What does the 2022 Texas Rangers Opening Day Roster look like right now?

The off-season is currently stuck in the slowest of doldrums imaginable. All any of us want is new baseball content, and I can’t supply anything eye-opening, but I can toss my two cents in about who I think will be on the 26-man Texas Rangers roster on Opening Day.

There exists still a multitude of moves that can be made between now and whenever Opening Day ends up actually taking place, but let’s have some fun and take a look at the likely (and some unlikely, but possible) candidates to take the field for our Rangers in 2022.

For this piece, I have the roster as it currently stands, with certainties and one dark horse per position. The certainties are players that are currently Texas Rangers and will be in 2022, barring a trade that involves them. Obviously, no player is a 100% certainty, but if the Rangers were to make zero transactions with other clubs and players before opening day, these are our guys. The dark horses will be one player per position who I think will either rise up through the farm system or be acquired via trade or free agency. Any who, let’s get into it!

The 2022 Texas Rangers roster as of now: Starting and Relief Pitchers

Certainties (Starting 5): Jon Gray, Taylor Hearn, Dane Dunning, A.J. Alexy, Glenn Otto

One of the frustrating aspects of the Rangers’ starting pitching in 2021 was having to watch veteran guys like Jordan Lyles and Mike Foltynewicz give up a lot of runs very frequently. The team has clearly shifted their investment in arm talent into younger guys. The Rangers have financed $561 million and counting in free agents this offseason, and only about a tenth of it was spent on Jon Gray.

The amount of “What if?”‘s throughout the pitching depth is promising. A.J. Alexy, Kolby Allard, Demarcus Evans, Glenn Otto, Dennis Santana, and Spencer Howard are all 25 or younger, and Jon Gray and Spencer Patton are the only two pitchers on the roster currently over age 30.

Rangers pitching stunk in 2021. No sugarcoating it. They put out a 4.79 team ERA, surrendered 232 home runs, and opponents hit .256 against them. But there were bright spots. A.J. Alexy, 23, struck out 11 batters and allowed zero runs through his first eleven innings in the big leagues. Glenn Otto, 25, had some serious consistency issues, but showed promise in his better starts. Taylor Hearn, 27, was dominant against left-handed hitting, but dealt with below-average strikeout rates and some location problems.

In terms of 2022 arm talent, it’s a real shot in the dark. Texas has a lot of young big league talent. Cole Winn is expected to make an anticipated debut in 2022, and he brings a lot of confidence and command on the mound. Jack Leiter, Ricky Venasco, and Owen White – among others – are all in the pipeline as well. There are options abound for the Rangers to find their arms of the future. They may already have a couple. It will be a process, but I believe 2022 will bring us some very positive results from some of these pitchers.

Dark Horse: Clayton Kershaw

You bet. Kershaw is rehabbing from an elbow injury, he turns 34 in March, and he’s notably from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Even at 80, 70, or even 50 percent of the pitcher he was four or five years ago, Kershaw is still a valuable asset wherever he goes. All of the upsides he could bring to Texas have been well documented, but Leiter’s debut does not need to be rushed, there are already a handful of young arms with potential for the future, and the Rangers can easily afford low-risk, high-reward pitching veterans before the playoff competition fully arrives. Kershaw will be fairly pricey, but nothing out of this universe, and he fits the Rangers as they stand like a glove.