Is this outfielder's struggles a sophomore slump or Rangers' organizational failure?

Ever since Wyatt Langford was drafted fourth overall by the Texas Rangers back in 2023, he's come with this tag of being the next best thing. A clear face of the franchise that at the time was still searching for their first World Series title.

While the championship would come a few months later, the outlook on Langford's career remained the same. Especially following his brief stint in the minors after finishing his collegaite career at Florida in June.

At just 21 years old, Langford played 44 games in the Rangers' minor league system: Rookie, ball High-A, Double-A and Triple-A. He got 200 at-bats total and hit .360 across those games with 10 homers, 30 RBIs and 17 doubles.

After a stint with the big league club in spring training he made Rangers' roster coming into Opening Day 2024. He struggled out of the gate but ended the season with 19 home runs and 74 runs batted in, recording 8 of those 19 longballs in the month of September/October and was named the AL Player of the Month.

Did Wyatt Langford's 2025 expectations set him up to fail?

Huge expectations were set for him coming into 2025, with a possible All-Star selection and maybe even a surprise run at the American League MVP (highly unlikely) but the hype was there. Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out the way he or the Rangers would've liked it to.

It's important to clarify that Langford isn't having a bad year. It just feels like he and the Rangers were expecting him to do much better than he currently is. His .238 average could be better but he also has the third-most homers on the team with 14 and tied for third in RBIs at 44.

He started off the year scorching hot, hitting .299 in the months of March and April. In those 21 games he hit six long balls and drove in 12 runs and at a time where the whole team was slumping, it felt Langford was showing he could rise above it and lead this team to wins.

Then the slump came and in May, finishing the month hitting .189, the worst month of his big league career. And in just seven games to start the month of August his average is hovering around .200 as he still searches for his first homer of the month.

We hear often about the sophomore slump in the sports world, when a second-year player is coming off a hot rookie season, seems to find himself struggling a lot more.

We also can't forget this Rangers' organization, no matter who the leadership is, doesn't have the best track record of developing young talent. Whether it's a draftee that never finds his way to the majors, a player that has 1-2 years of success in MLB and suddenly is gone without a trace (Joey Gallo, Ronald Guzman, Rougned Odor) or the player gets better elsewhere.

2 struggling areas in Langford's second MLB season

Of course, there are fixable reasons for his struggles. The main one hurting Langford this season is the strikeout rate.

Known for his impeccable knowledge of the strike zone, Langford is swinging and missing at more pitches this season than in 2024. Last year, he recorded 115 strikeouts in 134 games and this season he's already at 113 in 96 games played.

His strikeout rate went from 20.6% to 27.4%, whiff rate was 22.9% and is now 26.8% and the chase rate was in the 86th percentile last year at 23% and is now at 25.7%. What does all this mean? Well he's chasing more pitches out of the zone, missing them and striking out at a higher rate. Not good.

The power is also down a little bit. With 14 home runs this year, Langford hasn't seen a ball fly over the fence in nearly a month. Entering Saturday's game against the Phillies, his last homer was July 11 in Anaheim. Before that it took him another month, hitting his 13th of the year on June 12 in Minnesota.

He had a prime opportunity on Friday in the fifth inning with bases loaded and two outs, but ended up flying out to left field to end the Rangers' potential threat.

It's completely fine to see struggles, it is a part of baseball. Hopefully this season for Langford isn't a sign of things to come and more just expected growing pains in a hopeful long career as a Texas Ranger.