On Monday afternoon, the Texas Rangers began their off-season instead of beginning their preparations for a postseason series.

Texas finished one game back of their first American League West title since 2016 and missed the postseason altogether for a third consecutive season since winning the World Series championship in 2023.

Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young kicked off the team’s end-of-season press conference by taking accountability.

“Accountability starts with me,” Young said. “Certainly, I am the one responsible for putting this roster together. We did our best over the course of the year, but ultimately, it wasn’t good enough to overcome some of the shortcomings, and that’s on me.

"As a front office executive, our job is to tirelessly look for ways to upgrade and improve the roster, and when you fall a game or two short, you look back on the season and wonder what might have been if you had just been able to make one more move or if you had signed one different player," Young continued.

"I’ll have those regrets for a while, but nonetheless, It’s up to us to look ahead as well and figure out how we’re going to fix this,” Young said.

There’s no doubt that Young and his staff did make some moves during the season that went a long way towards helping Texas remain in the race until the season’s final day.

On May 27, the Rangers signed Nicky Lopez, who ended up appearing in 96 games for the team and posted a .276 batting average and a .328 OBP while bringing solid defense up the middle.

When Texas needed a catcher in early June, Young signed Elias Diaz, who got off to a hot start at the plate in the early goings-on of his Rangers tenure and proved to make a significant difference in helping the pitching staff control the running game.

Faced with a difficult Trade Deadline, Young and his staff chose to mostly stand pat, making just one small move to bring in Chase Silseth and Logan O’Hoppe.

Still, despite the small wins during the season that Young provided the Rangers, the season ended up as a huge missed opportunity and another failure to play October baseball.

Now, it’ll be up to Young to complete the difficult task of navigating the offseason and figuring out how to piece together a puzzle that sees Texas return to the postseason in 2027.