Texas Rangers Week 1 Review
To start off the season, the Rangers have been... odd. Good? Sure. A solid spot tied for first with the Angels in the AL West with a record of 9-5. However, a deeper look at the stats reveals some quite bizarre things about the team and the players that make no sense in context of their winning percentage.
First, let’s address the elephant in the room: team offensive performance. The team is batting .210 with a .644 OPS and a run differential of –10. If you were to list these stats to any random baseball fan, they would assume that this was the White Sox or the Rockies with a record of 5-9 or 4-10, but no, this is a team that’s cruising through the season like nothing abnormal is going on. Out of nine of their wins, 5 of them have been by one run, and their losses have been catastrophic, including a 7-0 loss to the Cubs and a 14-3 loss to the Reds. In some sense, they’re employing some twisted version of the Moneyball strategy, disregarding traditional stats but still winning with below average level production.They’ve utilized a basic principle that most people overlook: a win is a win and a loss is a loss, whether by 1 in extras or by 19 decided in the bottom of the 2nd. In some sense, it’s almost a contradiction of thier 2023 campaign. They won the world series because of offensive explosions, winning games by scoring runs in bunches, beating down teams, giving them no shot of winning—and yet nobody suspected that they would be a threat in the postseason. So far, nobody’s talking about the Rangers, but here they are, putting up a record better than the Yankees without the flash of torpedo bats, Chisholm, Judge, or Volpe. In summary, the Rangers are winning without any of the offensive dominance that they’re known for—so once they do get hot, there’s no telling how powerful they will be.
Moving on to player accomplishments, let’s start off with some bright spots: Heim, Smith, Eovaldi, and Garcia. Despite Heim’s horrible offensive season last year, he’s started off great, putting up a .303 average with a tied team leading 10 hits, while also leading the team with seven RBI. Smith has been basically the epitome of the perfect utility man: speed, power, contact, and most importantly flexibility. So far, he’s played third, first, and left field, putting up a .978 OPS and a team leading three stolen bases. Need I say more? Eovaldi has put up the most impressive stat line, offensive or pitching wise, out of anybody on the team. Against the Reds in his second start, he pitched a complete game 99 pitch shutout, with only two walks in 19 innings. Finally, Garcia. Everyone knows Garcia is the power hitting outfielder with biceps of steel that has one of the longest swings in MLB and can’t hold off the high cheese, therefore striking out at alarming rates with high degrees of embarrassment. However, Garcia right now is ranked 12th overall in MLB for strikeout rate—9.8%. In some sense, Garcia has turned into anti-Garcia: contact over power.
Langford is a story of his own, with an unfortunate injury sidelining him for a few games, but his overall performance has been reminiscent of his September 2024 self. He leads the team in average, (.244) OBP, (.333) and homeruns (4), along with some excellent defensive plays in left for a guy who was originally intended to be a DH. Pederson and Burger, the two major offseason prizes, each with expectations to hit 30+ homeruns, have been a bit disappointing, to say the least. The total of their two batting averages is .231--as in 0.086 + 0.131. So far, they have combined for an astonishing –1.2 WAR and certainly have not been the reason the Rangers are 9-5. Leiter has done relatively well so far compared to last season with a 0.90 ERA while Rocker has stunk up the clubhouse with 7.88 ERA. However, both the young pitchers have only started two games, so it’s a bit early to start making judgements. DeGrom has shown some signs of his past self, but it’s going to be hard with a 95-96 mph fastball compared to his past triple digits.
Overall, the Rangers are a mishmash of wacky stat lines and lucky wins, but a strong start to the season, even without the hot bats of Seager, Semien and Garcia, may set the tone for games to come.
