You can’t spell RANGERS without ANGER. And you can’t be a Rangers fan without being angry their offensive production.

It’s a team that, as currently assembles, is simply not good enough to win. 

And while Chris Young said this team was built to win, the reality is, it was built to hopefully win. It was built to win within the confines of the budget restraint ownership dictated. 

Big difference. The Dodgers, case in point, were built to win. They had no problem acquiring the talent they needed. 

Rangers fans should be angry that ownership is being cheap. In the offseason, while other teams acquired the best talent to fill their holes, the Rangers acquired the talent that could fit into their budget without going over $241 million, which would trigger a twenty percent luxury tax. Consecutive years exceeding the luxury tax threshold trigger additional penalties. Chris Young was told he could not exceed that number. 

So, instead of getting a bona fide closer, he went with a combination of Luke Jackson, Robert Garcia, and Chris Martin. Jackson has proven unreliable in that role. Garcia is iffy. Martin is too fragile, his arm is about to fall off.

Instead of signing the best available players, he had to find players that fit, like Jake Burger and Joc Pederson. Burger is a good complimentary piece but is not the kind of guy that supercharges a lineup. Pederson was coming off his best offensive season and should have been much more than he was before he was injured. But Pederson was a compromise to signing a better (translation: more expensive) hitter. 

Rangers fans should be angry that this penny pinching is going to rear its cheap, ugly head for the trade deadline. Now, as the Rangers desperately need offense, they’re going to look at the trade market through the same discount eyes. Whoever they trade for has to equal or fit under the salary of who they trade. 

The Giants just traded for one of the best hitters in baseball in Rafael Devers. He would have been a godsend to this Rangers lineup and instantly catapulted them into a different offensive stratosphere. But the Rangers couldn’t have acquired him because he would have triggered the luxury tax. 

Thus, they aren’t built to win. They’re built to win if possible under their salary constraints. And even then, they aren’t winning.

And that should make you angry.

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