia regained about three-quarters of his 2023 form on defense but endured his worst-ever season at the plate. He ranked 137th of 145 qualifiers in Fangraphs’ batting runs. MLB Trade Rumors projected a 2026 arbitration salary of $12.6 million. Seeing that figure drew an immediate and audible “yipes” from me, not that any amount, even the maximum discount, would have elicited a “yes!” 

Heim’s projected salary is a more tolerable $6 million. His decision is complicated by a poor market for substitutes and utter lack of ready options on the farm. Still, among the 49 catchers with a combined 400+ plate appearances that past two seasons, Heim ranks dead last in batting runs and 45th in WAR (per Fangraphs). There’s an argument for non-tendering Heim without an obvious successor and picking the hottest of next spring’s depth signings for MLB work. The resulting production wouldn’t be any better, but it might not be much worse and would save several million that could be put to use elsewhere. 

Sborz will live in our hearts forever, but the blunt truth is he’s rarely been both healthy and effective, and he wasn’t close to MLB-readiness late last season. I’d be more inclined to work out a minor deal, if possible. I’d expect offers forthcoming for Jung and Burger, disappointing though they were. Not to make excuses, but Burger endured a lot mentally and physically in 2025 and deserves some sympathy, if not an outright mulligan. 

20 Rangers are under team control: pitchers Cody Bradford, Marc Church, Jose Corniell, Luis Curvelo, Robert Garcia, Dom Hamel, Jacob Latz, Jack Leiter, Michel Otanez, Kumar Rocker, Winston Santos, Emiliano Teodo and Cole Winn, catcher Willie MacIver, IFs Justin Foscue and Cody Freeman, and OFs Evan Carter, Michael Helman, Wyatt Langford and Alejandro Osuna. 

I suppose all could be tendered, although a few have tenuous holds on their spots and would be ripe for designation or trade as Texas fills the roster. 

The just-acquired MacIver is catching depth. He reached the Majors at the age of 28 and batted .186/.252/.324 with three homers in 111 trips to the plate. His production in AAA was much better, if also inflated by Las Vegas. Otanez had a solid if walk-prone MLB debut in 2024 but was beset by injuries and ineffectiveness last season. He deals an upper-90s 4-seamer/sinker combo plus a slider. We’ll see whether the Rangers attempt to sneak them (and last-September claim Dom Hamel) through waivers. 

I’d written this before Harris was designated: “Harris had a vastly improved second half in AAA and earned a return to the 40, but the underlying metrics were still frustratingly underwhelming.” Even at his best, he just wasn’t putting much oomph on the ball. He’s still a worthy depth signing, though. 

As for potential 40 additions, I’ll deal with them later, but in general the “40-man roster crunch” is the least crunchy in memory. Texas has unusual leeway to add marginal cases, although that doesn’t mean you’ll see a glut of additions. 

Texas Minor League Free Agents

The following were originally signed by Texas or had been in the system long enough to be a “Texas guy:”
LHP: Jose Gonzalez, Avery Weems
RHP: Ben Anderson, Geraldo Carrillo, Gavin Collyer, Ryan Garcia,  Nick Lockhart, Florencio Serrano
C: Cooper Johnson
IF: Jax Biggers
OF: Marcus Smith, Kellen Strahm

This is the official release list; some others who are eligible (to my knowledge) do not appear. Collyer drew some attention with his upper-90s stuff, and I suppose he had a shot at being added to the 40 to prevent him from walking. Unfortunately, his control was quite poor, and unlike, say, prime-era Demarcus Evans or Joe Barlow, those extra baserunners tended to haunt him. Gonzalez signed in 2019 but didn’t begin making a name for himself until 2024; he’s a low-key back-end/long prospect who I’d be happy to have back. 

Weems was part of the Lance Lynn trade. Garcia was Texas’s second-round pick in 2019. Unfortunately, my main memory of him is throwing 110 pitches on three days rest in the NCAA tournament after he’d been drafted. Lockhart drew an outsized signing bonus as an 11th-rounder in 2019 but missed almost all of 2024-2025 to injuries. Texas was able to nab the highly regarded Serrano after MLB nullified his contract with the Cubs due to signing bonus shenanigans, but his years in Texas weren’t noteworthy beyond low-A. 

Also becoming free agents: LHP Ty Blach and Michael Plassmeyer, RHP Cory Abbott, Aidan Anderson, Joe Barlow and Cal Quantrill, C Elih Marrero and Omar Narvaez, IF Alex De Goti and Alan Trejo, and OF Luis Mieses.

Elsewhere

Baltimore signed OF Leody Taveras to a $2 million MLB deal. Tampa Bay declined the $11 option on reliever Pete Fairbanks. Caleb Boushley became a free agent after being outrighted. 

Pitchers CD Pelham, Jonathan Hernandez, Antoine Kelly,  Abdiel Mendoza, Nick Starr and Owen White, C Sam Huff, IF Jonathan Ornelas, Nick Solak, and David Wendzel, and OF Delino DeShields became free agents. San Diego released LHP Wes Benjamin.