Bulk Of Texas Rangers Rebound Will Come From Looking Inward, Chris Young Says

The Texas Rangers struggled offensively in 2024 and the club's management expects rebound years for more than half the starting lineup.

Stefan Stevenson/Rangers On SI

ARLINGTON — The Texas Rangers will need to find pitchers this winter, just like nearly every other team in the league.

The club has to replace free agents Kirby Yates and David Robertson at the backend of their bullpen and need to add several starting pitchers with Nathan Eovaldi, Andrew Heaney, and Max Scherzer free to find the highest bidder this offseason.

As for the everyday lineup, however, the Rangers will primarily be looking inward to fix an offense that fell off a cliff in 2024 after leading the American League in most offensive categories during their 2023 World Series-winning season.

A taste of the difference? The dropped from 881 run scored to 683, or 5.44 runs a game to 4.25.

"As I look at our identity in 2023, we were an elite offensive unit, and we obviously regressed this year and I think there's explanation for that regression," Rangers President of Baseball Chris Young said during an end-of-season press conference with manager Bruce Bochy on Tuesday morning.

"The biggest remedy, in my opinion, is improving the guys that we currently have. We need Adolis [Garcia] to bounce back. We need Jonah Heim to bounce back. We need Leody Tavares to take the next step in his development. We need a healthy Josh Jung and a healthy Evan Carter. And as you put that together, that's a significant upgrade. That's a bigger upgrade right there that we can get anywhere else in the industry."

Chris Young assesses what went wrong in 2024 ... pic.twitter.com/ogQTvsCKVc

— Stefan Stevenson (@StefanVersusTex) October 1, 2024

The Rangers will lean on those players, along with first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who missed most of spring training and April with an oblique injury, and outfielder Evan Carter, who missed nearly the entire season with a lumbar injury, to produce closer to their 2023 seasons, than 2024.

"The internal improvements and health of our core guys, I think, is the most significant thing we can accomplish as an organization, and if we do that, we can become an elite offense again," Young said. "I remain very confident in the group we have ... you hate seeing guys that you believe in struggle to the level that we did this year. And when you do struggle in anything in life, you can get down on yourselves, and you can kind of pout, and I'm not saying these guys did it, but naturally you get frustrated."

Young, who expressed his frustration with the team's struggles when it was clear the postseason was unlikely during an August appearance on his weekly radio show on the KRLD 105.3 The Fan, did so, in part, so that Rangers fans knew he was not satisfied with the season.

"Whether the players hear that or not, I don't know," he said. "But I think it's important that the public hears it, because I want our fans to know that we're not satisfied with the results this year, and we're going to push hard to fix the results. They deserve a winning team. That's ultimately what we're here to do, is provide our fans a winning team.

"Boch is responsible for the messaging to the players. Mine is more public facing and messaging to our fans," Young added. "I can't say whether or not the players heard it. I am proud of the way the group finished the season, the way they fought. We have a high level of confidence in the core group of players that we have returning, and we're excited about the young guys that we have on the way as well. I'm very optimistic on where we are, what we have to look forward to, while acknowledging that we have work to do, and we're extremely motivated to get that work done and make sure that our fans have the opportunity to watch playoff baseball next year."

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