In this latest installment of the Pyramid Rating’s System all-time team series, we take our first look at the AL West and one of the most dominant teams in baseball over the last few years, the Texas Rangers. While the Rangers have enjoyed recent success, their past has not been as kind, going 20-plus seasons before finally making their first postseason appearance in 1996.

With the city-centric approach, their time spent in D.C. is not included on this team, so Frank Howard will not be making an appearance on this squad. Only their years from 1972 on were credited.

Franchise Included: Texas Rangers (AL) 1972-Present

No. of Hall of Famers on 25-man roster: 0

Manager: Ron Washington

A few years ago this would have been Johnny Oates, but under Washington the Rangers experienced their greatest stretch of success as a franchise, winning 9-plus+ games every year from 2010 to 2013, which also included three postseason appearances, two division titles and two American League pennants.

Washington’s 654 wins and 1275 games managed are both franchise highs for the Rangers, and his .521 winning percentage ranks as the highest in Rangers history amongst managers with at least three full seasons of experience.

Personal issues may have tainted Washington’s legacy somewhat, but the fact remains that no other manager to date has had more success at the helm of the Texas Rangers than Washington, and for that reason he is the manager of the all-time Rangers.

Best Overall Player and Position Player: Adrian Beltre

Perhaps the quietest superstar in baseball over the last several years, since arriving in Texas Beltre has transformed himself from a talented but inconsistent player into a sure-fire Hall of Fame candidate. Over his six years in Texas, Beltre has been a consistent .300 batting average/130 OPS+ hitter with two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers to his name, and he never has finished any lower than 15th in MVP voting.

In spite of all these offensive accomplishments, what’s been most impressive about Beltre is the quality of his defense in his advanced age. Even the greats experience a decline in defensive abilities as they age, but somehow Beltre has found a way to be as dominant as ever. Not since Graig Nettles has baseball seen as a good a defensive third baseman this late in his career. It could be legitimately argued at this point that Beltre is one of the five greatest defensive players ever to play the position.

With Beltre closing in on both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, he has reached first-ballot Hall of Fame status. If and when he is granted his proper place in Cooperstown, it should be with a Rangers cap.

Best Hitter: Josh Hamilton

The Rangers have featured a lot of great hitters during their history. As you will see in a bit, the Rangers–in spite of their limited franchise history–feature one of the best lineups in the all-time league, but one of the more special players has been Hamilton. Drug addiction and personality issues have cut short what might otherwise have been a Hall of Fame career. Being the No. 1 overall pick out of high school, talent was never the issue with Hamilton.

A Hardball Times Update by Rachael McDaniel Goodbye for now.

Luckily, though, we at least were able to get a glimpse of what might have been for a few years in Texas. For one year–in 2010–it all came together for Hamilton. That year Hamilton batted .359 with a .653 slugging percentage and a 1.044 OPS, all good enough to lead the American League. Lost in that season is also one of the more forgotten great postseason performances in baseball history, as Hamilton hit four home runs against the Yankees to win the ALCS MVP and lead the Rangers to their first World Series appearance in team history.

The following season, in the World Series against St. Louis, Hamilton hit one of the most forgotten great home runs in playoff history, a two-run drive in the 10th inning of Game Six to give the Rangers back the lead, 9-7, in what would prove to be one of the greatest World Series games in history.

Best Pitcher: Kenny Rogers

Obviously, in a league in which teams can go multiple Hall Of Famers deep in a rotation, Rogers is not a good pitcher to have as your No. 1 starter. There will be more on that later, but for now let’s focus on the positives of his career in Texas.

Most notably, Rogers pitched the first perfect game in Rangers history on July 28, 1994. Prior to that, Rogers had been a solid and durable reliever for the Rangers, leading the AL in games pitched in 1992 in addition to sporting a 3.09 ERA. The Rangers recently had decided to transfer Rogers to the starting rotation, where he would become one of the most durable starters in baseball over remainder of his career. For the 16 seasons Rogers was a starter, he only failed to qualify for the ERA title twice.

Although he would spend the second half of his career as a hired gun, Rogers always seemed to find his way back to Texas, pitching three separate stints for the team in what added up to a 12-year career with the team. In addition to these 12 seasons, Rogers was also selected as an All-Star three times, including back-to-back in 2004 and ’05, part of what would wind up being a three-year stretch that included a selection with the Tigers.

What might be most impressive about Rogers was his ability to completely shut down running games. Over 20 years, Rogers allowed just 60 successful steals (just three steals per season) in 154 attempts, giving runners a success rate of just 41 percent. There’s no question having Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate helped some of those numbers, but even without the added benefit of Rodriguez, Rogers still could be straight-up nasty. In the 12 games Rogers pitched as a Met with Mike Piazza as his backstop, Rogers still managed to allow just one stolen base.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Rogers also ranks amongst the all-time leaders in pickoffs and at one point was the all-time leader. Short of Ty Cobb and Rickey Henderson, I’m not sure if there would be any players in the American League who would be capable of consistently stealing bases off Rogers. And even so, Rogers only presents one half of the problem. You still have one of the greatest defensive catchers in baseball history behind the plate to deal with.

Best Player Not on the Roster Due to the One-Team-Only Rule: Alex Rodriguez

The most popular player not on the team is Nolan Ryan, and like Ryan, Rodriguez is a player good enough to be on multiple teams. Without the one-team-only rule, Ryan would have made the Rangers rotation. But unlike Ryan, Rodriguez was far more dominant at every stop he made. With Texas, Rodriguez posted one of the greatest three-year stretches by any player in baseball history, batting .305 with 156 home runs, 395 RBIs, and an OPS+ of 155. Not surprisingly, A-Rod won the Silver Slugger in all three seasons and finished in the top ten of MVP voting all three years, as well, winning the award in 2003 in what would be his final season in Texas.

Rarely are players with just three seasons played with a franchise given much consideration, but few of them are legitimate MVP candidates in all three seasons. Rodriguez’s short tenure would restrict him from being considered as good as Cal Ripken, even though Rodríguez in Texas was as good as Ripken ever was in Baltimore–probably even better. But even with this restriction, the Rangers version of Rodriguez probably still would be a dark horse All-Star candidate and no doubt would have provided a major offensive upgrade to an already-potent Rangers lineup.

TEXAS RANGERS STARTING LINEUPS DH vs RHP DH vs LHP Pos B T Name Pos B T Name SS R R Toby Harrah SS R R Toby Harrah CF L L Josh Hamilton CF R R Juan González 1B S R Mark Teixeira 2B R R Ian Kinsler DH L L Rafael Palmeiro 3B R R Adrián Beltré LF R R Juan González RF S R Rubén Sierra C R R Iván Rodríguez C R R Iván Rodríguez RF L L Rusty Greer DH R R Julio Franco 3B R R Adrián Beltré 1B S R Mark Teixeira 2B R R Julio Franco LF L L Rusty Greer vs RHP vs LHP Pos B T Name Pos B T Name SS R R Toby Harrah SS R R Toby Harrah CF L L Josh Hamilton CF R R Juan González 3B R R Adrián Beltré 2B R R Ian Kinsler 1B L L Rafael Palmeiro 3B R R Adrián Beltré LF R R Juan González RF S R Rubén Sierra RF L L Rusty Greer C R R Iván Rodríguez 2B R R Julio Franco LF L L Rusty Greer C R R Iván Rodríguez 1B S R Mark Teixeira P L L Kenny Rogers P L L Kenny Rogers

Strengths

Without question, the biggest strength on this team is its offense, which perfectly mirrors the success of their playoff teams of the 1990s and 2000s. In fact, the Rangers feature just two position players on the 25-man roster who did not play for the team in either the ’90s or 2000s.

Although the Rangers are a right-handed-heavy team, having Hamilton and Rafael Palmeiro on the roster allows the team to be just as deadly against righties as it is against lefties. Hamilton, in particular, could make for one of the toughest outs in this league for righties. A career .299 hitter with an OPS of .903 against right-handers, in 2010 he peaked with a .401 batting average against righties on the year, propelling him to that year’s batting title.

With Teixeira being a switch hitter and a better defensive player than Palmeiro, it allows Palmeiro to slide into the DH role against righties and see limited action against lefties. In fact, the Rangers are one of the more platoon-happy teams in the league. Of the nine starting player positions including the DH, five of them can see a different starter depending on whether or not the pitcher is a lefty or a righty.

Defensively on the infield, the Rangers also pretty solid. Ivan Rodriguez would no doubt be the odds-on favorite to win the Gold Glove, but the Rangers actually might have the second-best defensive catcher in the AL as well in Jim Sundberg. A six-time Gold Glove winner himself, Sundberg led AL catchers in defensive assists six times, defensive putouts six times, and was top five in runners caught stealing 12 times. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, not only was Sundberg the best defensive catcher in the American League, nobody else was even close.

The only two weak spots defensively on the infield are up the middle with Toby Harrah and Julio Franco, but this is impact is somewhat mitigated by Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler, both of whom can act as late-game defensive replacements and with Kinsler holding a starting role against lefties.

It’s also worth noting that the best defensive player on the Rangers may not even be on the 25-man roster. Buddy Bell could very well be the most underrated defensive player in history. Many of his contemporaries compared him to Nettles, and that comparison seems to have been a just one, as Bell ranks second all-time for defensive runs saved at third behind just Brooks Robinson. Like Robinson, Bell’s position on the Rangers is very much an unfair one relative to both how great a player he was with the Rangers and to lesser players who made the team. With Beltre firmly cemented at third, and without the bat to justify him as a DH, Bell’s skills are largely wasted on this team.

Weaknesses

The obvious one is pitching. It is a tossup between the Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays for the worst starting rotation in the American League. The Achilles heel throughout the franchise’s existence, Rogers and Charlie Hough are the only two starters I would have any confidence in going more than 150 innings. While every team carries at least ten starters, not every one necessarily will use every starter. That will not be the case with the Rangers. Even one-time All-Star Roger Pavlik would most likely be asked to take the ball for at least two starts.

The bullpen is marginally better but still amongst the league’s worst. Their closer, Jeff Zimmerman, pitched only three years for the Rangers and only became a closer in the final year of his career, but the Rangers have little else to turn to. Francisco Cordero pitched seven years for the Rangers and at his best one of the game’s best closers, but he never fully established himself as a lights-out reliever.

Jim Kern had the most dominating season of any Ranger reliever–or any Ranger pitcher for that matter–going 13-5 with a 1.57 ERA and 29 saves over 143 innings pitched, but it was the only notable season Kern ever had with the Rangers during a brief three-year tenure.

Defensively, the Rangers struggle mightily in the outfield, most notably in center field. Texas has not had a single great natural center fielder in the history of the franchise. The closest the team has had is Hamilton, and even though he saw the most amount of action in his career in center, he only played more than 100 games in center once with the Rangers and should not be considered a reliable option.

What saves the position from being a black hole is Juan Gonzalez being able to qualify for the position, having played 252 of his 1,400 career games with the Rangers in center, although to say that Gonzalez is a less-than-desirable defensive option in center field would be putting things mildly. He is arguably the worst defensive player to qualify as a center fielder on a 25-man roster in either league. A career OPS of .978 against lefties–when Gonzalez would be seeing the majority of his starts in center–makes the situation a bit more bearable, but with Hamilton’s limited ability against lefties and his proneness to injury, Gonzalez most likely will be seeing at least some action in center against righties, as well.

Every Rangers outfielder you see on the 25-man roster is there because of his bat first and foremost, and it shows, as the Rangers could have the worst defensive outfield in the American League. This probably is not a good combo to have with porous pitching in the hitter-friendly confines of Arlington, but it may help explain somewhat why the Rangers have lacked great pitching in spite of having multiple Gold Glove-caliber defensive players in the infield.

It’s worth mentioning that, despite Gonzalez’s defensive limitations, he only saw action at the DH spot in 295 games. Even with his obvious defensive limitations, not having to play Juan Gone in the outfield was rarely a luxury the Rangers could afford, and such remains the case even on their all-time team.

Having just four outfielders on the team also puts the Rangers in a situation where they never can bench more than one player at a time, but outfield depth is also an issue with the Rangers. The 40-man roster provides a bit more defensive support with Gary Mathews, Jr. and Leonys Martin, but neither has the bat to justify being a full-time starter, and Jeff Burroughs is essentially a worse less versatile version of Juan Gonzalez.

Conclusions

If this project was done twenty years ago, the Rangers would have the worst team in the American League, but in that time span perhaps no other team has improved itself more than the Texas Rangers. I still would expect to see them near–if not at–the bottom of the AL West, and I can’t envision them being anything better than a 75-win team, but they’re no longer the hands-down worst.

The lineup definitely is capable of beating any pitcher this league would throw at them, and the pitching–while still terrible–is showing signs of improvement. The back end of the rotation–comprised of Darvish, Wilson and Harrison–has emerged in the last ten years, with plenty of time for Darvish to add onto his legacy in Texas. In a few years’ time, Darvish could overtake Rogers as the No. 1 starter on this squad.

The most controversial roster move is the decision to leave Michael Young off the 25-man roster, essentially in exchange for Toby Harrah. At 13 years, Young is not only the longest-tenured Ranger not on the 25-man roster, he’s tied with Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez as the longest-tenured Ranger, period. Young is also the all-time team leader in games played, runs scored and hits. Young was also a seven-time All-Star, a former batting champion and a .301 hitter. So why the snub?

For starters, batting average is not the same as on-base percentage. Even though Harrah was just a career .259 hitter with the Rangers, there is a reason I have him batting leadoff, and that’s because of Harrah’s ability to generate walks. Five times Harrah finished in the top ten in the American League in walks, including three years in which Harrah finished no lower than second. Even though his batting average with Texas is more than 40 points lower than Young’s, his walk rate compared to Young’s is enough to give him a higher on-base percentage by ten points.

The other factor working against Young is the steroid era. As mentioned before, players were graded strictly against their counterparts, meaning OPS+ matters a lot more than OPS. With Texas, Young posted a career OPS of .791 compared to Harrah’s .745. Given Young’s experience edge, this would seem to be a slam-dunk case in favor of Young. That is, until you go to the OPS+, where Harrah actually has the advantage, 112 to 104.

Keeping in mind Harrah also struck out at a lower rate than Young even when adjusted for strikeout rate, in my opinion it’s impossible to say that Young was that much better of a hitter than Harrah without also saying hitters from the steroid era were just inherently better than hitters from the mid-to-late ’70s, which would be era bias. Given Young’s popularity, I’m sure many will disagree with this decision, and aside from Ryan, Young is arguably the next best-known Ranger not on the 25-man roster.

The biggest thing lacking from the Rangers is the absence of a true franchise great in the mold of a Stan Musial, a Ted Williams or even a Mike Trout. Many would consider Ryan to be the franchise player for the Rangers, and in 2006 Ryan was named by the fans as the Rangers’ “hometown hero,” but this vote was largely sentimental. Ryan only pitched five years with the Rangers and was only effective in three of them. Even without the one-team only rule, Ryan still wouldn’t be the No. 1 starter for the Rangers.

Beltre may go down as the first player in history to make it to the Hall of Fame mainly because of what he did with the Rangers, but even he has still played less than half of his career in Texas and needs those other 12 years to cement his HOF case. Until that situation changes, the Rangers will remain one of the worst teams in the league, but hope is very much on the horizon given their recent success. If it can be sustained for the next few seasons, the Rangers could see find themselves contending with the Royals, Twins and A’s for the division title in the near future. A few more years like the one Texas is having this year certainly will help.

The Rangers may be missing the star power to be taken seriously, but the foundation for a solid team one day is there. A true No. 1 starter or a solid defensive center fielder would do wonders to change the dynamic of this team, but if nothing else, a few more years like this one should also improve the Rangers down the road.

The final thing to mention about this Ranger squad is that, unlike the Orioles and Red Sox, which both feature rosters comprised almost entirely of players born in the United States, the Rangers are a team with a clear international and Latin influence. Eight of the 25 players on the active roster were born outside of the mainland United States, the highest percentage amongst any of the 36 teams. Not only is this reflective of the demographic makeup of Ranger teams over the past few decades, but also the major leagues as a whole.

This also will be reflected in other teams with shorter histories or recent success, but a solid argument could be made that no other team has benefitted more from the influx of Latin and international players into the majors than the Texas Rangers. And there may be no better argument for it than the number of players on this all-time Rangers team who were born in Latin America or elsewhere abroad.