Rangers Notes: Outfield, Garcia, Duran

The Rangers have faced plenty of questions about their outfield mix throughout the spring, as both Wyatt Langford and Adolis Garcia have been slowed by oblique issues. While both avoided a serious injury, Langford has only recently returned to game action and Garcia is further behind. Fortunately, Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News reported earlier today that Garcia resumed swinging a bat today, putting both players in position to be ready for Opening Day on March 27.

That leaves the outfield corners more or less settled, with Langford and Garcia expected to patrol left and right field on a regular basis respectively. Center field remains something of a question mark, however. The club has both Evan Carter and Leody Taveras on the roster as solid options, and given his prospect pedigree it seems likely that Carter would have a leg up when it comes to regular playing time. With that being said, the club’s plans for center field remain very much up in the air due primarily to both Carter and Taveras struggling against left-handed pitching. Carter has hit just .081/.150/.081 against southpaws to this point in his young MLB career, and the switch-hitting Taveras’s .189/.270/.244 line last season wasn’t much more inspiring.

Without a clear option in center field against lefties, it seems increasingly likely the club could look to find a way to get either Kevin Pillar or Sam Haggerty onto the roster. Both Pillar and Haggerty are in camp as non-roster invitees but have solid track records against left-handed pitching and an ability to handle center. Pillar has plenty of experience as a glove-first outfield option over his 12 year MLB career, and even entering his age-36 season he retains the ability to mash opposite-handed pitching with a .310/.352/.500 line against lefties last year. Meanwhile, Haggerty has never had a regular role in the majors but is a career .263/.355/.452 hitter against southpaws, even better than Pillar’s career numbers. With that said, Haggerty has primarily played the outfield corners throughout his career to this point while Pillar is much more experienced in center.

Regardless of whether Pillar or Haggerty ultimately makes the roster, adding either to the mix would squeeze the club’s roster. One possible route could be optioning Carter to the minor leagues, where he has just eight games at the Triple-A level under his belt. That would cleanly allow the club to maximize its versatility while using a platoon of Taveras and either Pillar or Haggerty in center field but it would also mean further delaying the potential impact of Carter, who was a consensus top-5 prospect in the sport entering last season. If the Rangers want Carter on the roster for Opening Day, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News suggests that utility man Ezequiel Duran could be headed to Triple-A to start the season.

Duran, 25, had a brilliant season for the Rangers in 2023 but struggled badly last year with a 74 wRC+ last year. While a right-handed hitting utility player like Duran could seem like an obvious platoon partner for Carter or Taveras in center, he hit just .209/.250/.244 in 46 games against lefties last year. That work totaled just 92 plate appearances, so perhaps it should be taken with a grain of salt, but more pressing that Duran’s vanishing bat against southpaws last year is his lack of experience in center. He’s made just 16 professional appearances in center field throughout his career, and only one inning of that work came at the big league level. That could make Duran the odd man out on the club’s current roster, with fellow utility man Josh Smith potentially in line to take on additional duties in his stead.