Grading Chris Young and the Texas Rangers front office at the season’s midway point

Overall

If this were a classroom, Young would have skipped all the daily lessons and homework assignments and simply tested out. With the reservoir of talent on hand, there was little need for him to gum it up by tinkering.

The Rangers general manager made 25 moves impacting the Texas roster since the end of the 2022 postseason. While 12 of those moves created positive value as opposed to 11 negatives — one was neutral — the bad news very modestly outweighed the good.

Here’s the first half report card on the Young front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA                Grade

Acquired                0.0                       C

Traded                  -0.2                       C

Signed                  -0.1                       C

FA Lost                 -0.5                       C

Rookies                -2.0                       D

Overall                  -1.4                      D

A general manager’s short-term impact on his team does not necessarily have to line up with his team’s performance. As previously noted, Young could get away with the lack of progress reflected in his grade because he’d already killed it on the progress meter.

The core of this team — Garcia, Seager, Semien, Taveras, Dunning, Heim — was solidly in place before he lifted a finger on 2023.

His additions may not have helped much, but his holdovers have run up a total of +13.0 WAA. That’s a winning strategy. It’s also a relaxing strategy.