World Series 2023: Biggest Offseason Questions for Rangers and Diamondbacks
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers need to reshape parts of their respective rosters in the offseason to make it back to the World Series.
Both teams have their respective cores in place, but some key pieces from each squad could leave in free agency.
Arizona needs to rework its outfield with Tommy Pham and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. ready to hit free agency.
Texas has some work to do with its pitching staff. Nine pitchers who were under contract with the Rangers in 2023 can become free agents, and on top of that, they have to figure out their rotation without Jacob deGrom.
Arizona and Texas are far from the dire straits of roster rebuilding, but they do have to work on their one big area of need to have as complete of a roster going into the 2024 regular season.
Arizona Diamondbacks
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Arizona could lose two cornerstones of its outfield to free agency.
Pham and Gurriel should attract all sorts of interest from across the majors in an outfield market that does not have too many big names.
Cody Bellinger and Teoscar Hernandez should be the top outfield targets in free agency, but after that, there are a lot of veteran players, like Pham and Gurriel, who could end up as solid middle-of-the-lineup pieces.
The D-Backs have Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas and Jake McCarthy all on the 40-man roster, but all of them are left-handed hitting outfielders.
Pham and Gurriel worked perfectly within the Arizona lineup due to their ability to hit left-handed pitching.
Arizona is at least a year away, and maybe even two years, from calling up Druw Jones. The 19-year-old and a majority of the D-Backs' top prospects finished the minor-league season in Single-A or Double-A.
The D-Backs will probably look to sign veteran right-handed outfielders if they can't retain Pham or Gurriel.
They should at least push to sign one of them to keep some consistency within the batting order, but with the way the outfield market looks, they might not match the spending power of other World Series contenders.
Arizona's situation at third base is easier to figure out. If Evan Longoria retires, or decides not to return, the D-Backs can go into Spring Training with a platoon of Emmanuel Rivera and Jace Peterson.
The rest of the key components on the Arizona roster are set to return in 2024.
Texas Rangers
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Texas will spend most of the offseason reshaping its pitching staff.
Texas can retain closer Jose Leclerc on a $6.3 million club option, per Spotrac, and that should be one of the first offseason decisions made by the World Series champion.
Jordan Montgomery, Martin Perez, Jake Odorizzi, Aroldis Chapman, Will Smith and Ian Kennedy will all be free agents. Andrew Heaney holds a $13 million player option.
Texas will not have DeGrom for at least the first part of 2024 and Max Scherzer may not be as effective as past seasons because of his injury issues.
That leaves Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray and Dane Dunning as the easy fill-ins to the Texas rotation. Jack Leiter, the No. 5 prospect in the organization, could make a run for a rotation spot in Spring Training.
Texas showed no restraint in spending on the top free agents, so it could improve its rotation by adding one or two arms off the free-agent market if it is not confident in its current stable of hurlers.
The Rangers might throw themselves into the Shohei Ohtani conversation, but they would not have him as a pitcher right away because of his elbow surgery earlier this year.
Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Blake Snell are among the top free-agent pitchers Texas could target to improve on a rotation that will once again be supported by Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia at the plate.
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