Everything Is Burger in Texas

Not content to watch from the sidelines at their home Winter Meetings, the Texas Rangers dipped their toes in the water on Tuesday evening. (An idiom I chose with great care, considering previous events of historical import at this year’s venue.) In addition to a three-year, $75 million deal to bring veteran righty Nathan Eovaldi back to Arlington, the Rangers acquired Jake Burger from the Marlins in exchange for minor league infielders Max Acosta and Echedry Vargas, as well as pitching prospect Brayan Mendoza.

Any description of a Burger trade begs out to include the phrase “adds much-needed power.” I don’t know that the Rangers need more power, but it’s certainly something you can never have too much of in your lineup. I will say this: Over the past two seasons, Burger has hit 63 home runs. So has Corey Seager. Adolis García has hit 64; Marcus Semien, 52. Nobody else currently on the Rangers has hit more than 33.

Burger is not the kind of 30-homer guy who produces a bunch of lucky mortar shots and wallscrapers. On the contrary, this dude hits nukes. In the past two seasons, Burger has 69 batted balls with an exit velocity of 110 mph or more, which is eighth most in the league. He’s one of just nine hitters who have five or more batted balls with an EV of 115 or better, and one of only eight to have broken the 118-mph barrier even once.

That kind of raw power is available only to a select few who have been judged worthy by their creator, and even then you have to hit the weights and eat your spinach. Given a full season’s worth of playing time, I would expect Burger to pass Bill Mueller and Luke Voit to move into second place all-time in career home runs among former Missouri State Bears. (Burger is just 23 homers behind Voit for second, but 310 behind current record-holder Ryan Howard, so the leaderboard will only shuffle so much. They make ’em big and strong in Starkvegas.)

In terms of raw power alone, Burger is genuinely in a class with guys like Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso, and Austin Riley.

We know that Schwarber and Riley are $20 million-a-year guys, and Alonso is probably going to make even more when he signs. Burger turns 29 years old next April, but because injuries and the pandemic wiped out three seasons of his minor league career, he’s not even arbitration-eligible yet.

Surely the Rangers gave up a buttload in order to get him.

Ehhh, not really.

A nice perk of this news breaking during Winter Meetings is having our supreme potentate of prospects, Eric Longenhagen, next to me in the media room while I write. Here’s a summary of what Eric had to say about the return:

Acosta got promoted to Double-A in 2024, and he took to this weed-out level with great aplomb. He cut his strikeout rate by more than a third from 2023, backstopped by a 26% two-strike chase rate. That was only two points higher than his already-impressive 24% overall chase rate. Eight home runs in 104 games might not be everyday starter power, but thanks to a high average, competitive walk rate, and 23 doubles, Acosta posted a 113 wRC+, which is downright impressive for a 21-year-old shortstop. He followed that up with an impressive showing in the Arizona Fall League.

Vargas put up good surface stats — .276/.321/.454 with 14 home runs in 97 games — at A-ball, but he missed the Rangers’ prospect list in part because of his gag-inducing chase rates: 44% overall, 59% with two strikes, 42% against fastballs. The direct quote from Eric was “one of the most impatient hitters in all of pro baseball.” When he does make contact, he hits the ball in the air to the pull side, which is good, but his lack of physical projection (and arm strength) will probably prevent him from sticking at shortstop, and unless he finds out about the strike zone, he won’t hit enough to stick anywhere else.

Mendoza, who turns 21 in January, is a 5-foot-11 lefty who dominated Low-A over 22 appearances (17 starts) before ending the season at High-A. His best pitch is a bat-missing changeup, which turned into a weapon after a grip change before the season. He’ll also throw a low-90s fastball and a 10-to-4 breaking ball in the low 80s. Ironically, Mendoza’s short stature creates the appearance of an uphill angle on his fastball that makes the pitch awkward to hit despite its pedestrian velocity. If that holds, he could move quickly and hit the majors as a back-end starter fairly quickly. But Eric also warns: “If his fastball velocity sags as his workload grows, then an outcome more like Tommy Milone is likely.”

It’s more than the Marlins gave up to get Burger from the White Sox a year and a half ago, but the median outcome for these prospects leaves Miami with two complementary big leaguers and a shortstop who could be good if he learns how to perform the foundational act of hitting.

So why is Burger less valuable than the other plus-plus raw power guys? It’s a combination of small-to-medium-sized factors. (Ironic, I suppose.)

Burger is not quite as fly ball-happy as Schwarber, Alonso, or Riley, but in terms of hitting the ball in the air to the pull side — the shortcut to dinger-filled prosperity — he actually beats Riley pretty handily. But while he and Riley are both nominally third basemen, Burger gives up almost a win of defensive value per year to his former division rival.

Then there’s the walk rate. Burger’s career strikeout rate is 27.5%, which is high, but we’ve generally accepted that strikeouts are the tradeoff for being able to hit a ball 115 miles an hour. Unfortunately, Burger does not possess Schwarber’s preternatural gift for strike zone judgment, or even Alonso’s competence in strike zone judgment.

Even with the strikeouts, Burger hits for a decent average: .250 on the button in each of his past three seasons. (The major league, uh, average in 2024 was .243.) But Alonso walks twice as much as Burger; Schwarber walks three times as much. Even with Burger’s penchant for getting hit by pitches, that comes to discrepancies of roughly 20 and 50 points, respectively, in OBP.

With all that said, Burger’s still a good player. He might be a poor man’s slugger, but not that poor. Over the past two seasons, Alonso’s been worth 4.9 wins, Schwarber 4.4, and Burger 3.6 in about 80% of the playing time. RosterResource has Burger penciled in as the Rangers’ DH, which makes sense because Nathaniel Lowe and Josh Jung have the two infield corners locked down. But in case one of them gets hurt — which is a possibility based on the fact that it happened last season — Burger can step in. Defensively, it shouldn’t be Plan A, but he can stand at third base with a glove without frightening small children.

But he’s going to hit arbitration in a year, so the Marlins figured he was about to get expensive, and they’re too poor even for the poor man’s slugger.

Much to the Rangers’ benefit.