The Texas Rangers Still Aren’t Very Good
As the Rangers look to open 2020 in a new ballpark, they set out to build on a surprisingly competent 2019 season by making significant additions. The team was aggressive on the pitching side, quickly adding Kyle Gibson on a potential bargain of a three-year deal for $28 million, then they added Jordan Lyles as a potential starter for reliever money. Next, they traded for a potential ace in Corey Kluber without giving up much in return. Adding that trio to Mike Minor and Lance Lynn, two of the better pitchers in baseball a year ago, means the Rangers should have one of the top 10 rotations in the game with the potential to land in the top five at season’s end.
Unfortunately, the Rangers still look to be one of the 10 worst teams in baseball because they’ve done little to address the position-player side of their team. To illustrate the Rangers’ issues, the table below shows projections by position as well as team rank at that position.
| Position | 2020 Starter | Projected Team WAR | Projected MLB Rank | 2019 MLB Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Robinson Chirinos | 0.2 | 30 | 30 |
| 1B | Ronald Guzmán | 0.1 | 30 | 29 |
| 2B | Rougned Odor | 1.3 | 25 | 18 |
| SS | Elvis Andrus | 1.3 | 29 | 24 |
| 3B | Todd Frazier | 2.0 | 22 | 26 |
| LF | Willie Calhoun | 1.3 | 21 | 9 |
| CF | Danny Santana | 1.4 | 22 | 9 |
| RF | Joey Gallo | 2.2 | 10 | 18 |
| DH | Shin-Soo Choo | 1.1 | 11 | 4 |
That’s really bad, and as the 2019 column shows, it was really bad a year ago as well. The 2020 projections have the Rangers getting about 11 wins from their entire position player group. That would actually be an improvement over last season when they put up 9.2 WAR the entire season. The Rangers made it into the top 10 last year in two position player groups outside of designated hitter, but in both left field and center field, the team was adequate because Joey Gallo put up good numbers at both positions. Since the season ended, the team has brought in Robinson Chirinos, whose okay projection gets canceled out by Jeff Mathis. The team traded away Nomar Mazara and Delino DeShields, who aren’t big losses from their 2019 production, but expectations for Danny Santana and Willie Calhoun are not high. Todd Frazier was signed in a nice deal to add some production at either first or third base, but even then, the position still ends up below average.
All together, this is where Rangers position players rank in our Depth Chart projections.
Sitting ahead of only Miami and Baltimore and just behind Detroit is not where a potentially contending team wants or needs to be. But everything isn’t all bad for the Rangers. Their work on the pitching side is a positive. Here’s where the Rangers rank among pitching staffs.
That’s really good for Texas, but when you combine them…
Unless Texas wins a bunch of close games, the team is only ready to replicate last season’s 78 wins. Even if we wanted to look at the Rangers’ projections and see them as low, adding one win to each position player projection would still put the Rangers five games behind the Angels and A’s and in the fourth spot in the division. Organizationally, there is good news and bad news for the club’s future.
On the good-news side of the ledger is the team’s financial situation. The Rangers have been cutting costs the last two years and saw their payroll drop to 20th in the sport, with their Opening Day payroll under $120 million and nearly $50 million less than what it was just a few seasons ago. The Rangers were consistently in the top 10 in the early part of the decade and should have the capability to get back up in that area. Right now, we have their payroll at $154 million, which is still about $10 million below what it was in 2017. The team doesn’t have a single salary commitment above $15 million in 2021 and has no long-term deal extending past 2022. In addition, Shin-Soo Choo’s $21 million comes off the books at the end of this season as does the remaining $9 million commitment for Prince Fielder. Even if the team picks up Kluber’s $18 million option and Gallo gets a big raise in arbitration, the team will have under $100 million committed to payroll in 2021. With additional revenue and increased attendance coming from a new stadium, the Rangers might have $100 million to spend on 2021 payroll. If the right opportunity comes along, they could get a head start.
The bad news for the Rangers is that they don’t have much at the high end of their farm system right now. There is considerable depth, but we don’t yet know how that will shake out. Kris Bryant might be a good fit, but the team probably doesn’t have the resources to swing a deal. The same goes for Mookie Betts in Boston unless the Red Sox are willing to dump other salaries and just take prospect depth in exchange for one of the best players in baseball. They don’t have close to what it would take to get Francisco Lindor.
There are also very few free agents still available. Anthony Rendon and Josh Donaldson would have fit very well on the team and taken them into the low-80s in terms of projected wins, but those opportunities have passed them by. Even Marcell Ozuna is now gone on a bargain one-year deal to the Braves. Nicholas Castellanos is a logical fit, but he won’t be a difference-maker. Perhaps the latest storm brewing in Denver will get a Nolan Arenado trade moving. The Rangers might be the one team willing to take on the risk of Arenado financially without pretending like he is signed to a very difficult contract. The Rangers could take on Arenado’s $35 million yearly obligation and get the team a lot closer to the playoffs.
Absent a major move, the Rangers don’t find themselves in a vastly improved position from a year ago. The team is better, and with some luck could find itself in the playoff race, but it would be a generous characterization to call them a contender considering the current group of position players.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
I don’t understand why this team insists Guzmán is a starter, and if they’re going to miss on the 3B market (and shift Frazier to first), they needed/need to be fishing out of the Thames/Smoak/Moreland 1B pool.
They’ve got a few shots at a 3 or 4 win season in the lineup as it is, but probably a 75-80th percentile kind of thing on each individual basis.
I only see 3/4 WAR upside in Gallo and Calhoun. Everyone else is kind of who they are going to always be until they fall off a cliff with age.
Joey was 3.3 WAR last year in 70 games… he’s got MVP upside (non-Trout division)
Guzman is possibly the best fielding first baseman in the league. He makes plays that the average 1B can’t. And the potential is there to be a 250 hitter with 20+ HRs.
He’s good but he’s not the best
Someone’s never heard of Matt Olson, or they’d never make that claim.
Olson – 18 DRS (updated Fielding Bible numbers), 6.6 UZR, 12 OAA(statcast) = Gold Glove
Guzman – 4 DRS, 3.5 UZR, -1 OAA
Also Olson (2019) .267 hitter with 36 home runs.
Thames/Smoak/Moreland are all former Rangers
Thames never played for the Rangers
Well, Marcus Thames did and it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility for Texas to play a 42 year old. 😀
They did it with Nolan, so fair enough
And Charlie Hough!
The brought Palmeiro back at an old 38.
Galarraga at 40. Bartolo Colon at 45. Vizquel at 42.
Looking through rosters, Texas has a ton of 40 year old players over the years.
Vegas has the Tigers at 55 wins and the Mariners/Marlins in the mid 60’s. Seems like either the Tigers over or the Mariners/Marlins under is a good bet according to you guys!
Also the Rangers are at 79.5 and the Pirates are at 71. Very interesting to compare those totals to your Team WAR Charts!
Open letter to Arenado VEB puff piece <3
I don’t understand what Texas is doing. They’re behaving like a team that is trying to get under the luxury tax or is under orders from ownership to cut costs. The former simply isn’t true and (while I don’t pay super close attention) I haven’t heard anything about the latter.
Last offseason the argument went that they were keeping their powder dry and setting up to make a big push this offseason to debut a strong team in the new ballpark. Then they did surprisingly well during the season which led them to think… they could just keep doing that?
Granted, rebuilds are multi-year and pitching is usually the hard part, so with a new climate-controlled park and the trade for Kluber they’re off to a nice start. And maybe the “exciting team to christen a new stadium” narrative was never the gameplan the FO was using. But I don’t see anything that would get me to go to the new park the second time (except maybe just to get out of the heat, though it’s not like air conditioning is hard come by elsewhere in Texas). Even the most exciting and best-marketed starting pitcher still only headlines once or maybe twice a week. What’s here to get a fan excited the other days?
Disagree w/your characterization of their winter. They’ve signed $60M worth of contracts and took on $37M in commitments w/ the Kluber trade (if they pick up his option), which would put them safely inside the top-10 for added payroll this offseason. They were in on Rendon, in on Donaldson, but disciplined because they knew there were 4-5 different paths to a 3B upgrade this year. An Arenado or Bryant trade ties all of these moves together. And if they don’t get them now, you have to assume Arenado will be back on the market come summer.
Full years from Joey Gallo & Willie Calhoun are easy to get excited about. And don’t forget those powder blue unis!
In on. In on. In on.
That sounds familiar about a Texas offseason.
Arenado would make a lot of sense for them, but it certainly sounds like they had tried, and they could do pretty well if they just avoided having big holes at RF (or CF, depending on where they play Gallo) and 1B.
As an A’s fan it was weird watching the off-seasons of the Rangers and Angels. If the Rangers had nabbed Rendon, or the Angels grabbed Gibson, Lyles and Kluber then I would be a lot more worried. Instead, Texas will be punchless and the Angels will line up all-stars and Hall-of-Famers behind replacement level pitching.
Angels and Rangers should of stuck with the A’s approach of replacement level everyone and somehow still win 85+ games. Damn you A’s..
A’s didnt win with replacement level everyone, it was league average everyone (2WAR). Man, Cameron loved the idea of that approach.
Huh? Where was this ever an A’s approach?
The following A’s position players had above average WAR: Marcus Semien (8.1), Matt Chapman (6.7), Matt Olson (5.1), Mark Canha (4.5), and Ramon Laureano (3.8). They also had 5 pitchers over 2 WAR. Not a replacement level team.
Rangers fan here, with a few thoughts on why I’m cautiously optimistic (and the Rangers are likely more optimistic) on some of the players above:
1) Choo – Worth 4 WAR the last 2 years and reached 600 ABs the last 3 (quieting some injury-prone concerns), constantly underrated by projections. Fantasy gold.
2) Odor – Insert “I can’t quit you” rom-com meme here. The franchise is very invested in Rougie, and believe they saw some of the changes at the plate they’ve been working with on over the last year-plus start to break through in the 2nd half. 142 wRC+ in Sept/Oct, though obviously SSS apply. This is a guy who has three 2+ WAR seasons on his resume and is still only turns 26 next month.
3) Guzman is a similar story. Long-levered guy still growing into his frame – a year younger than Odor and was pegged as a 55 Hit/ 60 Raw Power guy as recently as 2018. They’ll continue to give him time to develop. Though as with Mazara, real concerns the Rangers don’t have the dev staff to do it?
4) Andrus – In his last healthy year (2017) he put up 3.9 WAR. 2018 was cut short by injury & 2019 played through a bad elbow. Feels like he’s been around forever but still only 31, and again, would be hard to move him.
5) Gallo – Worth 3.3 WAR in 70 games and well onto his breakout season as a down-ballot MVP candidate when he got hurt. Made some material changes to his approach at the plate that these projections are likely missing. Steamer has him projected for 3.2 WAR in 2x PA as ’19, which I’m comfortable in saying is at least 2 wins shy (great buy-low for fantasy).
Some other notes:
Depth – last year Logan Forsythe and Asdrubal Cabrera contributed a combined 0.9 WAR in over 700 PA. Nick Solak is a big upgrade over those two, and with his 126 wRC+ last year, could be a 2-3 win upgrade in the IF.
Pitching regression – Lance Lynn & Mike Minor had career years last year, combining for 11 WAR (6.8 & 4.2 respectively). It’s only natural that projection systems would bake in some regression, and yet, their performances under the hood look… relatively sustainable??? Steamer has them down for 7.1 wins, if they don’t drop as dramatically as Steamer predicts, or even improve upon last year (Minor, for example, notably struggled in July, admitting the trade rumors impacted his performance), that’s a significant boost in the above WAR totals.
I’m least optimistic about Guzman, but he’s also the most likely to lose playing time if Solak steps up to regular ABs and/or a 3B trade is completed. Add it all up and there’s a real pathway here to an extra 12ish wins, which would put them in the conversation w/ LAA & OAK for 2nd in the division and the 2nd wild card. Add a certain Colorado 3B would make them favorites for the 2nd Wild Card, in my mind.
JD seems adamant about riding with Santana for 600 PAs this yr. He says he’s best as a utility guy in one breath, but doesn’t say who’s gonna play CF when Santana plays elsewhere. It’s not supposed to be Gallo, who they want to station exclusively in RF. I don’t really understand why they are so sure Santana won’t regress badly, but they definitely got a good look at him last yr & the team seems to think the new hitting program is making a big difference. They have to get a huge year out of Gallo. Rougie & Santana need to be better than adequate or it doesn’t really matter what anyone else does.
And they need a big RHB because they’ve suffered for 5 or 6 yrs of being too left-handed. It’s too easy to bring in a journeyman LHP & shut them down. I think that makes Castellanos more valuable than just his projections, especially if he can handle first base. A 2nd decent RHB would be more ideal. Anybody who can field his position & take the bat out of Guzman’s hands, or Rougie’s when he’s not going very well would be huge.
If they can at least get off to a good start, they can begin looking around to fill any new leaks that spring up in the lineup. Mathis will surely be gone & Trevino is adequate enough to back up Cheerios. Other candidates to have age-related fragility/declines are numerous including Choo, Andrus, & Frazier. A whole lot has to go right for this team to be in contention in mid-June just so they can figure out if they want to pursue a trade from their medium level prospect depth
RE Santana – Seems like the kind of guy you want to leave open the possibility of everyday ABs for. His launch angle is up to a career high 13.5%, his exit velo is in 90th %tile in baseball, and barrel rates are in 75%tile. He’s highlighted in interviews that his early career success went to his head, and he fell into bad habits. I know it’s not kosher to suggest ignoring pre-2019 stats for the purposes of projections. But if those stats represent a different player/approach, how valuable are they? How long do swing-changers like Muncy and Turner need to be penalized in projections for before we realize too late that those early stats were overweighted?
I’m not comparing Santana’s output to Muncy, just their treatment by projections. Muncy has 10 WAR over the last 2 years (5.2 & 4.8), is 29 years old, and Steamer is projecting him for… 2.8 WAR in the same # of ABs as 2019?
Why can’t Santana, who’s 57th%tile xwOBA of .338 last year was only .014 lower than his .352 wOBA, repeat 2019 and rack up another 2 WAR in 600 ABs?
This argument is completely based on those depth chart graphs. To me the fact that the Angels are supposed to make up 25 games on the Athletics calls into question the legitimacy of the charts. The Angels are a bad baseball team with three superstars. They’re not going to win 97 games and they probably won’t be above .500. The A’s who finally have pitching after two 97 win seasons without are not going to take a giant dive either.
The Rangers averaged 5 runs a game last year and Joey Gallo missed alot of the season. Pitching was the problem, they will be better this year. All that WAR nonsense is totally irrelevant.
Are you lost?
Probably, because I actually played the game and understand that you win or lose by making plays on the field, not calculations on a computer.
Ok ̶B̶o̶o̶m̶e̶r̶ Joe Morgan
Well, if it’s that easy, the Rangers should just win 150 games and be done with it.
Get off my lawn!
5 runs per game in a hitters paradise and there were still 11 teams that scored more runs.
This. The great Rangers offense couldn’t score runs away from Arlington, and the pitchers somehow became pretty good on the field away.
The Rangers are shaped very similarly to the Reds (Rangers are 28th in projected position player WAR and Reds are 26th; Rangers are 8th in projected pitching WAR; Reds are 7th), but they are in a division with much better teams at the top and I would argue that their position players have significantly less potential to beat their projections by a large amount than some of the Reds position players. I think one of Senzel, Winker, Aquino, or Votto is a better bet to have a 4+ WAR season than one of Calhoun, Santana, Odor, or Frazier.
All seems to add up to the Rangers assessing their situation well. They see they are a few years out from being a dominant team and are shedding the last of the payroll from the last build up. At the same time they are remaining competitive while keeping the fans involved and excited as you can see a way things could break to get to the playoffs(Odor grows, Calhoun stars, solak becomes a player, Andrus stays healthy). The new signings help keep the fanbase optimistic but have contracts that won’t impair them to go after key pieces if their low a prospects develop in a couple years and also could be flipped to a contender for more prospects if the team implodes.
I do not think its THAT hard to dream of a way for the Rangers to contend. Problem is this dream mostly requires Guzman to finally find that 60 raw power he has yet to display much and Andrus to not decline more. Then rest is easier. Gallo, if healthy, will be a star. They should have 3 guys that slug .500 or better not counting Guzman (Gallo, Santana, Calhoun). Choo is going to be on base more than most and have three big power hitters behind him. His baserunning was back last season, so he may be strong again this year (Ill be sad when Choo finally hands in his cleats). Defense won’t be good, but the pitching will hide some of it. Odor will either go back to being a 2 WAR guy or be in the minors by the all star break. Frasier is a lock for 2 WAR if healthy. Chirinous seems like a good bet at 2 WAR. It comes down to Andrus, Guzman and health!
Can’t sign a player who doesn’t want to sign with you.