The Texas Rangers defeated the Yankees 4-2 last week to complete a 68-94 season.
The Rangers are now in the offseason, during which they must hire a new full-time manager and figure out how to acquire more starting pitching, a goal that eluded the team much of the 2022 season.
The win total this year was eight games better than in 2021 when the Rangers dropped 102 total games. After a decent first half of the season, they stood at 38-42, which was 10th best in the American League and only six games out of wild-card contention.
In the second half of the season, however, Texas only managed to cobble together a miserable 31-51 record – the worst in the AL – and finished fifth in the AL West, 38 games behind AL West champs Houston (106-56), 18 games out of the wild card.
The general manager of the Texas Rangers, Chris Young, said that interim manager Tony Beasley had a job interview on Friday, the first step in a process that Young thinks will take several weeks.
Young talked to the media for about 30 minutes at the end of the Rangers’ 68-94 season, but he didn’t say much about Beasley’s interview during the discussion.
Jon Daniels oversaw baseball operations for the Rangers for almost 20 years before he was fired in August. Young is now in charge of all baseball operations for the team. Two days earlier, the Rangers had fired manager Chris Woodward and put Beasley in control until they could find a new manager, The Dallas Express reported.
Beasley’s record at the end of the season was 17-31.
Young said in August that Beasley wouldn’t be judged based on his record alone, Sports Illustrated reported.
“When he took over in the middle of the season, he took over a tough situation,” Young said.
“We agreed that when we moved, we thought Tony was the best person to help us get back on track with some things we were missing. And I think he did a good job in those areas,” Young said.
The Rangers organization has said that Beasley is one of the coaches who will have a chance to work for the team, depending on how the search for a new manager goes. But Young said Beasley was the only internal candidate for the position because he had been a successful minor league manager for eight years before he joined the Rangers.
Texas was loaded offensively this season as free agent acquisitions Marcus Siemen and Corey Seager put up numbers that Rangers fans were hoping for, including Seager’s career-best 33 home runs.
Adolis Perez continued his improvement at the plate in 2022 and led the team in RBIs with 100 for the season.
Nathanial Lowe had a monster second half of the season and ended the year batting .302 to lead the team while posting 27 homers and 76 RBI.
Late-season call-up Bubba Thompson and Josh Jung created several highlights during the last few weeks of the year. Texas seemingly has a strong supply of talent, with Jung and Thompson heading the list.
Martin Pérez, the Ranger’s lefty ace with a 12-8 record and an ERA of 2.89, was a first-time All-Star who came back to Texas after three years away. After signing a $4 million deal at the start of spring training last March, he is going back into free agency and hopes to come back.
Jon Gray started his first season with the Rangers with a record of 7-7 and an earned run average of 3.96. He signed a $56 million, four-year deal to be their No.1 starter at the same time that Seager and Semien did. The right-hander could only make 24 starts because he was on the injured list three times. However, he did make five starts at the end of the season after being out for six weeks with an oblique strain.
To make any noise in the AL West next season, the Rangers will need to focus on getting better starting pitching and more production from their bullpen.
