The Texas Rangers are heading into another offseason with the same uneasy feeling hanging over the franchise: plenty of talk about options, not much sign of bold action.
That’s what makes Chris Young’s latest comments land the way they do. The Rangers’ president of baseball operations described the club’s approach in broad, careful terms, saying, “In the offseason, you go into it with a number of different paths....
You choose a path, and it leads you to another set of paths, so to speak. We’re very nimble.
We’re prepared on a number of different fronts.”
He added, “Some of that is not perfectly up to us to determine. The market will determine some of it, and then once we commit to a lane, then we’ll continue down that lane and make the best decisions possible within the lane we choose.”
Those are the kinds of words that can make a fan base restless. What they don’t include are the phrases Rangers supporters are waiting to hear: aggressive pursuit, firm commitment, or anything that sounds like a real push to add impact talent in Las Vegas with the other 29 general managers.
Instead, it’s familiar territory. Young said similar things at the trade deadline last August, and Texas ended up standing pat while the season slipped away during a chase for a very winnable AL West.
The frustration isn’t really aimed at Young alone. He can’t spend money that isn’t there, and he can’t force the current roster to pitch better or hit more consistently.
Ray Davis has him operating with limited flexibility, and that’s the larger problem. The Rangers are going into the GM meetings without much of an ace up their sleeve.
Davis handed him a four of diamonds and said, “Go get ’em, CY!”
That leaves the club in a place that feels all too familiar after the 2023 title run. When the Rangers were building toward their first World Series championship, Davis and the ownership group made one splash move after another, bringing in Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Corey Seager, and Marcus Semien. At the time, it looked like the organization would spend whatever it took to stay in contention in Arlington.
Since then, though, the spending has tightened, and the postseason has disappeared. The organization hasn’t been back since that championship season, and the tone around the front office hasn’t done much to calm the unease.
For now, the hope appears to rest on familiar names finding something extra again. Seager, deGrom, and Eovaldi would need to summon that magic one more time. It would also help if Seager didn’t seem destined to miss 40 games a year before spring training even starts.
There’s also the possibility that the younger group takes a real step forward. Justin Foscue, Josh Jung, Ezequiel Duran, Jake Burger, Jack Leiter, and the rest of the kids could change the equation. Sebastian Walcott could become a wunderkind and hit at the major league level the way Jackson Chourio has for the Brewers, or like Bryce Harper, Andruw Jones, and Alex Rodriguez did as 20-year-old phenoms.
But that kind of internal surge is being asked to do a lot of heavy lifting, because the latest messaging from Young doesn’t suggest outside help is on the way.
And while the budget limits what Young can do, the criticism doesn’t stop there. The issue is also that he hasn’t shown much creativity in choosing a direction.
He talks about lanes and paths, but at the trade deadline he couldn’t settle on one, and Texas wound up missing the playoffs while also failing to make a move that could have changed its future. Last offseason told a similar story, with the MacKenzie Gore trade standing out as the exception and a major misstep.
So the Rangers wait again, hoping inspiration shows up where caution has dominated. Maybe Young finds a way to thread the needle, move on from the aging, expensive core, and still build a contender in 2027. Right now, though, that doesn’t sound like the likeliest outcome.
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