Most teams would spend Spring Training gearing up for the upcoming season with a focus on becoming a serious contender. However this is not what it appears the Rangers are doing as the new season gets closer by the day.
It appears this season will be a year to re-evaluate the franchise and the current talent. This means the Rangers will be bad in 2021, but don’t give up on them. This season, the Rangers will definitely be difficult to watch, but in reality the team will be better off for winning less in 2021.
Rangers will be bad but will be worth it
Teams like the Rangers often find them stuck in mediocrity, without proper direction or actual talent. Although, some mediocre teams can find their way into the playoffs in a bad division or weak league.
However, if you are team like New York or Los Angeles, winning 75 to 80 games is not the results you want to see each year.
A failure on the part of the Texas Rangers’ front office to try and extend competitive windows where they flat-out didn’t exist (such as in 2017 when the Rangers were reluctant sellers until they caved in by trading Yu Darvish to the LA Dodgers right at the deadline).
High draft picks usually correlates with getting elite talent
Much like in other sports, high draft placement usually (but not always) correlates with acquiring more elite talent. Drafting in the teens is terrible for this correlation, and it also means a front office overstayed its welcome as a contender.
Moreover, this doesn’t mean the Rangers can’t draft great players with a middling pick: they did get RHP Cole Winn with their 2018 selection and 2B Justin Foscue with their 2020 selection.
Imagine if the Rangers had been in an even better draft position in those years, though. With a top-10 pick in 2018, the team could have had a Jarred Kelenic, Casey Mize, Alec Bohm or Nick Madrigal.
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Again, this is no knock on Winn. But you can’t deny that having one of the aforementioned names wouldn’t very much excite you. Rangers will be bad but will be worth it The same rationale applies to 2020.
Moreover, Justin Foscue was a fine selection at 14, but you can’t tell me you wouldn’t rather have a Spencer Torkelson, Asa Lacy or a Garrett Crochet. This is the value of winning less games in the interim for a team’s future benefit.
So if given a choice between winning 75 to 80 games for the sake of wanting to view a more respectable product on the field (and this sentiment is understandable), versus winning 67 games as metrics like PECOTA project for the Texas Rangers in 2021, the more logical choice would be the latter, both for now and for the future.
In short, winning less in 2021 might actually turn out to mean more for the Texas Rangers going forward, even if it means a little suffering in the moment.
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