Rangers plan on prioritizing pitching when offseason opens

The Rangers went from the top of the MLB mountain to missing the playoffs in the span of one season, due in no small part to an offense that sputtered throughout the season. Adolis Garcia and Jonah Heim were among the regulars who struggled at the plate, while Texas was plagued by injuries to Corey Seager, Josh Jung and Evan Carter, among others. As Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News points out, the Rangers floundered against four-seam fastballs, in particular.

Be that as it may, president of baseball operations Chris Young’s end-of-season news conference struck an optimistic tone regarding the in-house hitters the Rangers currently possess. 

“The biggest remedy, in my opinion, is improving the guys we currently have,” Young said (via Grant). 

The recently extended Rangers baseball ops leader called internal improvements to the lineup a “heavy priority” heading into next season.

With regard to outside additions, those will come more on the pitching side of the roster. MLB.com’s Kennedi Landri writes that Young specifically mentioned that he’d like to retain impending free agents Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. Eovaldi triggered a $20M player option this season when he reached a combined 300 innings between 2023-24, but he’s widely expected to decline that in favor of a return to the market (barring a hypothetical extension from his current club). Heaney exercised a player option following the 2023 season and returned to make 31 solid starts in this year’s rotation.

“As far as Evo and Andrew go, those are priorities for us,” said Young. “We love those guys. They helped us win a World Series. We would love to bring those guys back, and we’re going to explore every way we can to make that happen.”

Entering the 2025 season, Texas won’t be short on rotation options. Jacob deGrom should be the Opening Day starter now that he’s recovered from Tommy John surgery, though counting on him for a full slate of 30-plus starts doesn’t feel realistic when he hasn’t reached that total since 2019. He’ll be joined by Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle (also in his first full season post-Tommy John) and some combination of Dane Dunning, Cody Bradford, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With deGrom and Mahle both facing workload concerns and the bulk of the team’s other options yet to pitch a full season in a big league rotation, it’s understandable that the Rangers feel it not just prudent but pivotal to fortify the starting staff.

Reunions with Eovaldi and/or Heaney won’t come cheaply, however. Eovaldi’s two-year, $34M deal proved to be a bargain, even as incentives ballooned his guarantee to a total of $38.5M over his two years. He signed that deal coming off an injury-shortened year with the Red Sox, who’d issued him a qualifying offer and thus tied him to draft pick compensation. Now healthy and unencumbered by the weight of a QO, he should be able to top that $34M guarantee even though he’s two years older than during his last trip to the open market.

Heaney, similarly, was coming off a season of just 72 2/3 innings with the Dodgers. He hasn’t looked as dominant in Texas as he did during that abbreviated run with L.A., but he just gave the Rangers a combined 307 1/3 innings of 4.22 ERA ball with more promising strikeout and walk rates of 23.2% and 7.6%, respectively. He could find another two-year deal on the market and it’s possible that would come with a larger guarantee than the $25M term on his last pact.

The extent to which Texas will be able to spend in free agency is not yet clear. RosterResource pegs them with about $148M worth of 2025 commitments and that’s not including arbitration raises for Dunning, Heim, Sborz, Nathaniel Lowe and Leody Taveras — a group that MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects for a combined $25.5M. Add in a slate of league-minimum players and Texas is looking at around $185M in total projected salary for next year’s 26-man roster. That’s $40M shy of where they opened the 2024 season, so there’s clearly some room to spend, but that $40M could dry up quickly if the Rangers are intent not only on adding at least one starter, but also on replacing effectively their entire late-inning relief corps.

To say Texas is likely to be active in the bullpen market would be putting things mildly. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc and Jose Urena — their top four relievers by innings pitched — are all free agents. Deadline acquisition Andrew Chafin has a $6.5M club option ($500K buyout) that is not a lock to be exercised. Robertson has a $7M mutual option ($1.5M buyout) and will very likely decline his end of it. Yates, Robertson, Leclerc, Chafin and Josh Sborz — who missed most of the season due to shoulder problems — were the team’s go-to options in high-leverage spots.

Young didn’t comment on what level of increase will or won’t be possible. He plans to meet with majority owner Ray Davis in the near future to outline a spending plan. While Young avoided any firm declarations on payroll, he spoke about uncertainty regarding the team’s endeavors to create a proprietary regional sports network and pledged to build a “very good roster with whatever resources we have.”

On the surface, that’s a far cry from his August 2021 comments wherein he pledged to be “very active” in free agency — and then followed through with blockbuster signings of Seager and Marcus Semien. More context on the Rangers’ potential spending figures to come to light as the onset of free agency draws nearer, but given the team’s current financial obligations and needs up and down the pitching staff, it’s hardly a shock that Young is prioritizing arms and hoping to see a talented core of hitters rebound at the plate next season.