2024 ZiPS Projections: Texas Rangers

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Texas Rangers.

Batters

The Rangers led the American League in runs scored in 2023, and most of the players who contributed to that success are set to return to the lineup in 2024. Sure, Corey Seager might not repeat his monster season, but his performance should still land comfortably in star territory, and the Rangers could get a little luckier with his health. Evan Carter isn’t likely to post an OPS around 1.000 again, but that’s balanced by the fact that the team ought to get a lot more than 23 regular season games from him this year.

There are no real surprises among Marcus Semien, Nathaniel Lowe, or Jonah Heim, and ZiPS is now far more convinced by Leody Taveras‘ offense. Losing Mitch Garver to the Mariners hurts, but maybe not as much as you would think. If you thought Steamer was bullish on Wyatt Langford making an immediate impact, well rest assured that ZiPS agrees. It sees his production taking a slightly different shape (less OBP, more power), but the computer still views him as a legitimate big league bat. The only reason the DH projection on the graphic below is relatively low is that ZiPS likes Sam Huff and Ezequiel Duran a good bit less as DHs. If the projections are right, Langford will be among the quickest college bats to succeed in the majors.

Once you take into account the presence of Langford and the odds that he’ll be as good as any hitter they were likely to add in free agency (except for Shohei Ohtani, naturally), you can understand why the Rangers have had a rather quiet offseason, especially compared to some of their recent ones. It’s usually a dangerous sign when a championship team kind of stands pat, but it was largely justified by Texas’ roster and the players available this offseason. Of course, Ohtani would still have been nice!

Pitchers

The injuries make this a really weird set of projections, as this rotation projects as much better in the playoffs than it does in the regular season. It would have been nice to retain Jordan Montgomery — he gets the best projection here, after all — and they could still re-sign him, but Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle are all expected back sometime this summer. All three of those returns have the potential to match the best deals Texas could make at the trade deadline. While I could see the Rangers doing a little tinkering here, I think their plan is to cobble together a competitive rotation for most of the season and come October, play around with their suddenly impressive depth. That’s not at all different from how 2023 worked out.

Among the returning, healthier pitchers, there also aren’t many surprises. Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Dane Dunning, and Andrew Heaney are far from the most exciting front four, but they’re at least a competent quartet. The offense will likely be good enough that holding down the fort may be all the Rangers need here.

The relief corps projects as the team’s weak spot. Nobody here is expected to be aggressively lousy, but there’s a strong scent of the ordinary wafting through the bullpen. ZiPS thinks that Josh Sborz and Brock Burke should handle more high-leverage innings while José Leclerc takes fewer, and the computer has little faith in post-injury Kirby Yates, who is now in the twilight of his career. There are still relievers out there who Texas could land, such as Josh Hader, David Robertson, Robert Stephenson, or Hector Neris. This is where I expect the Rangers to show some movement.

All told, this is a very competitive AL West team, though ZiPS puts them a hair behind the Astros at this point.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023. Percentiles are based on the projected PA or TBF.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.