Chris Young got precisely what he wanted when he hired Bruce Bochy. As the president of baseball operations, Young inherited Chris Woodward from Jon Daniels and gave him a fair amount of leash. But, Woodward was ultimately canned with a little more than a quarter of the season left in 2022. Young, who played for Bochy in the skipper’s final year in San Diego back in 2006, pulled the wily veteran and three-time World Series winner out of retirement looking for lightning in a bottle.
Well, he got it, as the Rangers went 90-72 and won the World Series for the first time in franchise history in their first playoff appearance since 2016. Unfortunately, despite a +79 run differential last season, Bochy was 78-84 and 81-81 over the final two seasons in Arlington. Now the Rangers go from the 70-year-old Bochy to 45-year-old Skip Schumaker, who got a raw deal in two seasons as the manager of the Marlins, despite winning NL Manager of the Year in 2023. He joined the Rangers as a senior advisor in November 2024 and was named the manager a couple days after this past season ended.
That 2023 Marlins team was something. They made the playoffs and finished 84-78 with the worst run differential ever for a playoff team (-57), but went an outrageous 33-14 in one-run games. Guess we’ll see if Skip brought his rabbit’s foot to the American League.
Adam Burke’s “Nerdy” Take
HITTING
The 2023 Rangers batted .263/.337/.452 with a .340 wOBA and a 118 wRC+. The 2024 Rangers slashed .238/.305/.380 with a .300 wOBA and a 97 wRC+. The 2025 Rangers were actually worse, posting a .234/.302/.381 slash with a .299 wOBA and a 92 wRC+. Incredibly, the 2023 team had the highest K% of the bunch, but the staggering declines from Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia had a lot to do with what happened. Corey Seager hasn’t come close to replicating his MVP runner-up ‘23 season, but he’s still been a very productive bat when he’s been out there. Some players have come and gone and some haven’t developed or sustained as hoped like Josh Jung and Jonah Heim.
Along with the managerial change, Young pushed the reset button a little on the offense. Garcia and Heim were non-tendered and have been replaced with Brandon Nimmo and Danny Jansen. When it comes to season outlooks and win total wagers, you look at the aggregate, but you look at it through individual position upgrades. Garcia was 17% below league average offensively and Heim was 31% below league average. Nimmo has been at least 8% above league average every season but his rookie year back in 2016. Jansen had a similar year to Heim in 2019, but has been an above average bat in four of the last five seasons. Marcus Semien was also replaced, as he was part of the Nimmo deal. Josh Smith is slated for 2B and he was a league average bat. Surround those upgrades with the rest of the returnees and this should be a substantially better offense.
PITCHING
It had been a pretty quiet offseason on the pitching side until the Rangers traded for MacKenzie Gore from the Nationals in January. A 4.19 ERA with a 4.61 xERA and a 4.02 FIP doesn’t sound terribly impressive, but we know that Gore’s raw stuff is good with a 25.6% K% over four MLB seasons. Consider that the Rangers promoted bullpen coach Jordan Tiegs, whose relief corps ranked fifth in ERA, to pitching coach. The Rangers also had the lowest starting rotation ERA in baseball and fourth-lowest home BABIP against as a staff. This seems like a great landing spot for Gore, right?
Not only is there a pitching coach (and an assistant pitching coach) by title, but Gore now gets to throw bullpens and chat with Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Not too shabby. Speaking of those two, they’re aging like a fine Caymus, as Eovaldi was an injury away from contending with Tarik Skubal for the AL Cy Young and deGrom posted a sub-3.00 ERA in 30 starts at the age of 37 after missing basically 2.5 seasons of baseball because why the hell not? deGrom hadn’t made more than 15 starts since 2019 and he was magnificent anyway. With a variety of buy-low mid-leverage relievers and last season’s high-leverage guys back, this should be a top-tier staff, barring any major health challenges with limited organizational depth.
PROSPECT WATCH
This system is extremely light on prospects right now, but Sebastian Walcott is a top-10 overall prospect and an enthralling player to follow. In a midseason update, FanGraphs actually made Walcott their No. 4-ranked prospect across all of baseball. The tools are wild and a lot of the things that evaluators are focusing on these days, including bat speed, exit velocity, and room to grow into his 6-foot-4 frame. Not only does he have power, but he’s stolen 59 bases over the last two seasons. The 2023 signee out of the Bahamas was also playing AA baseball at 19. Eric Longenhagen and others have thrown a Fernando Tatis Jr. comp at him. He’s a pretty decent player, eh?
2026 OUTLOOK
I’ll be honest and say that the offseason for the Rangers snuck up on me. Schumaker is a good hire. Nimmo and Jansen are great upgrades and Semien is addition by subtraction. Year over year, from 2024 to 2025, Rangers pitchers went from an 8.7% BB% that ranked 23rd to a 7.8% BB% that ranked sixth, another characteristic of why Gore has the chance to truly blossom here. If a team is going to run down the Mariners in the AL West, I believe it will be this one as they are much improved. Also, this was a team that was 90-72 by Pythagorean Win-Loss, 86-76 by BaseRuns, and roughly 85-77 by 3rd Order Win% so positive regression was coming anyway.
BOLD TAKE: MacKenzie Gore finishes in the top 10 in AL Cy Young voting
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Jensen Lewis’ “Player” Take
HITTING
Everything is bigger in Texas – except the 2025 Rangers offense. A rash of injuries derailed what looked to be a promising group, leading the Rangers to bottom-five rankings in OBP and OPS. What to expect in 2026? Let’s start with the massive trade, sending Marcus Semien to the Mets straight up for RF Brandon Nimmo. That will jumpstart a top of the order that features young standout LF Wyatt Langford, setting the table for SS Corey Seager and DH Joc Pederson. The rest of the lineup is due for a bounce back in 1B Jake Burger, CF Evan Carter and 3B Josh Jung. Newly added C Danny Jansen rounds out an order that needs to drastically improve their slugging if they hope to contend in the all of a sudden strengthened AL West. Theme for this lineup on paper: solid, but inconsistent. Langford, Seager and Carter are the trio that need to carry this group.
PITCHING
Which starting rotation had the best ERA in all of baseball last year? Yep, you guessed it – these Texas Rangers. The high octane duo of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi each dealt with bumps in the road from an injury perspective, but still put together top-20 caliber statistical performances. Add in the “win-now” trade, acquiring MacKenzie Gore from the Nationals and it’s clear that president of baseball operations Chris Young believes the time to strike is here. Jack Leiter took massive steps forward last year and can be yet another power arm lengthening this rotation. The bullpen saw a major overhaul and welcomed new members Jakob Junis, Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander, Josh Sborz and Carter Baumier in front of closer Robert Garcia, alongside setup men Christ Martin and Cole Winn. It’s a group that finished top five in ERA, BB/9 and had the third-lowest WHIP amongst bullpens in 2025.
PROSPECT WATCH
No. 7 overall MiLB and top Rangers prospect Sebastian Walcott will turn 20 on March 14th, but he may be turning up the heat on a rapid ascent to the big leagues. The elite bat speed and bat-to-ball skills put him on the doorstep of The Show in 2026. The other contenders for meteoric risers in the Rangers system are RHP Caden Scarborough and RHP David Davalillo. Scarborough (High A) and Davalillo (Triple A) team with other top pitching arms RHP Winston Santos and RHP Jose Corniell, who earned a late-season promotion to the major league roster. It’s not the most loaded farm system, but Walcott is the potential All-Star caliber prospect you want to build a future around.
2026 OUTLOOK
Newly-hired manager Skip Schumaker takes over for sure-fire Hall of Fame skipper Bruce Bochy and looks to hit the ground running with a group that’s built to make noise in the AL. The rotation is top-heavy, perfectly built for a deep October run. The bullpen depth and injury risks in both the offense and pitching staff as a whole are the main concerns. It’s as sneaky a group to back in the American League out of the gates, but they can be a real force to be reckoned with if they hit their stride and stay healthy into September.
BOLD TAKE: Wyatt Langford hits 25+ HR and steals 25+ bases
For Adam and Jensen’s Season Win Total Picks, get our 2026 MLB Betting Guide.
