The past two years for the Texas Rangers have been disastrous.
With a payroll as high as theirs and with a roster as stacked as they have, not making the playoffs each of the past two seasons following winning the World Series in 2023 is unacceptable. President of baseball operations Chris Young operated in that manner at the beginning of their offseason when he announced manager Bruce Bochy had been replaced by Skip Schumaker. But with staff changes taking place, that puts a ton of pressure on everyone in Arlington to get this upcoming year right.
The Rangers will once again enter the season with perhaps the most talent in their division. Not only do they have two elite starting pitchers, but they have multiple established star sluggers and up-and-coming players who have either broken out or are starting to announce themselves.
That’s why fans would almost assuredly not be happy with the way-too-early playoff prediction by Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report if it happens to come true, as he not only has Texas missing out on the postseason yet again, but he also has them finishing with a record of 77-85 that would put them fourth in the division.
Simply put, there’s a good chance heads would roll if that came to fruition. Even in this disastrous season, the Rangers at least got to .500 with a record of 81-81. So if they were to finish four games worse than that mark even after trimming payroll, some major changes could be made beyond just bringing in a new manager.
In Miller’s prediction, he has the Seattle Mariners winning back-to-back division titles. Then, he has the Houston Astros finishing runner-up and securing a Wild Card spot before listing the Athletics as third-place finishers in the AL West.
There’s no doubt that would be a tough pill to swallow. Because the Athletics have plenty of talented young players on their roster, if the Rangers aren’t able to finish above them right now, that doesn’t bode well for the future.
But again, these are way-too-early predictions. And while recency bias is attempted to be taken out of those sorts of things, it’s hard not to let what happened the past two years creep into the analysis of Texas when the ownership group is trying to reduce payroll.
One positive is that the Rangers came out of nowhere to win the World Series in 2023. And after falling well short of expectations in 2024 and 2025, they might now slide back into the underdog role.
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