The Rangers decided to add at this year’s trade deadline and acquired several arms to beef up the pitching staff. Merrill Kelly was the headliner, but the team also swung deals for Danny Coulombe and Phil Maton in an effort to make up for somewhat lacking production from the club’s offense. That strategy, unfortunately, hasn’t worked. The Rangers’ position in the standings hasn’t changed much as they’ve remained stuck around .500, as has been the case for most of the year.
With the start of September just a few days away, a Rangers club that has been on the cusp between contending and retooling all season is now faced with one final point of decision-making: Should they stay the course and hope for a white hot September that pushes them into the postseason? Or should they throw in the towel and try to sneak back under the luxury tax after the club’s deadline trades pushed their projected payroll slightly over the edge?
They have the opportunity to do the latter if they put Kelly, Coulombe, Maton, and other veterans on expiring deals through waivers. If those players get claimed, they’ll move on to the claiming team and the Rangers will be off the hook for the final month of their salary. Aside from those players who were added at the trade deadline, other expiring deals like those of Chris Martin, Patrick Corbin, Shawn Armstrong and Hoby Milner could make sense for the team to make available. Even Adolis Garcia, who remains under club control via arbitration for the 2026 season, could make sense to make available on waivers given his status as a potential non-tender candidate.
Doing so might give the team additional financial flexibility for the offseason as they look ahead to 2026. Ownership preferred to remain under the tax threshold and reset its penalty levels this past offseason. Their deadline push was made with the team’s postseason odds around 40-50%. Those odds have plummeted, with FanGraphs giving them a 7.2% chance and PECOTA pegging them at 9.8%.
Texas would avoid paying roughly one-sixth of the full season salary for any player who gets claimed off waivers. That means parting ways with Kelly (who is making $7MM this year) would save the club around $1.2MM. Cheaper players like Maton ($2MM) would only shave a little over $300K off the team payroll if claimed.
Of course, saving that money doesn’t do much for the club if it isn’t enough to put them under the luxury tax, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to shed enough money to do so. The team saw with Jon Gray earlier this month that there’s no guarantee a player will be plucked off waivers just because he’s been placed there.
The Rangers’ next most expensive pending free agent is Tyler Mahle, and he’s only just resumed throwing off the mound as he tries to work his way back from a rotator cuff strain. It’s hard to imagine a team placing what’d be a roughly $2.75MM bet that Mahle would not only be able to make it back by season’s end but also return to his prior levels of efficacy. It’s a similar situation with Martin, who has been out since late July with a calf strain and still isn’t on a rehab assignment (though he’d amount to a less costly $916K gamble).
Looking beyond the financial aspect of Texas’s decision, it’s worth considering the club’s position in the standings. The 67-67 Rangers have gone just 10-14 since the trade deadline and have lost 12 of their last 20 games. They’ll need a winning percentage a lot better than .400 in September if they’re going to have any hope of making the postseason. Still, a playoff berth isn’t entirely out of the question. Texas is currently 4.5 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot, which is held by the Mariners. They’re six games back of the Yankees in the second AL Wild Card spot as well as the Astros for the AL West title. They still play Houston six times and also have three-game sets with the Brewers and Mets. Their other 16 games are against teams with losing records.
Those six games against the Astros in September give the Rangers more control over their destiny than most clubs have by this point on the calendar. Perhaps that’s reason enough to stay the course. After all, it would be disappointing for the organization if a rare healthy season from Jacob deGrom went to waste.
On the other hand, the club’s core of players is facing some health challenges. Evan Carter, Marcus Semien and Nathan Eovaldi have all been shelved with what are very likely season-ending injuries in recent days. The loss of Martin in the bullpen has also been a real blow, and it’s unclear if he’ll make it back to the field before the end of the season.
How do MLBTR readers think the Rangers should handle their situation? Should they place a handful of short-term veterans on waivers to try to duck under the tax line and save money for another run in 2026, or would it be best to keep the team together and try to win this year despite dwindling playoff odds and mounting injury concerns? Have your say in the poll below:
Not really sure why they bought as heavily as they did to begin with. The Kelly trade was particularly short-sighted.
Simply because PECOTA and FanGraphs projected percentages of making the playoffs numbers are terrible. That said, they do have some useful stats, but the mentioned above are horrible.
Yes, waive Kelly so the Mets can grab him ASAP.
Kelly wouldn’t make it to the Mets. He’d get grabbed before they had a chance.
KC, Cleveland, and Cincy are all ahead of the Mets on the claiming order. As budget-minded as they are, for only $1.2 million, they’d have to take a shot at him.
Time to waive the white flag on this season. Eovaldi going down pretty much solidified that. Prepare for 2026.
Is this good for the overall baseball talent level? Are the replacement Rangers any better than those who would lose playing time to the new waiver claims?
The one crazy part I took from this post is DeGrom. I would of bet the farm and the tractor on the Rangers making the playoff, if DeGrom had a healthy year like he’s having. I guess there was just to many other key injuries.
Everybody has injuries and perhaps Rangers had somewhat more than a fair share, But Jung, Semien, Pederson, Burger and Adolis Garcia all underperformed,as did both catchers. The Rangers have given up less runs than any team in baseall, and their run differential (+63) is fourth in the AL, best in their division (Hous (+14); Sea (+24)), suggesting either some really bad luck or some unfortunate managerial decisions, or some of both. The offseason failure to replace Kirby Yates was a mistake,as the leverage relievers never seemed to have clear roles. Estevez, Jansen and Chapman, each of whom would likely have made a big difference, all signed for about $10 million per, Texas biggest acquisition was $5.5 million for Martin, a 39 year old with 14 career saves. There’s a fair amount of blme to go around.
@Plugnplay: It’s the same issue as with the Mets. Rangers are only 13-12 in deGrom’s starts despite his 2.79 ERA and 133 ERA+. No idea what is going on but deGrom is one of those chronically unlucky pitchers.
Im guessing deGrom leaves a lot of games with the lead and the BP cant close out the game. That said, deGrom only averages 5 2/3 innings leaving the BP 3 1/3 innings to cover on average.
Cots and Spotrac have the Rangers’ CBT payroll slightly under the first luxury tax threshold. Do we know exactly where they sit?
That’s a good question Mark. If they are truly under already, this article is all for nothing.
With their IL growing, seems like the Rangers are falling further into the penalty, if they weren’t in it already.
The article needs to factor in the fact that if you let someone get claimed on waivers, you are replacing the player with a (best-case scenario) player making the minimum, so you’re not saving quite as much as it’s saying.
Still should be very doable for the Rangers to go back under if that’s the path they choose.
I think MLBTR readers should know that the assertion in this article that the Rangers’ “deadline trades pushed their projected payroll slightly over” the luxury tax threshold is false.
No, they didn’t.
The Rangers might run some or all of those players thru waivers but regardless of whether any of them are claimed the team will finish under the threshold without much room to spare.
But they still have had enough wiggle room to be adding minor league contracts of veteran MLB players to the AAA post-trade deadline viz: Omar Narvaez and Dylan Moore (today). They wouldn’t be doing that if they were having to count their pennies to make sure they were gonna stay under the luxury tax threshold.
*Please stop repeating the falsity that the Rangers deadline trades pushed them over the luxury tax threshold.* I’m not the only one who has pointed out that they didn’t but apparently it’s fallen upon deaf ears wrt this particular author.
All posts about the luxury tax are guesses. The final payroll number will not be known until after the season ends.
You don’t know that for a fact. Whatever site you’re using for reference cannot ever be accurate. If they could, they would all have the same numbers. But they don’t. They don’t know all of the specifics on pension and health benefit contributions, which also count towards the threshold. Also consider that actual payroll and CBT payroll are two different things. When a team acquires a player by trade in mid-season, they pay the player only for that part of the season in which he played for them. But his entire year’s salary is counted against them for CBT purposes.
@geofft: that’s not true about the entire year’s salary. The salary gets split proportionally between the teams who controlled the player. That’s why teams put players on waivers, hoping someone else eats a part of the salary. That’s how the Angels got under the threshold in 2023.
That is the case for waivers, not for trades.
If the player is put on waivers and claimed by another team, then the second team is responsible for the balance of the CBT amount. That’s what the Angels did.
If a veteran signs a minor league contract, he doesn’t count toward the CBT until/unless he’s added to the 40-man roster. They can stockpile depth without increasing their CBT payroll.
Yes. but the major league players they’ve already acquired will count full salaries towards the CBT, not just the 1/3 of the season that the Rangers are actually paying them in real dollars.
CBT commitments are split by service time. If a player is with the Rangers for 64 days, then 64 days of his contract counts toward the Rangers CBT, assuming it’s the last year of his contract. Teams can make deals to rearrange the liability, but in general, they pay for the time they have the player.
Us mariners and Astros are still catchable so I think they should keep trying to win
Kelly was the guy I wanted the Red Sox to get. He’d be a perfect final piece to add for their playoff run.
All of the Rangers moves, both at the deadline and just recently lead one to believe that the Rangers are confident that they’re under the luxury tax. It also wouldn’t make sense to push the payroll over the threshold with Kelly & Co. with a .500 team when they had already decided not to spend last off-season.
I couldn’t find the relevant information in that mess of words
How much do they need to save to get under the CBT threshold and how much would each player save them?
Maybe the paid articles include useful information? Not worth the gamble to find out.
No one other than the front office and the Commisioner’s office has the exact CBT numbers. Everyone else is just speculating. If you don’t want to take “the gamble”, then don’t. That’s a separate issue.
bham
“No one other than the front office and the Commisioner’s office has the exact CBT numbers. ”
We don’t need the exact ones. Just an idea.
How can you decide if you should try and get these players claimed or not with the specific goal of trying to get under the CBT number, if you have no idea how much payroll has to be shed and how much each player in question could save them?
Without those, there’s no point in answering the question. And I am SURE that almost no one who answered took the time to figure them out.
MLBTR just catering to, and perpetuating, uninformed fans.
We can speculate based on general numbers. You seemed to be asking for exact numbers, and my reply was that we don’t have exact numbers. I think the main question is, should Texas continue to try to make the post-season? If not, then the next question is, should they try to get below the first threshold? If they reset the clock last off-season, then that is not as impactful. I voted against putting players on waivers, because it doesn’t matter much in the big scheme of things, and trying to win games for the rest of the season means more to the players and the fans.
He’d never fall to us but Coulombe would be a really nice addition to the Jays bullpen.
The Rangers buying in the first place seemed kind of odd. Kelly has been alright, Maton not so much and Coulombe has been awful.
On the plus side Patrick Corbin has actually turned in a decent season for the first time in what seems like forever
With the expanded playoffs, MLB needs to move the trade deadline back into August, maybe as late as August 15th. Teams need a little more time to suss out whether they are contenders or not.
“That strategy, unfortunately, hasn’t worked” is NOT how you use unfortunately in a sentence. You either put it at the start with a comma after it or at the end with a comma before it. NOT in the middle, interrupting syntax.