How can the Rangers get back to the World Series? Start with the Astros first

A slow start after a long October run. A whole serviceable starting rotation on the injured list. Intermittent and inconsistent performance from an aging future Hall of Famer. This is how the summer went for the Texas Rangers. Also for the Houston Astros. From then on, their paths diverged.

The Rangers, despite a few isolated bright spots, never got going and ended their season on Sunday with a record of 78-84, a year after winning the World Series. A down season will always feel a little better with a new pennant hanging from the rafters, but the team down in Houston presents a stark juxtaposition of the alternative and what champions can aspire to in the final days of their reign.

Despite failing to reach 90 wins in a full season for the first time since 2016, the Astros won the AL West for the seventh time in eight seasons and are seeking their eighth straight ALCS appearance in October.

With a ring on their fingers, the challenge for franchise leaders from Chris Young to Corey Seager is now different, and the success is something like that of the Astros: repeated cracks in the playoffs, even if you don't get all the breaks. So how big is the gap? And what can the Rangers do to close it?

There's an obvious problem with trying to emulate the Astros. You can't plan your path to Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. Then again, five years ago that sentence would have included Carlos Correa and George Springer. High-profile departures have neither stopped nor particularly slowed down the franchise's momentum.

And that points to the giant iceberg beneath the surface of every major league team. The front office efforts aimed at unlocking potential, making good players better and keeping great players great have become increasingly complex and important.

On average, MLB teams used 48 batters and 28 pitchers in 2024, up from 44 batters and 23 pitchers just a decade ago. Getting the most out of each player requires staying ahead of the game in major league scouting, player development, transactions and coaching. There are a lot of moving parts, but in many cases the parts of the roster you can't plan for during spring training are the time between a postseason appearance and an extra month of golf.

If last year's title-winning team was inspiring in part because it showed what motivated spending can do, then this year's decline is a reminder of what expensive free-agent deals can't solve. Sometimes hitters still working to establish themselves suffer years of losses, as was the case with Jonah Heim. Sometimes batsmen in their 30s have down years that could indicate a slip-up, as Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia demonstrate. That all three batters have slipped into below-average territory through park-adjusted OPS+ is both bad timing and a reminder that a core is almost never as stable as it seems.

There must be new waves of talent on the way all the time. Wyatt Langford, Josh Jung and Evan Carter were expected to easily fill the gap in the lineup, only for the trio to be hampered by injuries and rookie issues. If the pitchers had more answers, the Rangers might have been able to stay in the standings long enough for Langford's rise to peak in September.

If you're looking for the biggest divide between the Astros' perennial playoff machine and the Rangers' current demeanor, it's on the mound. With a long list of injured pitchers missing most or all of the season – including Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, Cristian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr. – the Astros not only took advantage of organizational depth, but also steadily improved it.

First they found what they were looking for with 31-year-old Ronel Blanco. They then invested time and starts in Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti, who each made significant changes to their approaches and found success on the track. A rotation that posted a mediocre 4.24 ERA in the first half shot to a 3.22 ERA after the All-Star break, second in MLB. Brown posted a 2.26 ERA in the second half in his 12 starts, while Arrighetti posted a 3.30 ERA in his last 11 starts after reaching the break with a 5.63 mark.

No one wants to spend the summer conducting a starting pitcher fire drill, but the Rangers were among a growing number of major league teams all too familiar with that reality. Young's moves toward the 2023 trade deadline were crucial to producing a World Series winner, but that can't be a recurring plan. If the Rangers want to maintain an open competitive window, talent will have to bubble up from the minors – something that hasn't been common for this team on the pitching side.

Those within the organization, riding high on Kumar Rocker's rise, are optimistic that something will change soon.

“We have not been able to develop our own staff for 15 years,” said deputy general manager Ross Fenstermaker Morning News earlier this month. “There have been some successes along the way, but I think we are closer to that goal than ever before. I think we’re on the verge of achieving something.”

The Rangers deserve credit for seizing the opportunity to sign Rocker, an elite college prospect, after his unconventional entry into the pro ranks. But real change on the player development front needs to be proven by others. Can this team help Jack Leiter adjust to the level of competition in the majors? Can it turn guys like Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning into a stable of trusted options rather than emergencies? Can it help a pitcher or two realize unforeseen potential like Houston did with Blanco and Framber Valdez before him?

This is the project for the Rangers. While they have Seager and Jacob deGrom in tow, they need to build some kind of backup that replenishes itself to make more of the years that don't go according to plan. For better or worse, they got a close look at what a baseball machine looks like. Now Texas must build its own.