Me vs. me: Debating the Texas Rangers

Let’s look for reasons for hope with the 2021 Texas Rangers.

A debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 Texas Rangers.

Opti-me: I’m not going to do anything silly, like predict a 90-win season or a divisional title. I may be an optimist, but my name isn’t Pollyanna. Still, I see the Rangers making genuine progress this season.

This is a team that is re-tooling with youth. That youth is going to show itself this summer. Kolby Allard and Kyle Cody will get a full shot at establishing their starting credentials, Leody Taveras, Jose Trevino, Nick Solak, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa get to show they can be the bulwark of a legit offense. Gone are the days of relying on guys like Elvis Andrus and Jeff Mathis.

Pessi-me: Do I understand that your argument for being optimistic about the Rangers begins with Isiah Kiner-Falefa? I just want to remind you that he has a career .260/.319/.351 slash line. If that isn’t the definition of ordinary, I don’t know what is.

As for Leody Taveras and Jose Trevino, well, it might work. If Taveras is going to be the leadoff man the Rangers envision, he might want to raise that .227 batting average from last season. You mentioned four guys, Solak, Kiner-Falefa, Trevino, and Taveras. In 2020, the highest OPS+ of any of ‘em was Trevino, at 91. You do understand that 100 is major league average, right?

Opti-me: No question there’s a youth movement at work. But that’s what’s good about those guys…they’ll mature. Kiner-Falefa and Solak are only 25, Trevino is 22 and Taveras is just 21. The same holds true with the pitching staff. Don’t bother with the numbers; I’ll concede that Allard had a bad season last year. But he’s 22, for Pete’s sake, and he dominated in the minors. Give him 2020 to grow on and watch him assert himself.

Cody? That’s a 94 mph heater and a change that will frustrate plenty of hitters as soon as he learns to locate it, which shouldn’t be long from now. Then there’s Kohei Arihara. He was 15-8 with a 2.46 for Nippon in 2019. The guy’s legit.

Pessi-me: Allard and Cody better step up, and Arihara better be all you say he’ll be. The only decent arm the Rangers had last season was Lance Lynn, and the Rangers dumped him.

I assume you’re also counting on Mike Foltyniewicz. You remember him…broke down after four innings last year, 4.54 ERA the year before that. Finally, you’re banking on Dane Dunning, the guy you got for Lynn. Good luck with that.

The reality is Chris Woodward doesn’t have a clue how he’s going to scratch 800 innings out of the arms he has in this team’s rotation.

Opti-me: Nothing wrong with Dunning. He looked decent in his seven starts for the White Sox last year. Won twice, and he stretched it out to seven innings against the Twins in mid-September. The guy’s always been a phenom, which is why the Sox picked him up from Washington with Giolito a few years back. Yeah, he had to have Tommy John, but if 2020 showed anything it showed he’s past that being an issue.

I’m not suggesting Dunning will be an All-Star, but he’ll be a reliable contributor.

But I want to get back to Kiner-Falefa and Solak. You took a cheap shot at them a few paragraphs ago. The smartest thing the Rangers could have done was dump Andrus, tell Odor to find a comfy spot on the bench, and turn the middle infield over to Kiner-Falefa and Solak. One of Texas’ problems was been their reliance on status-quo players like Odor and Andrus, guys who blocked talented kids.

Pessi-me: Speaking of status-quo players, maybe the Rangers can find a taker for Joey Gallo. You’re paying him $6.2 million this season…for what? The guy’s a career .208 stick. I’ll give you 10 home runs last season. What about the other 216 plate appearances?

As for shipping Andrus out to Oakland, that’d be okay, I guess…except they stuck you with Khris Freakin’ Davis! You owe him $16.75 million this season, and by opening day that’ll work out to about 20 percent of your entire payroll. You were only going to pay Andrus $14.25 million, so right away you’re out $2 million.

And what did you get for that extra $2 million. Here’s the comparison of Andrus and Davis for four significant offensive categories last season:

                                BA              HR         RBI       OPS+

Andrus                .194               3             7         58

Davis                   .200               2           10         79

This trade was the definition of a dog for a cat. Unless you think Jonah Heim, who the Rangers got in the deal to be a backup catcher, is going to develop into a front-liner, the reality is the team would have been better off just releasing Andrus and eating the $14.5 million.

The Rangers did pick up David Dahl from Colorado. Odds are he won’t be as bad as his .183 average says he was in 2020. There’s a donut hole at third base, an unproven middle infield, no rotation worth acknowledging, and an unproven catcher in Trevino. If this isn’t a last-place team, I’ve never seen one. Combine that with a new general manager, Chris Young, who’d probably like to hire his own field manager, and also with the fact that Chris Woodward’s contract expires at seasons’ end, and I make Woodward No. 1 on the managerial hit list this year.

Opti-me: As I said at the outset, I’m not going so far as to predict a post-season spot for the Texas Rangers. There are too many fresh faces. At the same time, their division has lots of holes. Houston has an unproven staff, Oakland lost a lot, and the Angels and Mariners both always disappoint.

I like Kiner-Falefa, Solak, and Taveras to blossom as headliners by mid-season, and I like Allard, Cody, and Dunning to provide some rotational stability. If that happens, a .500 record isn’t too much to ask for, and Chris Woodward’s job may look pretty secure.