Sure, Rangers’ new rotation is working, but a booming lineup is the biggest reason for optimism in Texas

In their second straight spending-heavy offseason, the Texas Rangers seemed intent on amassing a surplus of major-league starting players. Jacob deGrom was the headliner, of course, but GM Chris Young – himself a former starting pitcher – carried on. He brought in Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney and re-signed Martin Perez, adding Jon Gray to that group to form a rotation and keeping Dane Dunning and others in reserve.

A look at the table shows that it pays off. The Rangers enter Tuesday tied with the third-best record in MLB and lead the AL West, still a game ahead of the red-hot Houston Astros. And their run difference hints at the potential for more. At +106 they played like a 32-15 squad, a signal of strength… and the need to upgrade the bullpen by the close of trading.

Part of that was undeniably down to the pitching. Before getting on the injury list, deGrom made six starts with a 2.67 ERA and his usual high K doses. Eovaldi was a real looker, working deep into games with a 2.83 ERA, 52% better than average by park-adjusted ERA+.

But excellence – with some health issues – was expected of these guys. The difference between the Rangers’ projected place in the pecking order and their current position in first place lies in their hitters. Spring forecasts had to reckon with the possibility that Rangers had more playoff-caliber starting players than playoff-caliber batsmen, which sounds great until you think about it for a second.

As it turns out, Texas leads the MLB with 6.4 runs per game and ranks second on Team OPS+ with 118 (behind the Tampa Bay Rays’ amazing 138), despite missing Corey Seager more than half the season. The Rangers have six hitters with at least 100 plate appearances and have OPS+ scores of 115 or better — again, second only to the Rays. And that’s the development worth talking about.

Star second baseman Marcus Semien, comparatively old news after signing a $175 million contract before 2022, is the best of the bunch and leads the team with a 139 OPS+. With already 2.4 FanGraphs WAR, he is one of the five most valuable position players in baseball in 2023. Nathaniel Lowe, the first baseman who made his breakthrough in 2022, continues to hit. But optimism is rising to a new level thanks to other batsmen making serious progress: Adolis Garcia, Jonah Heim, Ezequiel Duran and Leody Taveras – as well as top contender and reliable rookie Josh Jung with a 114 OPS+.

The story goes on

Adolis Garcia is still doing better

One of the holdovers from Rangers’ rebuilding is perhaps the most encouraging cog in this beating machine. The Rangers acquired Garcia, a 30-year-old outfielder from Cuba, from the St. Louis Cardinals for cash in December 2019. (That was less than a month before St. Louis gave Randy Arozarena, the Rays superhero whose powers are activated by national television cameras. Not a great month for the Cardinals.)

Garcia entered real playing time in 2021, looking like an exciting but undemanding hitter. He hit 31 home runs that year and, despite a base odds of .286 and a strikeout rate of 31.2%, was league average — which was an achievement in itself. The power coupled with good defense got him a role as Rangers turned their attention to being able to compete again. Garcia rewarded the team with an improved, if still lackluster, .300 OBP in 2022, bringing his strikeout rate down to 27.9% and stealing 25 bases, the equivalent of 27 homers.

A more drastic improvement is underway this season. Garcia’s average exit speed is among the elite of the game and he’s never had trouble lifting the ball. He has the speed and brawn to pulverize the league’s worst shots, as he demonstrated last week when he became the first hitter, twice in a game topping Atlanta Braves flamethrower Spencer Strider.

As Rangers surely knew, a version of Garcia with even average disc discipline could be a monster, and this year he could morph into that monster. Thanks to a more patient approach to the plate, his on-base percentage is up another 20 points to .320 — an MLB average on the nose — and his strikeout rate is down again to 23.9%. After driving grimacing 40% of balls out of the hitting zone in 2021 and 2022, Garcia has honed his eye. This season he’s fishing only 30.3% of the time, better than a typical hitter.

You see where this is going. Garcia boasts a career-best 130 OPS+. He leads the AL with 14 home runs and the entire baseball field with 49 RBIs. With 114 plate appearances in MLB with runners at the top, he’s up to the challenge with a .326/.395/.695 line, one of the top 10 MLB lines according to OPS.

The rising 20-year-olds of the Rangers

Then there are the younger guys who are making progress, and their almost steady upward trend is a bigger pleasant surprise than Garcia’s great star performance. You see, the Rangers were at a certain impasse in the development of their batsmen. Before Lowe, in 2018, Joey Gallo and Jurickson Profar were the youngest 28-or-unders in their farming system to even record 100 OPS+ (or one league-average offensive line).

The next wave had never really happened—until now.

Many of the Rangers’ new faces came in trades. Heim, the 6-foot-4 catcher, came in the deal that sent Elvis Andrus to the Oakland Athletics (remember when the A’s traded for major league reinforcements?). The Switch hitter Heim, while valuable for his excellent reception, has struggled with low batting averages in recent seasons.

The problem wasn’t lack of contact; He actually achieves a well above average contact rate, especially during strikes. But he often threw the ball up or got deep counts and then ended up hitting on difficult pitches. This season, he’s done something of the opposite of Garcia’s adjustment, swinging and straightening the center much more often. Right now, that equates to a .288 batting average and 125 OPS+, a tremendous achievement for a catcher. Heim will soon be 28 years old and will only reach free agency after 2026.

His trading colleague Duran also increased his stock by destroying hits everywhere during his assignment for Seager. The former Yankees contender – who came to us as part of the Joey Gallo deal – probably wields a less sustained stick than Garcia or Heim due to his extreme aggressiveness, but for now it’s working. Duran, only 24, is hitting .308 this season thanks to an all-field line-drive approach.

With the return of the star shortstop, Duran is no longer tied to a mundane role, but Texas would likely be happy if he continued batting and replaced Brad Miller or Robbie Grossman, veteran batsmen with the downsides of their careers. Duran has fielded twice as a DH in the past week and has two more games as a shortstop, with Seager coming on as a DH.

Then there are the totally native batsmen. Taveras is in his fourth MLB season but is only getting regular playing time for the second time. A top junior in Texas since he was 17, he’s a standout midfield defender who just hasn’t scored to this point. He’ll probably never light up the world with his power, but he’s becoming more involved in hitting technique and mastering more of the sliders that plagued him last season.

Jung, on the other hand, didn’t need nearly as long a learning curve. The #8 overall pick in the 2019 draft was a polished Texas Tech product, had wet feet in the majors last season and is on the rise this year. His strikeout rate is a bit of a concern, but it improved from April through May. At this early point in his career, it is promising that the right-hander, who likes to move, is consistently exploiting his strengths.

Admittedly, some of those performances will likely wane as Rangers hit the summer. The Astros could soon lead the division. But what was once a questionable lineup now seems to have a well-stocked range of options beyond Semien and Seager.

Add in the newly established starting rotation, and the Rangers’ plan, which is so simple it might work, is headed for success – enough that they’ll likely feel compelled to work hard until August after the last pieces of the puzzle.