Rangers need to flip the page

By David Mullen

The Texas Rangers are a long way from making the cover of Sports Illustrated like the in-state rival Houston Astros did five years ago. The Rangers zig when they should zag, should be getting younger but get older and have a bleak future living in the vicinity of the spry American League West.

 It is as if the Rangers live in a rundown part of town, and the rest of their neighbors live in a shiny highrise. Oh sure, there are some things to like, especially brought on by maturity, but they have a lot of upgrading to do to improve and get up to the competitive standard of the rest of the neighborhood. And that is despite a brand new stadium in Arlington opening in 2020. While the old home is still quite livable, we all know that there are some heating and air conditioning issues.

Dated June 24, 2014, Sports Illustrated famously produced a cover with the headline about the Astros that read “YOUR 2017 WORLD SERIES CHAMPS.” The cover was the laughing stock of the sports world. The Astros had just finished the regular season 60 games under .500 in 2013 and 22 games under .500 in 2014.

“When you’re in 2017, you don’t really care that much about whether you lost 98 or 107 in 2012,” former Houston G.M. Sig Luhnow said back in 2014. “You care about how close you are to winning a championship in 2017.”

The Astros won the World Series in 2017.

The Rangers were a veteran club but formidable, the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners were young and competitive, and the Los Angeles Angels had a reliable Albert Pujols and a one-of-a-kind player in Mike Trout.

But the Astros started rebuilding with youth (and sprinkled in a few veterans) and knew that they had to gut the team all the way down to the foundation and rebuild if they were going to compete. They had the 2015 Rookie of the Year, shortstop Carlos Correa. They drafted Jose Altuve, who became the 2017 American League MVP. 

They signed versatile infielder Alex Bregman, an All-Star at just 25, when the Boston Red Sox could not come to terms with him. They got lead-off hitter and centerfielder George Springer. 

They made a last minute trade for ace starting pitcher Justin Verlander in 2017. They declined to sign their No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft, high school lefthander Brady Aiken. That was a good decision, as he has never pitched above Class-A.

Today, the Astros are on the way to another World Series title and another magazine cover. They added starting pitcher Gerrit Cole in 2018, and picked up ace Zack Greinke at the 2019 trading deadline. As if their line-up wasn’t enough, they now have a three-headed monster for the playoffs as they are running away with the American League West crown for the third consecutive year.

The Rangers did just the opposite of the Astros this year. They hoped that older arms like Mike Minor (31) and Lance Lynn (32) and closer Shawn Kelley (36) could find the Fountain of Youth. They have. Offseason non-roster DH Hunter Pence (36) made the All-Star team. They still have Shin-Shoo Choo (36). Looking for another hitter, the Rangers picked up Danny Santana (pictured below) after the season began and he has been their best hitter. But the youth, unlike their neighbors to the south, has disappointed. Twenty-four-year-olds Ronald Guzman, Roughned Odor and Nomar Mazara have been given a chance to shine and are flawed. Joey Gallo (25), one of the futures of the franchise, has been hurt. The Rangers should look down (to Houston) before they look up. 

The Houston Astros are amping up for a playoff run that could make them World Champions for the second time in three years. For the Rangers, they look to playing out their final month of baseball at Globe Life Park trying to finish at .500. That won’t get a team on the cover of any magazine unless there is one called Mediocrity Today.