Texas Rangers
Record: 5-8 (T-fourth place, American League West)
The Rangers have a dangerous offense, a solid starting rotation and a horrendous bullpen. If that sounds familiar, it should. The same things were being said about Texas throughout the 2016 season.
The difference is that the Rangers were winning in 2016. In 2017, that has not been the case. In fact, even that 5-8 mark is inflated. Texas is 3-1 against the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 against the Los Angeles Angels, and 0-5 against everyone else.
Granted, “everyone else” includes only the Cleveland Indians and Seattle Mariners at this point. But regardless of where a team is in the season, it’s never a good thing if it can only beat two teams that combined for a 143-181 mark during the previous year. That’s just not going to work over the long haul.
The good news is that the problem can be fixed. The Rangers’ biggest issue is their bullpen and relief help is generally the most realistic thing to acquire through mid-season trades.
Improving on that bullpen is a must, though.
Texas skated with a mediocre bullpen in 2016, but that’s not a long-term strategy in the modern game. There’s a lot of baseball to be played, but that becomes more of a threat than a sigh of relief if the bullpen continue down its current road. A 5.80 bullpen ERA is just not going to cut the mustard. It will only waste one of baseball’s most talented teams.