Why the Texas Rangers must focus on position players this season

It’s the position players the Texas Rangers must focus on this offseason, not the pitching. Here’s why…

If the Texas Rangers want to be a real postseason competitor again, they must address their starting pitching. Not just in a small way either. With only one spot in the rotation locked down, they have a truckload of work to do just to field the team next spring.

But it’s the position players, not the pitching, that should be the primary focus this year. Why, you ask? It’s all about the timeline…

Realistic Expectations

Jon Daniels and the Texas Rangers don’t want to come out and say it but this team is in the very early stages of a rebuild. No matter what they do this offseason, this team will not be a serious postseason competitor.

In other words, if they trade for everyone they can trade for, sign whoever they can sign, and develop whoever they can develop, it just won’t be enough to make this team a World Series caliber team. So while it’s imperative the Rangers find some pitching to take innings this year, it’s more important the team focuses on the future.

That includes bringing in young controllable pitching as well as developing current positional talent. The former should go without saying since it’s an objective every season. But the latter often gets over looked. This year – it should be the priority.

The Texas Rangers have plenty of young position players to assess and develop. The sooner they figure out what they have in this talent, the sooner they can move on with the rebuild. The problem is, we really have no idea.

For the past few seasons the Rangers have welcomed young players like Joey Gallo, Rougned Odor, and Nomar Mazara. Despite multiple seasons of data, we still really don’t know what we have in these budding young talents.