The Big Turnaround, the Big Managerial Comeback and More: Five Thoughts on the Rangers’ Championship

For much of Wednesday night, it appeared as though the World Series might head back to Texas, as Zac Gallen held the Rangers hitless for six innings in a dominant and impressive Game 5 performance, particularly given the circumstances. The Rangers came to life with a quick flurry of three hits off Gallen in the seventh inning, however, scratching out a run. They added four more in the ninth to pull away with a 5-0 win, giving them their first championship in franchise history.

There’s a lot to be said about that championship. Here are five thoughts — on the team’s turnaround from ignominy, their long wait, their road to victory, their postseason stars, and their Hall of Fame-bound manager — that I hope add some history and perspective to their accomplishment.

The Big Turnaround

The biggest story about this Rangers win is that just two years ago, the team lost 102 games. In winning a championship, they join the 1914 Boston Braves (52-101 in 1912) and 1969 New York Mets (67-101 in 1967) among those that won it all within two years of losing 100. The Diamondbacks lost 110 games in 2021 as well, and so this was the first World Series matchup between two teams that turned it around so quickly. The 1967 Red Sox and 2008 Rays also reached the World Series two years after losing at least 100 games.

These Rangers bear scant resemblance to the 2021 squad, which was managed by Chris Woodward. Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis García are the only full-time players remaining from that team, though Jonah Heim shared catching duties with Jose Trevino, starting 73 games behind the plate. Leody Taveras is the only other 2021 position player who remains. All four have improved markedly since then:

García, who was a 28-year-old rookie in 2021, was one of three players to represent Texas in that year’s All-Star Game; he and Heim were among the six who made this year’s AL All-Star squad.

The 2021 pitching staff had seven players who pitched for the club in 2023, but only two threw more than 20 innings for this year’s team, and they were the only ones who made the playoff roster:

Of the other five pitchers common to both teams, three are no longer in the organization: Taylor Hearn was designated for assignment and sold to the Braves on July 24; John King was traded to the Cardinals in the Jordan Montgomery deal on July 30; and Spencer Howard was traded to the Yankees on August 1. Jake Latz, who totaled just 4.2 innings for the 2021 club and 6.2 for this year’s one, was optioned back to Triple-A Round Rock. Ian Kennedy, who threw 32.1 innings and saved 16 games for the 2021 team and 16.1 innings for this year’s team, went on an odyssey between those two stints. He was traded to the Phillies alongside Kyle Gibson in a six-player deal on July 30, 2021, then spent last year with the Diamondbacks (for whom he previously pitched from 2010–12) before returning to the Rangers on a minor league deal this spring; he made the Opening Day roster but pitched poorly, was DFA’d and released in mid-May, then re-signed to another minor league deal a month later. After toiling at Round Rock from late June to early September, he was recalled and made five appearances before being sidelined by a rotator cuff strain.

The free agent signings of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Jon Gray after the 2021 season and Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom, and Andrew Heaney after last year went a long way towards turning the Rangers around, even with deGrom making just six starts before needing Tommy John surgery. Even with those players’ contracts and the midseason addition of Max Scherzer, the team ranked just eighth in the majors with a $214 million payroll; they were ninth on Opening Day at $195.9 million according to Cot’s Contracts.

That said, it’s not as though executive vice president and general manager Chris Young — who joined the Rangers’ front office took over from Jon Daniels in December 2020 and became the top baseball operations executive when Jon Daniels was fired in August ’22 — bought this championship off the rack. The improvements of the aforementioned players common to both teams played a significant role, as did the emergence of draft picks Josh Jung (first round, eighth overall in 2019) and Evan Carter (second round in 2020), the rebound of 2010 international signee José Leclerc (who missed all of 2021 due to Tommy John surgery), and the trades for Montgomery, Scherzer, Mitch Garver (March 2022 from the Twins), and Aroldis Chapman (June 30 from the Royals). Young and company did one hell of a job turning the organization around so quickly, and with Leclerc (on whom they hold a $6.25 million option) their only free agent of note, they’ll be able to return virtually their entire roster next year if they so choose.

The Long Wait

The Rangers were founded in 1961 as the second edition of the Washington Senators before moving to Texas and donning their current moniker for ’72. In winning the World Series, they ended what had thus been a 62-year wait since their founding, the fourth-longest in major league history. They also became the 25th of the 30 existing teams to win a championship:

Note that many of these teams were founded prior to the advent of the modern World Series in 1903, including three from the American Association (the Cardinals, Dodgers, and Pirates go back that far, albeit under different team names). If you base the waiting time on the distance from that first World Series in 1903 — not an unreasonable choice — the Phillies still have the record at 77 years, with the Orioles (founded as the St. Louis Browns) and Rangers each moving up a notch and the Dodgers falling to seventh at 52 years.

For the Rangers, this long-awaited championship chased at least some of the ghosts away. They were one strike away from winning in Game 6 of the 2011 World Series in both the ninth inning (before David Freese‘s two-run triple over right fielder Nelson Cruz) and 10th (before Lance Berkman’s RBI single), then lost Game 7 as well.

Road Warriors

Under the new 12-team postseason format, it takes 13 wins for a Wild Card team to win the World Series. Remarkably, the Rangers not only collected 11 of those wins on the road, they went a sterling 11-0 in that context while going just 2-4 at Globe Life Field. Prior to their streak — the opportunity for which owes to the new format, obviously — the only teams from the division play era (1969 onward) to go undefeated on the road during the postseason were the 1996 Yankees (8-0), 2005 White Sox (6-0), 1983 Orioles (5-0), and 2023 Astros (5-0), the last of whom the Rangers knocked off in the ALCS by taking all three games in Houston. The 2019 Nationals shared the 1996 Yankees’ previous record of eight postseason road wins; they went 8-1 away from D.C. that year.

The Postseason Studs

You don’t win a World Series without great players, and for the Rangers three of them — Seager, García, and Eovaldi — carved out reputations as absolute postseason studs. Seager (.306/.442/.694, 204 wRC+ with six homers in 77 plate appearances) and García (.323/.382/.726, 197 wRC+ with eight homers in 68 PA) had the second- and third-highest wRC+ of any hitters with at least 30 PA in this postseason behind Yordan Alvarez (.465/.510/.977, 292 wRC+ with six homers in 49 PA). García set a record with 22 RBI, eclipsing Freese’s 2011 total, while his eight homers tied Barry Bonds (2002), Carlos Beltrán (2004), Cruz (2011), and Seager (2020) for the second-highest total in a single postseason behind only Randy Arozarena’s 10 from 2020.

Seager had only six hits in the series, but five were for extra bases, and four of them were huge. His two-run homer off Paul Sewald tied the game in the ninth inning of the opener. His two-run homer off Brandon Pfaadt in the third inning of Game 3 provided the margin of victory in the 3-1 win, while his two-run homer off Kyle Nelson in the second inning of Game 4 ran the score to 5-0. His single off Gallen in the seventh inning of Game 5 broke up the no-hitter and jump-started the rally that produced the game’s first run (scored on Garver’s single).

With a .286/.375/.762 line, three homers and six RBI in 24 PA, Seager won his second World Series MVP award, joining Sandy Koufax (1963, ’65), Bob Gibson (1964, ’67), and Reggie Jackson (1973, ’77) as the only players to win multiple awards. That said, it’s necessary to point out that prior to 1955, no such award was given. Seager and Jackson are the only position players to win twice, and both did so with multiple teams, with Seager doing so this year and with the 2020 Dodgers and Jackson with the A’s and then the Yankees. As has been pointed out in several places, Seager’s postseason stats and those of “Mr. October” bear some superficial resemblance:

Seager’s Game 4 homer pushed him into a tie for sixth place on the career postseason home run list; Manny Ramirez holds the record with 29, with Jose Altuve now at 27, followed by Bernie Williams (22), Derek Jeter and Kyle Schwarber (20 apiece). Albert Pujols, George Springer, and Alex Bregman all have 19 as well.

As for Eovaldi, while his Game 1 performance was a dud (five runs in 4.2 innings), he went 5-0 with a 2.95 ERA and 2.98 FIP in six starts totaling 36.2 innings for the Rangers in the postseason. Pitcher win totals and extended opportunity rants aside, he’s the first hurler to win five games as a starter in a single postseason. Randy Johnson (2001) and Stephen Strasburg (2019) both won four games as starters and added a fifth win in relief (the former in Game 7 of the World Series, the latter in the NL Wild Card Game), while Francisco Rodríguez won five in relief in 2002. That’s some cool company.

Eovaldi came up big during the 2018 postseason with the Red Sox as well. He now owns a 9-3 record with a 3.05 ERA and 2.84 FIP in 79.2 postseason innings. Among players who pitched in 2023, only Clayton Kershaw (194.1 innings), Adam Wainwright (114.1), Madison Bumgarner (102.1), Framber Valdez (80.2), Charlie Morton (80), and Walker Buehler (79.2) have thrown as many or more in the postseason.

Bochy’s Legacy

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy didn’t need another championship to vindicate his decision to come out of retirement at age 67 after three seasons away in order to manage again, but this one really elevates him into rarefied air. He’s one of just six managers to win at least four championships, joining five Hall of Famers:

Bochy, who won three championships with the Giants (2010, ’12, ’14), is just the second of the group to win four in the era of division series play, after Torre; Alston’s career extended into the division era but his last championship was in 1965. Bochy is the only one of that sextet to win it all at least once with multiple teams; Stengel, McCarthy, and Torre won all of theirs with the Yankees, Mack with the A’s, and Alston with the Dodgers. Bochy is additionally one of five managers from the division era to pilot at least five teams to pennants (including his one with the 1998 Padres), joining Torre and Tony La Russa (six apiece), and Sparky Anderson and Bobby Cox (five apiece).

The addition of the various rounds widens the playoff field, of course, allowing teams that may not be powerhouses to win. Indeed, the three Giants teams Bochy guided to championships won 92, 94, and 88 games, respectively, and he’s never managed any team to 100 wins. Still, there’s something to be said for navigating all of those short series successfully. Bochy’s teams have won 14 series out of their last 15 — counting the 2014 NL Wild Card Game as a series, with the Giants’ 2016 Division Series loss to the Cubs their only exception — which is downright incredible [acknowledging the correction in the comments below, I apparently misinterpreted something I heard or read on Wednesday night; his teams did not win 14 series wins in a row]. His total of 57 postseason victories trails only Torre (84), La Russa (71), and Cox (67), and is tied with Dusty Baker. Of the 13 managers with at least 30 postseason victories, his postseason winning percentage ranks third:

Bochy’s success this year pulled him to within eight games of .500 lifetime; he’s spent a lot of years at the helm of some pretty bad teams, including five with at least 90 losses. His Padres finished below .500 annually from 1999 to 2003, and his last three Giants teams (2017–19) were a combined 58 games below .500. Still, if he returns and wins at least 89 games in 2024, he’ll get back to .500.

Had Bochy not come out of retirement, he would have been a lock to be elected to the Hall of Fame on the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Managers, Umpires and Executive ballot, which will be voted upon at this year’s Winter Meetings. Instead Leyland, Lou Piniella, Davey Johnson and Cito Gaston are vying for election. Bochy, Francona, and Baker — all of whom have more regular season wins and pennants than those four candidates — will presumably get their crack on the 2027 ballot, unless they manage in ’26; any manager over 65 must be retired for at least six months to be eligible.