Building the 2025 Rangers roster: DH & the bench.
This felt like a grouping the Rangers would add two players to this offseason. As of last night, they're halfway there.
I’m in a fantasy baseball league with 26-man rosters, 20-man farm systems, and a keeper format. It’s the only way to keep me interested. As a 1970s kid raised on Cowboys football, I was spellbound when the team brought in Preston Pearson and John Dutton — the very rare player in those days whose football card I had from another team. I sent letters to Tom Grieve in the ’80s and Doug Melvin in the ’90s suggesting minor-league free agents they ought to consider bringing to the Rangers. (True, if embarrassing, story.)
All of that is to say I’ve always been drawn to the idea of building a team with both the short and long term in mind. It’s why I started writing as a hobby more than 25 years ago, and why I’ve stayed with it. I’m obsessed with the build.
It’s why I’m trying out a new feature this offseason, something that The Athletic would never have approved and that this new Substack format is perfect for. As I outlined in September:
I’m going to dedicate a story to every position on the field, with a picture-in-picture structure to it. Where does Texas go in center field in 2025? At the same time, what is the long-term vision for the position? Is there a path for a player to step in internally? Or is an external upgrade more likely — and maybe even as soon as this winter?
And so on. We’ll look at the landscape for every position, and for the rotation, and for the bullpen. We’ll consider the possibility that the Rangers run it back with the same player in 2025 as well as the idea that there could be a change — and in that scenario, we will look at options from the farm system, discuss specific free agents who could fit, and spitball some trade scenarios.
Chris Young said in a radio interview late in August: “This season has been embarrassing for us. This is not what we expected. And I expect our players to be equally as embarrassed as I am how we’ve played.” There are going to be financial guardrails on what Young is able to do this winter, but he is not going to stand pat. These aren’t the Jerry Jones Cowboys.
With each positional look, we’ll examine three paths the Rangers could go down as they look to construct the roster they’ll take to camp: running it back with the status quo, promoting from within, and adding players through free agency or trades.
It’s not that difficult to put into words how bad the Rangers were in 2024 at the one position the sport allows you to staff with a player who you can send to the plate all game without having to put him in the field.
You can also just do it with numbers. The team’s .584 OPS from its DH’s this season was:
more than 40 points less productive than the next-worst mark in the league (the Angels’ .627)
marked by both the fewest walks in the league (39) and the lowest slugging percentage (.323)
the fourth-worst OPS in baseball the last 10 years (trailed only by the 2022 A’s, the 2021 Tigers, and the 2020 Rangers)
Texas used 18 different players in the DH role in 2024, with the highest game total (26) shared by Robbie Grossman — who wasn’t even a Ranger in April or September — and Travis Jankowski, who is the epitome of a defensive replacement.
Even in 2023, when the Rangers had one of MLB’s best offenses by countless measures, they were only 22nd in DH OPS — but at .709, an exponentially less ineffective number than 2024’s.
Texas used 14 players in the DH role in 2023, fewer than 2024 in part because Mitch Garver started 55 times. But that’s still a lot of players. We don’t know if it’s a Bruce Bochy preference — he only ever had to mess with it in road interleague games before joining the Rangers — or if it’s just what he’s felt compelled to do to protect his aging starting lineup.
All those players, of course, will be a year older in 2025. Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia are going to get their DH days, and this year it might not be surprising to see Marcus Semien do it on occasion himself.
But none of them will be the primary DH.
Who will it be? Will it be another full mix that fills in the gaps after mapping out the nights on which the team’s older everyday players will be taken off their feet? Or could the Rangers seek out another (2023-grade) Garver type to pencil in at least a third of the time and count on more meaningfully offense from than they got in 2024?
Speaking of Garver, how often would Bochy be comfortable putting Jonah Heim and interesting Monday night acquisition Kyle Higashioka in the lineup together?
I think we can assume the Rangers are thinking bigger.