Joc Pederson’s 2026 season gave the Rangers something they badly needed after the wreckage of 2025: a real rebound, even if it came without a full return to his peak form.
Pederson said more than once during the year that the jump in production was about getting healthy, not about reinventing his swing. The numbers backed him up.
In his second season in Texas, the designated hitter posted a .235/.329/.487 line with 26 home runs and 53 RBI. It was his best power output since 2019, and it also left him in the odd spot of being a possible answer to the Rangers’ leadoff problem despite batting middle-of-the-order thump.
That was a huge step up from his first year with the club. The only reason he remained in Texas was the player option he smartly exercised after his disastrous 2025 season.
He also has a mutual option for 2027, though the Rangers are not expected to pick it up for financial reasons. Texas president of baseball operations Chris Young didn’t get the production he wanted from Pederson based on the contract he handed him, but 2026 at least offered some return on that investment.
The clearest sign of why the season improved shows up in the Statcast profile. Pederson’s game has long been built around three core traits: average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard-hit rate. Those are the numbers that have usually made him dangerous, and in 2022 they were glowing in MLB percentile rankings.
The same story held in 2024, when those three areas were still strong, if a little down from his very best work. The Rangers had every reason to believe they were buying the kind of bat that would keep punishing baseballs the way Pederson typically does.
Instead, 2025 turned into a mess. Before he fractured his wrist in May, he was already stuck in one of the worst slumps of his career.
He finished that season at .181/.285/.328, and while he didn’t log enough at-bats to qualify for MLB percentile rankings, two of his expected strengths stayed close to career norms. His exit velocity and hard-hit rate held up.
The barrel rate did not. That drop helps explain why the results cratered even before the injury arrived.
With a healthier season in 2026, that missing piece came back. His barrel rate improved - not all the way to 2024 levels, but enough to push his overall production much closer to the career line the Rangers were banking on when they paid him.
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For the Rangers, that profile matters because left-handed relief has become a key piece of the roster-building puzzle. If Texas has to look outside its own options to keep that side of the bullpen steady, Romeros track record makes him the sort of arm worth monitoring once the offseason market opens up. [Read more 🡒]
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Rangers Suddenly Have A Real Jordan Montgomery Decision Ahead
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That leaves Texas with a decision that is suddenly more meaningful than it might have seemed a year ago. The Rangers have already seen enough to know Montgomery can still fit a rotation when healthy, and the question now is whether they want to stay in the mix long enough to keep him from getting away again. Given the way he performed in limited looks and the way his profile continues to point toward effectiveness, this could turn into a familiar kind of offseason for Texas, one where a short-term bet turns into a much bigger conversation. [Read more 🡒]