Josh Jung just got a huge dose of reality. He’s not a very good hitter right now and it’s time to go back and learn how to be in the minor leagues.

The Rangers did it with Evan Carter this year. They did it with Jake Burger. Even Wyatt Langford spent some time in the minor leagues this year, but that was an injury rehab.

But with Burger now back from the I.L. and Langford due back anytime soon, and with the Rangers clinging onto these faint hopes of the third wild card slot (they’re only 2.5 games behind Seattle, who always folds), there was no place in the lineup for Jung’s inability to hit. Josh Smith should be assuming the every day third baseman role for the Rangers.

Texas is in win-now-at-all-costs mode, and Jung paid the cost. He has progressively worsened as the season has gone on. Jung hit a respectable .293 in April, but without much power, racking up an OPS of only .777. Those numbers slid to .265 and .750 in May but then to .158 and an abysmal .429 OPS in June, with an on-base percentage of .208. 

Basically, he turned himself into a strikeout machine who hit an occasional single. That’s not how you stay in a lineup, no matter how good your defense is. 

Overall, this season, his OPS+ is just 88, meaning he’s twelve percent below an average major league hitter. It’s been sliding ever since his All-Star first half of 2023. His OPS+ that year ended at 113, then dropped to 106 last year. Yes, some of that can be chalked up to injury. Or maybe this is who he is offensively and those first three months of 2023 were an aberration. After coming back from a broken thumb, his second-half numbers in 2023 were not pretty. And they haven’t been since.

Adrian Beltre retired after the 2018 season and Jung was drafted the following year, anointed the third baseman of the future. The Rangers simply waited for him to develop. In the meantime, it was a steady stream of mediocrity at third. Granted, it’s impossible to fill Beltre’s Hall of Fame-sized shoes, or expect someone to.

In 2019, it was Asdrubal Cabrera. His OPS+ was 80. Isiah Kiner Falefa in 2020 put up an OPS+ of 98. It was Charlie Culberson in 2021, with an OPS+ 85. Ezequiel Duran put up an 81 OPS+ as the Rangers third baseman in 2022. Jung came up in 2023. Two years later, his offensive production is in line with the revolving door of placeholders that preceded him.

Maybe Jung figures it out in the minor leagues. Maybe he’s traded at the deadline and figures it out with another team.

One thing is clear, the Rangers cannot win with Josh Jung’s bat in the lineup right now. To prove that, they’ve won the last two games without him. 

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