The majority of the core that won the 2023 World Series is still present on the Rangers roster three years later. The unrelenting passage of time and the fragile nature of the human body has meant that, even though many of the names are the same, the talent level on this roster is much less than what it was when they won a championship. Maybe that’s why it feels like this year is the last hurrah for this version of the Rangers. Corey Seager hasn’t been able to stay healthy for a full season since
2022, Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi are on the wrong side of 35, and it doesn’t look like there’s much near-future help coming through the farm system.
The pitching staff should be pretty good; they were elite last year but probably won’t rise to that level again. The lineup should be pretty good too, even though they weren’t very good last year. The roster seems like it’s going to get hit hard by regression — upwards for the bats, downwards for the arms — which makes projecting the team particularly difficult.
The Rangers outpace the Mariners at shortstop, in the outfield corners, and barely edge them out in the starting rotation. The biggest potential for growth comes from their two young outfielders, Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter. The former is already projected to be one of the better left fielders in the game while the latter has battled injuries the last few years but is still only 23. On the pitching side of things, deGrom, Eovaldi, and newcomer MacKenzie Gore form a very potent one through three atop the rotation. Even if the pitching depth isn’t as good as it was last year, the ceiling provided by that trio is very high.
Bringing in Brandon Nimmo and Gore should help delay the team’s inevitable decline; both are still very good players right now and are under team control for at least the next two years. It’s very easy to imagine a scenario in 2026 where Seager stays healthy, the two aces atop the rotation stave off Father Time for one more year, and young guys like Langford and Carter take a big step forward. It’s just as easy to imagine the complete opposite scenario where everything falls apart. That huge variation in potential outcomes makes this team extremely difficult to pin down. They could be really good! They could be really bad! The most likely outcome is somewhere in the mediocre middle, neither good enough to compete nor bad enough to push them to tear everything down.
2026 FanGraphs Depth Charts projections: 80.7-81.3, 2nd in AL West, 35.5% playoff odds
2026 PECOTA projections: 83.6-78.4, 3rd in AL West, 43.2% playoff odds
If It All Goes Right
Sure, it’s a flattened and idealized version of history, but who doesn’t love a lone cowboy? One man set against the multifaceted forces of the world, his only weapon a six-shooter and his own rugged indifference. It’s the man in the arena, but on a horse. That’s how Skip wanted them to think of themselves, at least. One man. Simple tools. One mission.
Of course, it’s not really like that. They are nothing without each other, and this year, finally, all those disparate pieces gelled into one unstoppable offensive machine. A new training program kept the most fragile among them on the field all year, led by Corey Seager, fully healthy and now fully a power hitter – so what if his defense had lost a step when he’s smacking 36 homers? And for once not everything rested on Seager’s shoulders, flanked by a trio of powerful young All-Stars in Evan Carter, Wyatt Langford, and Josh Jung, who finally solved his own injury issues, with Carter’s long-awaited breakout year finally coming to fruition.
With that combination of speed, power, and on-base ability at the top half, the rest of the lineup could have taken at-bats off, but they never did, led by the veteran Brandon Nimmo, who fit in immediately like a pair of broken-in boots. Any time a younger player wandered too far afield Nimmo was right there to lasso him back to reality, offering pep talks and gentle correction. The top of the lineup did most of the heavy lifting, of course, but the rest of the lineup was happy to play Tonto to everyone else’s Lone Ranger.
Could they pitch? Not even a little bit, but who cares, when you’re averaging – averaging – five runs a game. Forget about defense; the most powerful guns win the wars.
They lived the motto that year – one riot, one Ranger – acting as a unified, unstoppable force, a riot of offense and damn all the rest. Who cared about a statue, or a Pride Night, or paid maternity leave? They had two pennants in five years. Anyone would be happy to ride off into the sunset with that. —KP
If It All Goes Wrong
This is an easy one.
About one-third of the Rangers projected value is tied up in three players: Corey Seager, Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. All three are great, and all three will be on a Hall of Fame ballot some day. All three are also highly likely to spend time on the injured list this year. Seager (32) made three trips to the IL in 2025; he missed time in six of the last seven non-COVID seasons. deGrom (38) was healthy last year for the first time since missing most of four consecutive seasons. Eovaldi (36) has his own poor track record of health and finished 2025 on the IL.
So while I acknowledge the tradition of this series is creative writing and imagery, this just… it’s obvious. The Rangers need everything to go right. They are old. They are fragile. They are top heavy. It’s like watching Nolan Ryan attempt the milk crate challenge.
The Rangers are already on the long-arch towards, “It All Goes Wrong.” Between 2022 and 2023, they had the largest influx of high-priced talent in recent baseball history, elevating from one of the worst teams in the league to a bit above average. And hey, that’s all they needed in 2023, winning 90 games, finishing second in the AL West, and defeating the mighty Diamondbacks in the World Series. Good for them.
But such an improbable title run obscured a more fundamental issue with the depth of the organization. There was no plan in place to sustain highly competitive rosters. They’d already locked up the “Big Free Agent” chunk of their budget. They didn’t have much of a farm system to supplement their core, or even to trade from. They were largely content to stare at the reflection in their trophy.
They entered 2024 needing it all to go right. They were the most injured team in the American League and missed the playoffs.
They entered 2025 needing it all to go right. They underperformed their pythagorean record by nine wins and missed the playoffs.
And now the Rangers enter 2026, needing it all to go right again, the odds growing longer. Their championship core has started to break up, with plenty of hard feelings to go around. The rest is filled out with not-quite-failed prospects and not-quite-retired veterans. The greatest splurge in the history of the sport, all for a lone winning season, and a Texas-sized white flag to hang in the rafters, forever. —RB
