Building the 2025 Rangers roster: First base.
The shakeup begins.
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.
Last week, at catcher, the priority was pairing Jonah Heim with a reliable enough backup to maximize Heim’s ability to be better than he was in 2024. A meaningful tweak — but a tweak nonetheless.
This week, with the focus trained on the first base situation, Chris Young has his hands placed underneath the apple cart.