Texas Rangers winter checklist as MLB officially shifts into offseason mode

Now that Game 7 of the World Series is over and we have a new champion of baseball, the MLB offseason has officially begun.

After finishing the year 81-81 and missing the playoffs for the second straight season, the Texas Rangers will have a big task ahead after losing 11 players to free agency, including some vital foundational pieces.

Once the year ended, President of Baseball Operations Chris Young said the team would cut cost but still remain competitive. Therefore, this winter for Young and manager Skip Schumaker will need to explore every option they can.

Breaking down the Rangers checklist for the 2026 offseason

Rebuild bullpen (again)

Since the regular season ended it's been a point of conversation that the Rangers will once again need to rebuild their bullpen. That will mark the second straight season they will have to do so.

Now that players have officially been moved to the free agent pool, the Rangers only have a handful of bullpen options guaranteed to be in Surprise for spring training. One of the best bullpen options, Shawn Armstrong, along with Danny Coulombe, Phil Maton, Chris Martin and Hoby Milner are all on the open market.

The best option is to re-sign Armstrong and Maton, with an option to do so for Milner as well. As far free agent relievers, the Rangers have been recently linked to Devin Williams and could finally have their established closer in Ryan Helsley. Outside of those, former Ranger draft pick Pete Fairbanks, alongside Rasiel Iglesias and Tyler Rogers.

Sure up starting rotation

There's not much work that needs to be done from this standpoint after already being one of the best pitching staffs in baseball in 2025. It especially won't need much given that Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter will return to headline the rotation.

Rangers however do face challenges in the back half of the five-man rotation with the departures of Merrill Kelly and Tyler Mahle to free agency and the uncertainity of Kumar Rocker. They will hopefully get a fully healthy Cody Bradford back but again he will not have pitched in a MLB game since Sept. 25, 2024.

How does Texas fix that? It could help to re-sign Mahle, who when healthy had been one of the most dominant pitchers for the Rangers last season. The other option would be to hit free agency and the most appealing names would be Framber Valdez, Zac Gallen or Ranger Suarez.

Upgrade offense

The good news is the Rangers hopefully can't get worse than one of the bottom five offenses in the league. It is clear that the mindset does need to change though. Get away from the homer or nothing attitude and focus on putting together good at-bats and getting contact.

One of those moves mean getting rid of the slackers on the team: Adolis Garcia and Jonah Heim. They are two likely trade candidates due to their massive decline from their 2023 seasons but even those trades won't happen unless they can find a way to replace them.

During the month of October, Texas has been linked as a potential trade candidate for Boston's Jarren Duran, Philadelphia's Nick Castellanos and a free agent suitor for power hitter Kyle Schwarber. If we dig further into the wish list, first baseman Pete Alonso hits the market, as well as Ryan O'Hearn, Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger.