After a sustained period of putrid offense, the Rangers have started to make some significant changes. Donnie Ecker is out as offensive coordinator, replaced by Bret Boone.
Leody Taveras is out as the Rangers centerfielder, replaced by Evan Carter, who is being activated from the minor leagues today for the series in Boston. Fortunately for Carter, the Rangers are facing a right-handed starter. Carter still cannot hit lefties. That’s what Kevin Pillar is for.
Bret Boone has his work cut out for him. Newcomers Jake Burger and Joc Pederson are the most obvious candidates. Burger was recently sent down to work out his hitting woes. Pederson’s offense is so bad, his OPS+ is at a -1. Remember, 100 is average, 0 is 100 percent worse than average. A negative number is impossible to explain in any mathematical formula. He’s worse than 100 worse than average? Suffice it to say, Pederson is the worst hitter in baseball right now.
But the story of the Rangers offensive struggles run deeper than Burger and Pederson, or even Taveras. Remember, this isn’t a 2025 issue. This team’s offensive challenges started last year. What we are seeing is a carry over.
Looking at combined 2024 and 2025 numbers for Adolis Garcia, Marcus Semien, and Josh Jung, you get a clearer picture of three hitters the Rangers consider crucial to their offense. The reality is, they’re average major league hitters in that span. The Rangers were counting on them to be much much more than that. They aren’t.
Here are their stats for ‘24 to ’25, along with Leody Taveras’s for comparison, thanks to Baseball-Reference.com.
You’ll notice Garcia and Semien aren’t much more productive than Taveras. In fact, Taveras actually has a higher batting average than those two, and a higher on-base percentage than Garcia. Taveras’s slugging percentage isn’t that much worse than theirs, either. Jung is certainly better than the other three, but he’s not tearing it up, either. Overall, he’s just slightly above average.
But the point is, that’s one-third of the Rangers lineup that’s underperforming, and has been for more than a year. Bret Boone needs to figure out how to light a fire under these three vital cogs in the Rangers offense.
Yes, the struggles of Burger and Pederson, along with Taveras, were and are obvious. But hidden in plain sight is the reality that Semien, Garcia, and Jung aren’t pulling their weight either.
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