The lesson the Rangers can learn from the Dodgers.

Most of the Texas Rangers off season talk has centered around the team wanting to shed payroll. Often times from a fan's perspective, this indicates that the team is rebuilding. The Rangers want to call it retooling.

For the last few years, the Rangers have had one of the highest payrolls in baseball. Prior to the 2022 season, the Rangers brought in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien and in 2023 added pieces Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom to a collection of players that had been previously acquired by former GM Jon Daniels.

We all know they won it all in 2023. Afterwards, we were promised by the Rangers front office that the team was going to compete for a championship every year. It hasn't happened.

The Dodgers have won it all the last two years, with no expense spared. Chris Young stated that the 2025 post season proved that you did not have to be a big spender to win. The Brewers, Guardians, Reds and Tigers all have smaller payrolls. The Brewers, Guardians, and Tigers were also in the post season in 2024. They draft and develop players. The Rangers do not and have not for a very long time.

Kipp Fagg took over as the Texas Rangers scouting director in 2009. Since that time Joey Gallo and Josh Jung are the only two position players that have made an all-star team for the Rangers that were either drafted by the Rangers or signed as an international free agent.

No pitcher drafted by the Rangers has made an all star team in the Kipp Fagg era. Yu Darvish is the only international free agent that the Rangers have signed that has made an all-star team for Texas. He was a star prior to coming to MLB.

Three home-grown all-stars, no rookie of the years, no silver sluggers, no gold glove winners in 15 years. There is no excuse for that.

Recent drafts have looked better, but is it really the Rangers doing? The Rangers landed Wyatt Langford because the Tigers chose Max Clark. The Rangers landed Evan Carter because teams passed on him because they believed he was going to go to Duke.

In 2019, the Rangers believed in Josh Jung so much that they wasted the teams next pick to take Davis Wenzel, a player that Jung shared Big 12 Player of the Year honors with and played the same position.

All those guys spent little time in the minors and are a product of their talent, not because of the Rangers ability to develop players.

There was a lot of talk in the summer about how well the Rangers had developed pitching in the minors. Show me success at the big-league level.

The Rangers almost killed Jack Leiter's career from the start by starting him in AA instead of a traditional route through the minors. After a horrible first season in the majors in 2024, Jack Leiter took a step forward in 2025. Away from globe life park however, Jack Leiter still had a 4.24 ERA. At times he is a head case.

Cole Winn was good for the Rangers out of the pen in 2025. Winn was a former first round pick in 2018. He wasn't drafted to be a bullpen guy.

Jacob Latz was a great story in 2025. He was drafted in the 5th round of the 2017 draft. There are too few stories of development like Latz and too many stories of players like Bubba Thompson, who was the Rangers first round pick of the same draft.

When you can't draft, you have to spend. The Rangers don't want to spend like the Dodgers. Fine, draft like them.

For over a decade they have been at the back half of the first round of the MLB draft. Yet they still find and develop quality players. Even for teams that spend, that's important for trade pieces. Year in and year out, the Dodgers have one of the top ranked farm systems.

If a team with unlimited pockets can see the value in drafting and developing, then surely a franchise that is trying to convince it's fanbase that it shouldn't have to spend to win can see this.

Yet for 15 years they have done nothing about it.