Editor's note: Two days after the Rangers fired manager Chris Woodward, they announced that general manager Jon Daniels also was relieved of his duties.
When the Texas Rangers signed Corey Seager and Marcus Semien in the offseason for a combined $500 million, the hope wasn't necessarily instant contention. After all, the Rangers were coming off a 102-loss season in 2021.
It was more about the vision for the future: Become relevant in 2022 for the first time since 2016 -- the Rangers' last winning season -- and then make the big push in 2023, building around their new middle infield combo.
Instead, the Rangers stumbled to a 7-14 record in April, and while they bounced back to .500 at the end of May, they've now fallen to 51-63. Then, the club fired manager Chris Woodward on Monday. It's a little surprising because the team has been more competitive than last season, and back in November, the front office gave Woodward, who was originally hired in 2019, a one-year extension for 2023 plus a club option for 2024.
Woodward's downfall: The Rangers' abysmal 6-24 record in one-run games.
My colleague Brad Doolittle texted me on the historical awfulness of that .200 winning percentage:
"Only the 1935 Braves (.184) have done worse in a season. The Rangers are on pace to be 26 games under .500 in those games, which would be a record during the modern era. They'd be wild-card contenders if they were break-even in those games."
That's the hammer. The Rangers just took two of three from the Mariners this past weekend, and on the surface, they're not that much different from Seattle: The Mariners have a plus-14 run differential, while the Rangers are just minus-2. But the Mariners are 27-14 in one-run games, 10 games up on the Rangers in the standings and in the second wild-card position.
Is this Woodward's fault? Some lack of fundamentals or mismanaging of the bullpen? Without going through the video play-by-play of all the one-run losses, it's hard to know exactly what's gone wrong each game. Certainly, the clutch numbers for the Rangers aren't good, especially on the pitching side.
The bullpen is 11th overall in the majors in ERA, seventh in lowest batting average allowed and ninth in OPS allowed, so on the surface it looks like it's been pretty solid. But the pen is last in the majors in FanGraphs' win probability added. When the game is on the line, the pen hasn't delivered. A recent example: On July 26, the Rangers rallied with two runs in the eighth and one in the ninth to take a 4-3 lead over the Mariners. Brett Martin came on for the save. J.P. Crawford slapped a single to left field, past the third baseman who was shifted over toward shortstop. Cal Raleigh then doubled to tie the game; the catcher set up high and in, but Martin missed low and away and Raleigh drilled it into right-center. After a sacrifice bunt, Woodward elected to load the bases with walks to Julio Rodriguez and Ty France, but Carlos Santana hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.
Not all the one-run losses are on the bullpen though. The day before, Nathaniel Lowe had led off the ninth with a home run to cut a 4-2 deficit against the Mariners to 4-3. The next two batters reached on a single and a walk, but Ezequiel Duran struck out, Josh Smith popped out and Semien grounded out. What's interesting is that the Rangers actually haven't hit that poorly overall in "late and close" situations, with a .260/.329/.429 line, a .757 OPS that is much higher than their overall mark of .700. That's actually the second-highest "late and close" OPS in the majors, behind only the Dodgers.
That's not to absolve the offense. Six of the 24 one-run losses were 2-1 defeats. Another was 1-0. They're 5-7 in extra-inning games, with four of those seven losses coming by one run. Against teams they would have been competing with for a wild-card spot, they're 4-12 (vs. Mariners), 0-6 (vs. Orioles), 1-2 (vs. Blue Jays) and 2-2 (vs. Rays).
The unknown for general manager Chris Young: Will Woodward end up being their Rick Renteria? He was the Cubs' manager in 2014 at the tail end of their rebuild under Theo Epstein, but when Joe Maddon became available, the Cubs quickly moved in another direction. Clearly, the Rangers' front office came to the conclusion that Woodward wasn't going to be the manager to guide them to their next postseason berth.
When Seager signed with the Rangers, he cited the vision of the front office. "They were very open and honest about how many games they've lost and where they're at as an organization right now," Seager said at the time. "And that's something that we wanted to embrace. ... I love the work of it, the drive, the passion for the game, to do it the right way and have the right people. It always comes down to the people."
Of course, good players help the most, and the Rangers haven't been very good at developing them since the decline of the team that reached the World Series in 2010 and 2011 and made three other postseason appearances after that. That's why they had to go out and spend big money on Seager and Semien. Seager has been solid (3.6 WAR), and most importantly, has stayed healthy, playing in 108 of the team's 114 games. Semien has rebounded from a horrific start in which he hit .193 with no home runs through his first 43 games, but he's obviously not going to come close to the 45 home runs he hit for the Blue Jays in 2021 (when he finished third in the MVP voting). Overall, the Rangers rank 11th in wins above average at second base and eighth at shortstop. That's fine, but they were hoping for the best middle infield in the majors.
Seager and Semien are hardly the biggest issue, however.
The rotation remains in need of further upgrades. It ranks 21st in the majors in ERA -- and that's with Martin Perez delivering a surprisingly excellent season (2.79 ERA). He's a free agent after the season, although there seems to be some likelihood he'll re-sign with the Rangers. Jack Leiter, the second overall pick in 2021, was supposed to become a rotation anchor in the near future, but he's struggled in Double-A with a 5.56 ERA while averaging barely four innings per start. It's hard to envision him making a major impact in 2023. They just drafted Kumar Rocker, Leiter's college teammate at Vanderbilt, with the third overall pick, conceivably with the idea that he could be fast-tracked to the majors. He's yet to pitch since the Rangers signed him.
After the Seager and Semien signings, Daniels had said he hoped the Rangers could overachieve in 2022, "But as we've said all along, I really feel like next year, we expect to win."
A key will be how much ownership wants to spend. Even with the big Seager and Semien contracts, their payroll is just 19th highest. They haven't been in the top 10 in payroll since 2015, and frankly, playing in a large market with a lucrative local TV deal and a new ballpark, there's no reason the Rangers couldn't -- or shouldn't -- run out a top-10 or top-five payroll every season.
We'll see how much they spend to improve the rotation and the outfield (where Adolis Garcia has been the only consistent performer). They'll need a manager. Maddon is available.