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Let’s talk about the disappointing 2024 Texas Rangers’ offense, shall we?
The Rangers, as a team, are slashing .242/.313/.384 this year, good for a 98 OPS+.
The Rangers, as a team, slashed .263/.337/.452 in 2023, good for a 115 OPS+.
That’s a pretty substantial drop. And while offense is down league-wide this year, the Rangers’ offensive decline is much greater than just what can be blamed on the league-wide decrease. One can see that reflected in the team OPS+ going from well above average to below average, as well as the fact that the team has gone from being 1st in the A.L. in average, OBP, slugging and OPS to 7th, 5th, 10th and 9th, respectively.
The question, thus, is why? Why have we seen such a substantial drop off from last year? What is different? Where are the Rangers struggling?
One of the complaints I see regularly about the 2024 Texas Rangers offense is that they swing too much at the first pitch — that what made the 2023 Rangers successful was that they worked counts and wore down pitchers, while this year’s club is swinging first pitch too much. This purported impatience, this tendency to hack away early in the count, seems to be a popular diagnosis for the ailing Rangers offense. Too many first pitch pop outs and ground outs, rather than waiting for a good pitch to hit, is the culprit, under this theory.
