3 regrets the Texas Rangers should already have about the 2023-24 offseason

Texas should be more involved in Josh Hader's market

While the rotation gets most of the attention, the Rangers' bullpen needs a lot of work. Will Smith and Chris Stratton have already left and signed with the Royals and the rest of the guys remaining on Texas' bullpen depth chart outside of Jose Leclerc don't exactly move the needle. In a vacuum, Texas should be targeting the best reliever on the market, Josh Hader.

Hader would instantly provide a huge boost to Texas' relief corps. Over the last seven seasons, Hader has established himself as one of the best relievers in baseball and is coming off a 2023 season where he posted a 1.28 ERA with the Padres and struck out 85 batters in 56.1 innings of work. Outside of a weirdly down 2022 season, Hader has been the quintessential lockdown reliever since he made it to the majors in 2017.

However, as the offseason has gone on, there has been little to no indication that Texas has been interested at all beyond idle speculation. Hader is probably going to require $20+ million a year which is a lot for any reliever and Texas' payroll situation probably isn't helping, but the Rangers' bullpen is not in a good spot going forward and they need to get a plan together to address it and soon.

Even if Hader isn't their jam, Texas needs to do more for their rotation. The Kirby Yates signing isn't uninteresting as he had his moments with the Braves, so there has been some progress here. That said, it is going to take more than just Yates to cover for just their free agent losses, let alone putting together a bullpen that is actually going to be better than last year's underachieving group.

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