According to performance data and analytics, the Texas Rangers are the second most underperforming team in Major League Baseball, following the Atlanta Braves. These assessments exclude traditional stats like fielding percentage, batting average, ERA, runs scored, or launch angle, and focus on the key factor driving major league teams: money. The Rangers, with the sixth-highest payroll in MLB, have a 51-50 record as of July 22. For perspective, this isn’t the worst performance among the top 10 highest-paying teams— that distinction belongs to the Braves, who, despite having the eighth-largest payroll, are sitting at 44-55. Interestingly, the Braves will face the Rangers in a three-game series starting on July 25 at Globe Life Mall. While both teams have similar payrolls, they’re in very different positions as the season approaches its crucial moments, with the MLB trade deadline looming at 5 p.m. on July 31. Rangers All-Star second baseman Marcus Semien has already made it clear what this deadline represents for his team.
“I want to be adding at the deadline,” Semien said in the Rangers clubhouse after a recent game. “I always want to make that a goal of mine: To make sure I’m on a team that is adding at the deadline.” It can’t make Rangers owner Ray Davis happy to do this, but if he wants the team to make a real playoff push, he should accommodate Semien and add to his bloated payroll.
They have come too far, and in too deep, to quit.
The Rangers current “trade” situation
Unlike each of the last two trade deadline periods, this one here in 2025 doesn’t look like 2024. Or 2023. This time one year ago, the club was around 5 games under .500 and GM Chris Young did little. His inactivity was not a white flag, nor a result of his boss being cheap. CY made the mistake of trusting the team, with good reason. That team won the World Series the year before. Around this time in 2023, the team was 15 games above .500; by that time, the team had traded for reliever Aroldis Chapman, a move that addressed a major issue with that roster. Here in 2025, the club has flirted around .500 since Opening Day. On April 22, they were 14-9, the high point of the season. Since then, they are 37-41. That’s more than enough of a sample size for Young and manager Bruce Bochy to know what they have. A team that leads all of Major League Baseball in both earned run average and fielding, as the Rangers do, can contend for a World Series. Their best hitters (cough-cough, Corey Seager), have not hit consistently, but they are good enough to think this can come around.
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