2024 MLB Season Preview: Texas Rangers

Headlined by the elite up-the-middle talent of Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, and an offense that many teams would be jealous of, the Rangers were able to get hot in the postseason and not look back. It was an impressive turnaround for a team whose playoff odds started below 40 percent, steadily rose throughout the season before smashing back down in early September, and then spiked back up as they slid into a playoff spot.

Where were they in 2023?

The Rangers reached their ultimate goal, winning the World Series, but had an absolute whirlwind of a time getting to that point. Coming off three straight seasons in which they never placed better than fourth in their division, they shocked many people in the baseball world and signed Jacob deGrom. But then, deGrom (predictably?) went down for the season after only 30 ⁄₃ innings pitched. The rest of the team picked up the slack for the most part — the pitching finished 13th in MLB in fWAR, and the position player group was the fourth-most-productive, really carrying the load.

The Rangers looked phenomenal early on despite a roster that, on paper, was not really expected to play particularly well. At the All-Star Break, they led the AL West by two games and had one of the best run differentials in MLB. Things got pretty silly afterwards, as the team was giving its fans whiplash on a weekly basis. After winning six straight to start the season’s “second half,” they went 2-7 to end July. They then loaded up with Max Scherzer at the Trade Deadline and won eight straight to begin August... only to then suffer an eight-game losing streak later in the month. On August 27, they fell out of first place for the first time since April 8; losing six of seven to start September put them three games out of first. That losing streak included a devastating sweep at home at the hands of the ascendant Astros, who outscored the Rangers 39-10 in three games.

Nor was that the end of the craziness. They won six in a row, then lost four in a row, then won another six in a row. They ended up leading the AL West for most the last ten days of the year, but lost a 1-0 contest to the Mariners on the season’s final day to give their cross-state rivals the division title.

But, maybe no one remembers that now, because once the Rangers made it to the playoffs, they dominated the competition. They won their first seven games, sweeping the Rays and Orioles out of the tournament, and taking a 2-0 lead on the Astros. Houston battled back to take a 3-2 lead in the series, but the Rangers won the last two, creating a weird thing where the road team won all seven games of the series. The Rangers then sauntered to a five-game World Series win, starting with a walkoff, 11-inning victory and ending with a 5-0 shutout.

The roster, led by Semien, Seager, Adolis Garcia, and Jonah Heim was nothing to sneeze at, preseason projections aside. The pitching was mostly just mediocre because of how many injuries the staff endured, but the offense had firepower aplenty to not just survive, but thrive.

What did they do in the offseason?

The Texas offseason could perhaps be described as one mostly of loss. Jordan Montgomery was a key contributor for them down the stretch and in the playoffs, but remains a free agent. Other departures include Martin Perez, Aroldis Chapman, Mitch Garver, and former Braves Robbie Grossman and Will Smith.

On the flip side, there haven’t been too many additions. Texas has added former Brave Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Andrew Knizner, and Tyler Mahle, and re-signed Travis Jankowski.

Where are they hoping to go?

Well, they Rangers are World Series champs, and it would make since that they would hope to be the first repeat champions since the year 2000. Fangraphs projects the Rangers to go 82-80 and place third in their division. It is easy to confidently say the Rangers want to outplay those projections. And, after all, they were only projected for 82 wins and a fourth-place finish in 2023, so... they’ll be hoping to do something similar again.

What’s standing in their way? Well, the same thing that did in 2023, really: the pitching. A healthy foursome of Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Dane Dunning, and Andrew Heaney looks really good if there’s a healthy and effective deGrom or Scherzer to lead them; without that, it’s basically a run-of-the-mill pitching unit. The bullpen has nothing to write home about, either.

The Rangers could bash their way past all of these concerns, again. But they’re pretty much in the same place heading into 2024 as they were heading in 2023. They’re just hoping it ends the same way, too.

Braves 2023 head-to-head

These two teams faced off in Arlington on May 15-17, with both clubs having a 25-15 record heading into the series. The Braves blew the Rangers out, 12-0, behind a dominant Charlie Morton outing (10/1 K/BB ratio), in the first game. They slugged five homers, with Kevin Pillar, Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Orlando Arcia, and Marcell Ozuna going deep in the rout.

The following game was a Jared “Sacrificial Lamb” Shuster outing and a 7-4 Braves loss. Shuster actually pitched reasonably well in this one, but the Rangers got an RBI double and a two-run homer from Garcia in the fourth to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead. This was also the weird “Dylan Lee pitches multiple innings against a bunch of righties and then misses most of the rest of the season with a shoulder problem” game, and the Braves scoring three runs on two homers in the eighth wasn’t enough.

But, the Braves took the series in the finale. A premier Spencer Strider-Eovaldi matchup ended up being a poor showcase for both starters, and the Braves trailed 5-3 in the eighth. But, they rallied to tie it up, and then Orlando Arcia hit a game-winning ninth-inning solo homer to help deliver the series win.

These two teams will tangle again on April 19-21, as the Rangers come into Atlanta for a weekend set.