This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ARLINGTON — With less than a month left until Rangers pitchers and catchers report to Surprise, Ariz., for the start of Spring Training, president of baseball operations Chris Young met briefly with media last week to recap the moves the club made before the holidays, as well as to look forward through the final weeks of the offseason.
“Obviously, we’re continuing to explore ways to add to our roster,” Young said. “But we feel very good about the work that we’ve done thus far in the offseason, and we’re hopeful to not be finished and to continue to make this roster even more competitive as we hinge towards camp.”
Here are three insights from Young’s brief Zoom meeting with the media:
Pitching remains a priority
Obviously things can change before Opening Day, but it feels like the Rangers’ position player group is pretty set. More bullpen pieces and starting pitching depth will continue to be priorities in the new year.
The Rangers still have Corey Seager, Brandon Nimmo and Joc Pederson locked up on their respective deals, and they reached arbitration agreements with first baseman Jake Burger, third baseman Josh Jung, utility man Josh Smith and infielder Ezequiel Duran. With pre-arb outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford on staff, the front office seems to be done adding.
“I think our focus right now is continuing to build out the depth of the pitching,” Young said. “I think from a position player standpoint, we feel pretty good — but we feel like on the pitching side there are still a couple spots that we would like to try to improve the depth of. We’re focused there, but obviously being open-minded and opportunistic on all fronts. But nonetheless, pitching is the main focus.”
For the second year in a row, the Rangers have had to almost completely rebuild their bullpen. So far, they’ve added Tyler Alexander, Alexis Díaz, Chris Martin and Carter Baumler (via Rule 5/trade). But the Rangers also went 37-for-66 in save opportunities in 2025, which was one of the biggest flaws for what was a solid bullpen (3.62 ERA).
Martin and Díaz both have closing experience, as does Robert Garcia — one of few holdovers from last season.
“I think every team would love to have a bona fide lockdown ninth-inning, sure-thing closer that’s never going to give up a run,” Young said. “But the reality is, most teams don’t have that, and teams that go into the season that do have that, oftentimes don’t have it by about halfway through the season. It’s not as ubiquitous as maybe it’s perceived to be in terms of the role.
“I think what we do have are good options we feel like and it’s our job as an organization to put our players in the best positions to succeed. Our hope is that somebody really steps up and establishes themselves and wins that role and takes it.”
While the Rangers seem content with their position player core, the question remains: How will the offense improve from one of MLB’s worst units in 2025? In 2025, the Rangers ranked 25th in wRC+ (92), 26th in slugging (.381), 26th in batting average (.234), 26th in on-base percentage (.302), 22nd in runs (684) and 23rd in walk rate (8%).
“I think it’s just an overall commitment to the mentality that we think is going to be successful as an offense,” Young said. “Commitment to the type of approach we want as a team. Just guys going up and having quality at-bats one after the next. We think Justin Viele is going to do a tremendous job with these guys. The buy-in is there. We’ve got a hungry bunch of players. Every single one of them is working their tails off right now in preparation of coming into camp and bouncing back and so we as an organization have a lot to prove, and these players are motivated.”
