Texas Rangers: 5 obstacles Texas had to overcome to make the playoffs

#4 The consistent failures of the bullpen

There is a famous phrase that says, "you get what you pay for" and that is an apt description for the Texas Rangers bullpen. The last offseason they spent 1.5 million on bringing in free agent help by signing Will Smith a week before camp started. It was an absurd decision to not invest more in the bullpen not only in hindsight but in the moment as well. It has cost them several games. They have one of the lowest save percentages in all of baseball currently. They also have a historically low save percentage as a team. Evan Grant recently made note of this and how amazing it is that they actually have a winning record.

The bullpen is the one element of this team that has really held this team back. If they had just a slightly better bullpen they would have clinched the division days if not weeks ago.

Texas through sheer determination got back up each time the bullpen blew a game and came back the next day and did not let it deter their season. They never made a big deal of it and never got into a blame game and just kept on trying to play winning baseball every day. They were able to quickly flush failures and move onto the next day. That does not apply solely to the bullpen. It applies to the entire team. That mentality allowed the team to not be sunk by the consistent bullpen failures.

Next: An injury prone pitcher is lost for the season due to injury