MLB.com’s Will Leach ranked the World Series favorites, from one to thirty. Good news: the Texas Rangers weren’t last. Not even close.
They were fourth from last. Kiss it, Pittsburgh and Baltimore and Colorado. The Rangers rule.
While it’s certainly no surprise that the Rangers, who finished with the worst record in the American League and second-worst overall, are ranked so low, his assessment of the state of the Rangers wasn’t very pleasant to read.
“27. Texas Rangers: As we predicted in this space last year, the World Series trophy was raised in Arlington in 2020. We are grand oracles! OK, so we didn’t predict that, and we certainly didn’t predict (all of everything), but that’s par for the course: Nothing has really quite worked out the way the Rangers have been trying to get it to for a few years now. It really wasn’t long ago that this looked like one of the sharpest, most well-run organizations in baseball. Now the Rangers haven’t had a winning record since 2016, and even the guys who were supposed to be stars—remember when we were all so high on Rougned Odor?—ended up not really panning out as hoped. I honestly thought Joey Gallo was about to rampage through this league over the last couple of seasons; now I’m worried the Rangers have already missed their window to trade him. It just isn’t working out here. And I’m not sure what their next move is supposed to be. I’m not sure they know either.”
It will be a while, folks. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
*****