Is Rangers offensive outburst without star second baseman indicative of future plans?

The Texas Rangers are one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball entering the final full month of the 2025 regular season and there is a noticeable absence from that run that might surprise people.

In the team's current six-game win streak and 9-1 in their last 10 games, the Rangers have mostly been without eight stars, including Gold Glove second baseman Marcus Semien who went down with a left foot contusion on August 23.

Coming off an electric, extra-innings comeback win on Monday, Texas has closed the gap to the Seattle Mariners for the final AL Wild Card spot to 1.5 games as they enter the second of three against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix on Tuesday evening.

Second base production off charts in absence of Marcus Semien

Manager Bruce Bochy has mostly used a platoon setup at second base since losing Semien to injury a over 10 days ago. The big names have been replaced by Josh Smith, Ezequiel Duran, Cody Freeman and briefly newly-acquired Dylan Moore.

In the 10-game stretch, that setup has yielded Texas a .344 batting average, .934 OPS, two homers, six RBIs and seven runs scored. Pretty miraculous given how poor Duran was the entire season, the limited MLB experience of Freeman and the DFA'd Moore, who was hitting below .200 when waived by Seattle.

This might be a case of timing and luck over skill but in the prior 127 games with Semien the luck was limited. The Rangers went on hot streaks, some even led by Semien but the team's latest and most important run is without him.

It does go beyond the recent 10-game streak for those players though. Most notably, Duran who had a terrific month of August. In 21 games this August, the 26-year-old is slashing .318/.338/.394 with five doubles, eight RBIs, seven runs and 21 base hits.

Does this put Semien's future in jeopardy?

Long story short, no it doesn't. But it should at least make for an interesting conversation over the offseason.

Semien is now on his second-straight poor season since his All-Star, MVP-caliber 2023 season and even though he is still a positive WAR player thanks to his defense, he is slowly starting to be on the bad side of his contract.

The 34-year-old will be in year five of his seven-year deal he signed prior to the 2022 season and ies expected to earn $26 million annually for the next two years before it slightly dips to $20 million in his final season in 2028.

Freeman on the other hand is a rookie and is still in his pre-arbitration years making only hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of 20-30 million each season. He still is young and unproven and even though he's shown flashes of potential he's still only hitting .225 in 40 MLB at-bats.

While this sample size is showing positive returns in the moments and the idea of dumping salary is appealing, it likely is best to hang on to Semien, at least until he starts showing real horrific returns.