You can tell by the thawing ice outside that spring training is just around the corner. And you know what spring training means: Hope. Springs eternal. Something like that. We’re not literary enough to be sure.
But, in the case of the Rangers, and with the acquisition of MacKenzie Gore all but completing the roster, it is at least feasible to see the possibilities. So, let’s get a head start on all that and peer out to the horizon at those possibilities. It beats looking out for more snow and ice, anyway.
With that in mind, here are 26 things the Rangers could viably improve that, if accomplished, are guaranteed to make 2026 a rousing success:
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1. Jacob deGrom stays healthy. With his ability, that’s all he has to do. The rest takes care of itself.
2. Nathan Eovaldi gets five more starts than a year ago. The Rangers are a .618 team when he pitches over the last three years, .492 when anybody else does. That alone is worth three more wins.
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3. Gore, a left-handed fly ball pitcher, gets a lift from Globe Life Field in Arlington, which favors lefties, in general, and lefty fly ball guys even more (who recalls Andrew Heaney?). In addition, he should have better defense behind him overall. The Rangers ranked eighth in FanGraphs overall defensive metric in 2025; the Nationals, 29th.
4. Joc Pederson gives the Rangers 90% of the production they thought they were getting when they signed him. In the four full seasons prior to 2025, he slashed .258/.350/.486/.836 against right-handers. At 90% of that: .232/.315/.437/.752. The OPS is slightly above league average. The Rangers don’t need him to be a star, just slightly above average in a platoon role.
5. Corey Seager plays at least 135 games, something he’s done only once as a Ranger. Last year, the Rangers were a .539 team in the 102 games he played, a .433 team when he didn’t. Give them 30 more games of Seager and it’s worth at least two more wins.
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6. Josh Jung shows more discipline when ahead in the count. His .720 OPS when ahead was the second-worst in the majors among 162 players with at least 150 such plate appearances. When ahead, he’s got to do more damage. While ahead in the count, he was in the top 15th percentile of swings and the bottom five percentile of slugging percentage.
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7. Jake Burger does what the Rangers acquired him to do: Pummel fastballs. Burger slugged .541 against fastballs in 2024 and .615 in 2023. Last year: It dropped to .465. Burger is not going to walk much. He’s aggressive. The Rangers accept that, but aggressive hitters must punish pitches. The good news: He slugged .692 against them after Aug. 1.
8. Josh Smith slashes .225/.325/.325/.650 in the second half as the everyday second baseman. Assuming he tacks it on to a performance similar to his first halves the last two seasons, it makes him a roughly .340 OBP guy for the year and a .735 OPS guy for the season, both above league average. The second half OPS would constitute a 10% increase over 2025.
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9. Wyatt Langford, in his third season, continues the steady progress of his second season. His OPS jumped by 4.75% from Year 1 to Year 2. Duplicate that jump in 2026, you’ve got an .812 player. The Rangers believe he can go significantly higher than that, but .812 is right in line with what Trea Turner, Fernando Tatis Jr., Cody Bellinger and Francisco Lindor produced in 2025.
10. Evan Carter remains healthy enough to play at least 108 games – two-thirds of the season. We know he’s only averaged 44 games over his parts of three seasons, but he’s on pace to be a 5.1 WAR player for a 162-game stretch. Not exact science to say 66% of the season would constitute 66% of the WAR (3.4), but it’s close enough.
11. Kyle Higashioka and Danny Jansen combine to give the Rangers 145 starts at catcher and maintain the power they produced a year ago when they combined for 25 homers. Only eight teams got more homers from the catching position.
12. Jack Leiter continues to integrate the changeup with which he became much more comfortable at midseason. After July 1, when changeup usage shot up to close to 20%, he held hitters to a .219 average, compiled a 3.47 ERA and averaged 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings.
13. Kumar Rocker mimics Leiter’s progress from 2025, going from flawed prospect to solid starter. It requires more pitch diversification to start.
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14. Jacob Latz refines his changeup to right-handers a bit more, making him a more attractive starting option, but also opens the door to being a deathly late-game, multi-inning leverage reliever. Right-handers hit .333 with an .897 OPS against a pitch he used 30% of the time against them.
15. Brandon Nimmo plateaus. He’s probably not an .800 OPS guy any longer, but his .764 mark last year was still nearly 100 points higher than the guy he was traded for (Marcus Semien, .669) and the guy he replaces (Adolis García, .665).
16. Robert Garcia slows down his thought process by a fraction of a second. Garcia made three errors in just 13 chances last year: two poor throws and a botched attempt to field a bunt. It was the difference between a solid season and an exemplary one.
17. Cole Winn comes up with something consistent to use on lefties. Winn held right-handers to an exceptional .398 OPS, but lefties were at .863. His fastball was inconsistent and Winn never settled on a second pitch, experimenting with a splitter, slider and cutter.
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18. Cody Bradford returns from elbow surgery, as currently scheduled, in early May and gives the Rangers needed rotation depth
19. Ezequiel Duran, who has not homered in the majors since Sept. 8, 2024, builds on a strong winter league performance, seizes the utility job and produces in a more robust role than the last two years. That includes, yes, displaying some power.
20. Oft-injured, but dangerous, Sam Haggerty, who holds a career .280/.362/.446/.808 slash line against lefties, remains healthy enough to form the right-handed side of a platoon with Carter.
21. The Lil’ Rascals — Michael Helman, Cody Freeman and Alejandro Osuna — don’t lose any of their spark if one or more of them are not on the opening day roster. There will still be ample opportunity to contribute. Osuna, who slashed .297/.357/.391/.748 in September, may be best positioned for a bigger step forward.
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22. The Rangers’ front office extends its streak of remarkable success while overhauling the bulk of the bullpen to a third consecutive year. This year, the value buys include re-signing veteran Chris Martin and adding Jakob Junis, Alexis Diaz and lefty Tyler Alexander.
23. One of the high velocity bullpen arms still on the farm, a group that includes Marc Church, Emiliano Teodo and Izaak Tiger, force their way into a meaningful role in the bullpen.
24. Skip Schumaker and his coaching staff communicate and inject energy into a clubhouse that too often seemed stale and lacking in cohesiveness.
25. The Rangers get off to a faster start than 2025, which will be challenging, considering 27 of their first 40 games are against 2025 playoff teams. The Rangers were 19-21 through the first quarter of the 2025 season.
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26. Ray Davis, whose CBT payroll currently stands at about $205 million, well below the CBT threshold, stays true to his history of being willing to add to a team that shows it is capable of winning.
Twitter/X: @Evan_P_Grant
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