Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy: ‘We should have won this division’
Anyone over the age of 8 should have seen this coming, but we couldn’t because a World Series is supposed to change everything about a team.
The Texas Rangers winning the World Series in 2023 changed the expectations for what should be possible for the franchise, but the ensuing seasons look like so many others. The Rangers’ World Series title is not a fluke, but it looks like a one-off.
Since winning the World Series, the team is playoff-less and sub-.500. The tangible momentum, and euphoria, generated by the Rangers’ World Series run has evaporated to previous levels of soul-shattering indifference.
On a beautiful Thursday afternoon at Globe Life Mall, with the roof actually open, the Rangers finished their 2025 home schedule in front of a modest crowd with a 4-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins; the place was maybe half full. Decent tickets on the secondary market were available for $14.
The Rangers (80-79) have a first-place payroll, a fourth-place-caliber team and rank 17th in attendance. The lofty goal now is to just avoid a losing record, which would be their eighth in the past nine years. They have to win one of their final three games at first-place Cleveland to finish .500.
The citizens of Arlington who voted for a tax hike to help fund a new food-court stadium, the fans who shell out the cash to watch this team, and the ownership group that approved massive spending on player payroll deserve better than this.
Statistically, it makes little sense a team that pitched and defended as well as the 2025 Rangers will miss the playoffs. If you had told Rangers manager Bruce Bochy in March that his team would pitch and field as well as it has, he would never have believed its season would end short of the playoffs.
“No way. Absolutely not,” Bochy said before Thursday’s game. “With our pitching, I felt like we should have won this division. We pitched better than [AL West winner] Seattle.”
That is what makes this season so disappointing; the pitching and defense were there. The offense never joined in, and it clouds the direction of a franchise that must make major moves.
Bruce Bochy’s future
On Thursday, neither Bochy nor general manager Chris Young would address the 70-year-old elephant on the bench. Bochy’s original three-year contract with the team is expiring, and no one has given any indication if he’s coming back.
Bochy does not sound like he is ready to leave the game again. That does not mean he will return to Texas.
No one has a bad word to say about the other, but the non-answer from both parties opens the Rangers’ roof that Bochy’s time with the Rangers is over.
Long time USA Today baseball reporter Bob Nightengale reported on Sept. 7 that “the Rangers’ resurgence has increased the likelihood that manager Bruce Bochy’s may return in 2026, after all.”
This was one week before the Rangers’ eight-game losing streak ended their playoff chances.
When Young recruited Bochy out of retirement to be the Rangers’ manager the move was a coup that yielded historic results. Bochy’s place in Rangers history is frozen in carbonite.
Bochy’s time in Texas may have just been one of those managerial shooting stars, because something has to change.
Texas Rangers’ priorities
Young said that he has no interest in a rebuild, and also said that the team’s payroll will be lower next season. Translation: The ownership group is tired of spending big cash with no playoff revenue in return.
The team’s payroll of $220 million ranks sixth in MLB. The Rangers and Braves are the only two teams that rank in the top 10 in payroll that have been eliminated from making the postseason.
With few exceptions, MLB ownership groups eventually suffer from spending fatigue, which is why most of them sell the clubs. The Rangers are not for sale (yet), but to reduce this club’s payroll, someone has got to go. Outfielder Adolis Garcia tops the list.
The offense, which will finish near the bottom of MLB in slugging percentage, on-base percentage and batting average, is a mess. Two of the team’s top outfielders, Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford, can’t stay off the disabled list.
No one can be sure what third baseman Josh Jung is. The DH is Designated Hell.
Young must deal with the issue that is Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The middle infielders should still be the solution to this team’s offense, but something is not aligned.
As much as the Rangers want to dismiss any issue within that clubhouse, something is off. It always starts, and usually ends, with the highest-paid daily players. That’s Seager. That’s Semien.
They were both tremendous in the Rangers’ World Series season, but that was two years ago. Semien will be 35 next season, and he is signed through 2028. Seager will be 32, and he is signed through 2031.
They were signed to be the spine of a team that would contend for multiple World Series championships, not just one.
Of the World Series winners since 2010, 10 made the playoffs in one of the two seasons after their title. The Rangers are one of the five that will not.
As a result, Rangers fans over the age of 8 who believed that it was all going to be different because of that World Series title now ask themselves, “How did we not see this coming?”
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 4:30 PM.
