I.


At the end of every season, the entire staff of Rangers Rounding 3rd gets together to grade the Rangers for the just completed year.

This year it’s an incomplete.

There were only 60 games. A short season that was cut even shorter one inning into the third game of the season when Corey Kluber walked off the mound with a torn shoulder muscle.

The slim hope that this team could win on pitching walked off the mound with Kluber. It was widely known that this team was not going to hit. And they didn’t disappoint in their ability to dissapoint.

The Rangers went into the off-season with the worst infield offense in baseball. To rectify that, they pursued coveted third base free agent Anthony Rendon. But it was merely window dressing. In a clever bit of gamesmanship, they made him an offer that was actually less than the one he turned down with the team he would eventually leave. Most times in negotiations one wants to win, one increases the previous offer.

Unable to land the biggest free agent bat, the Ranger settled for Plan B. Well, actually, Plan U. They signed Todd Frazier. Which might have been exciting had it been 2015.

To cover themselves, they also signed Greg Bird to compete with Ronald Guzman at first. Both failed.

Luckily, the one guy they never expected to perform, and never could find a place for, couldn’t stop hitting in both spring trainings. Isiah Kiner-Falefa forced his way into the lineup.

That moved Frazier to first. But the Rangers still had glaring holes at second and short. Which they refused to address.

The outfield was even more of a mess. Danny Santana and Willie Calhoun were beyond miserable. And Joey Gallo talked himself out of a good season.

The vaunted three aces of Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, and Corey Kluber never materialized.

The bullpen was a mess from day one, which is par for the course with the Rangers.

The Rangers did have one ray of hope in Kyle Cody. But pitching in the Rangers organization is as lasting as a sandcastle in high tide.

The only saving grace for 2020 was that it was only sixty games. And the parade of Triple-A players.

All the credit in the world goes to Jon Daniels for the Corey Kluber trade. Getting a pitcher of that magnitude for a relief pitcher with potential and a center fielder with very little potential was a real coup. The Rangers proved once again they are snakebitten.

So, what would have been a solid D, and only not a justifiable F had it not been for the Kluber dead, in the end turned into an I.

Incomplete.

The Rangers head into 2021 as a total mess.