How Rangers Are Planning to Attack Offseason

For a third straight season, the Texas Rangers are diving into offseason preparations in the month of October instead of playing baseball.

Once again, this winter will be interesting for the Rangers, who have lots of different directions they could potentially go.

“Our goal is to be a playoff team year in and year out, and this is year three of not reaching that goal,” Rangers POBO Chris Young said at the team’s end-of-season press conference on Monday.

“It’s difficult to sit here and say that we’re satisfied; we’re not satisfied, and frankly we’ve gotta look forward and look ahead and figure out how we are going to get back to where we know we can be..”

Young mentioned the need for Texas to become younger, more athletic, and more dynamic heading into next season.

When asked if accomplishing that would require a significant overhaul of the roster, Young said, “We’re going to consider any way we can. Our goal is to make this a playoff-caliber team next year, and nothing is off the table in regard to that. We’re going to be open-minded in any way to improve this roster.”

Still, Young noted that the Rangers have yet to discuss a rebuild. “If anything, we need to re-shuffle our cards to some degree.

At the time of the press conference, Young and the front office had yet to have conversations with ownership about what next season’s payroll would look like.

MLB Free Agency does not open until after the conclusion of the World Series, of course, but those conversations will be key to determining what the Texas roster will look like next season.

Currently, the Rangers' four highest-paid players under contract for next season will all make more than $20 million, with Jacob deGrom and Corey Seager slated to make $37 and $32 million, respectively.

The only position players aged 30 or younger who are under team control for next season and had significant playing time this season are Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter, Josh Jung, and Ezequiel Duran.

An interesting potential puzzle piece for Texas getting younger is 20-year-old top prospect Sebastian Walcott.

It would be a little bit of a surprise to see Walcott up with the big-league team at the start of the 2027 season after he missed much of this year with injury, but there’s no doubt he could be a big-league contributor at some point next year.

Ultimately, the Rangers front office has made clear their goals for this winter and will have to execute what could be a difficult offseason if they want to return to the playoffs next year.