There’s hope.

Just 2.5 games behind Baltimore. Just two games behind Arizona. And just 1.5 games behind Pittsburgh. 

The Texas Rangers are close to the top. The top of the bottom. The top of being the worst team in baseball and getting the first pick in the draft. It sucks to suck. But at least there could be something to gain from it. The Rangers have a golden opportunity to turn all this losing into winning.

Getting the second pick this year then following that up with the first pick next year, or even top to or three, would be huge. If they can also snag a top-two pick in 2022—and all indications are this team will be bad for a few more years—this franchise could have three or four prime draft picks in a row. 

It’s the Houston Astros model. That Astros did it in monumental fashion, losing more than 100 games a season from 2011 to 2013—106, 107, and 111 respectively. In fact, they went on an eight-year run of futility like the Rangers are going through now. 

But look who they got from those top draft picks: George Springer, Carlos Correa, Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker.

They have emerged out of that darkness with a World Championship and a playoff-caliber team that is still going, a run of success that’s much longer than any sustained winning the Rangers have been able to do in their history

So, don’t be discouraged by the fourteenth road loss in a row. Or the .386 winning percentage. Be encouraged by what that all this losing could mean for the 2028 Rangers.

Hope.

Now, if only the Rangers can break their pattern of horrible draft picks. 

*****
TODAY’S GAME: