Texas Rangers Preview

The Rangers last year was about .500 baseball, why you may ask, well you can't blame the hitting, they led the league in home runs last year by over 100. The one areas the Rangers need to improve is in the pitching and leadership. The Rangers young pitchers are getting major league ready pitchers like Holland and Kiker are ready to lead this team into the future. The bullpen has been completely revamped with 4 new faces, the most important might be the closer Boone Logan. Now if Logan starts off shaky the Rangers have plenty of pitchers who can step in, like Jeremy Accardo, and Jon Link. The bench for the Rangers has be reworked as well with free agent signings in hopes of providing the leadership that is needed. Eric Hinske is a vital part of this bench, a very undervalued left handed hitter off the bench with some pop and quite good in the field as well. The Rangers traded away Kinsler in the off season but 2 of the players the Rangers got in return will be in the starting offense for this team. The first player I want to touch on is Corey Brown the CF. This guy is a power bat capable of hitting 20 home runs this coming year well playing well roaming center field. The next guy is someone who was the cornerstone in the Kinsler deal and that is Ryan Flaherty. This is the 2nd baseman of now. He can also hit for some power but to help him out he will be hitting 9th to start out the year in the order. But this lefty hitting infielder has a chance to be special. The 2 players on offense we feel need to step up are Elvis Andrus and Taylor Teagarden. Teagarden they need not just to hit 20 homeruns this year and hit .295, but he also needs to help them behind the plate with these pitchers. The Rangers have had a history of bad pitching but maybe Teagarden can bring a calming influence with this staff in this ballpark. Andrus needs to do a couple of things. He first needs to hit leadoff and do it well, and he also needs to steal bases, at least 50 for this team to be at full production from the plate. The Rangers didn't steal that much last year but with the speed they have they are going to take some chances. Expect Andrus to be in the MVP discussion all year and the Rangers to be in the hunt as well. On trades the GM of the Rangers said he would like to upgrade his starting pitching without having to give up Andrus, Teagarden, or Davis, but some prospects for a team that has extra pitching and is willing to give it up. Prediction for the Rangers this season is that they win 87 games and are in the wild card hunt, they finish 2nd in the AL West just a couple of games behind the Oakland A's.