The Texas Rangers have kept the stars of their 2023 World Series team together through three seasons since the title. With baseball's executives gathered in Las Vegas this week, the club's top baseball official said that could change.
Chris Young, the club's president of baseball operations, told reporters Tuesday that Texas is willing to listen on its three largest contracts, the deals belonging to shortstop Corey Seager and starting pitchers Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi.
"As I said last week, we're very open-minded and we're looking at this from a different lens, maybe than where we've been," Young said, according to MLB.com. "And it doesn't mean that we're going to make any significant deals. It doesn't mean that we're close-minded to those, either."
A flat budget and a .500 club
The backdrop is a 2027 payroll Young has said will look about like this year's, around $190 million, for a team that went 80-82 and missed the postseason again. Texas has not finished above .500 since the title run, Bleacher Report noted, and the Astros won the AL West this year at 81-81.
Young pushed back on the idea that Texas has to dump salary. "We're not under financial duress to say we've got to shed these contracts," he said. "That's not the case." He also said any combination is possible, from moving none of the three to moving all of them.
Other clubs inquired about Seager during last December's Winter Meetings and at this summer's trade deadline, MLB.com reported. Texas was not seriously listening then. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported this week that the Rangers now intend to explore a Seager deal while in Las Vegas.
Why Seager is hard to move
Any trade starts with Seager's approval. He reached 10 years of service time with five straight in Texas, which gives him the right to veto any deal, and he has reached the midpoint of a 10-year, $325 million deal that began in 2022. He is owed $32.5 million next year and will be 33, per MLB.com.
His 2026 season will not help the sales pitch. Seager hit .227 with a .736 OPS, both career lows, and struck out 103 times in 102 games, Bleacher Report noted. Two injured-list stints for back inflammation and a stay on the seven-day concussion list cost him time, and he had a bone spur taken out of his right elbow once the season ended.
