{"id":277381,"date":"2025-11-11T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/277381\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T10:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T10:00:06","slug":"rangers-had-interest-in-lars-nootbaar-prior-to-october-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/277381\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Had Interest In Lars Nootbaar Prior To October Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rangers are looking for several new bats as they look to, as GM Ross Fenstermaker indicated at season\u2019s end, improve their on-base percentage and contact skills. Newly installed manager Skip Schumaker has already spoken about finding a new offensive identity. One potential target who had popped up on the Rangers\u2019 radar, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a>, was Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar<\/a>. Goold writes that the Cardinals are open to hearing what other clubs will offer on Nootbaar and adds that the Rangers and at least one other AL club had shown interest in the 28-year-old outfielder. That, however, came prior to the public revelation that Nootbaar was undergoing surgery<\/a> on both heels to address Haglund deformities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At present, it\u2019s not clear whether Nootbaar will be ready for Opening Day. Newly minted Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said two weeks ago that Opening Day is neither firmly off the table nor a guarantee for Nootbaar. His readiness (or lack thereof) is still up in the air and hinges on the speed of his recovery. It\u2019s also not clear to what extent (if any) the procedure has cooled the Rangers\u2019 interest.<\/p>\n

Even if Texas is out on Nootbaar entirely, the team\u2019s interest in him is telling in some regards. On paper, the Rangers seem to have a full outfield. Wyatt Langford<\/a>, Evan Carter<\/a> and Adolis Garc\u00eda<\/a> are currently projected to line up from left to right field. However, Garc\u00eda is coming off two consecutive poor seasons at the plate and projected to earn<\/a> more than $12MM in what\u2019ll be his final trip through the arbitration process. Given his recent struggles, mounting price tag and the Rangers\u2019 desire to improve their on-base and contact skills, Garc\u00eda stands as a trade candidate or non-tender candidate. Interest in Nootbaar, whose best defensive grades have come in right field \u2014 the same position Garc\u00eda occupies in Texas \u2014 at least supports the notion that Garc\u00eda is on somewhat shaky ground.<\/p>\n

Nootbaar\u2019s projected $5.7MM salary in arbitration is less than half that of Garc\u00eda. He also sports one of the lowest chase rate on balls out of the strike zone, per Statcast: 26th lowest among (21.5%) among the 215 big league hitters who took at least 400 plate appearances in 2025. Garc\u00eda, conversely, has the 26th-highest chase rate at a whopping 35.1%. Nootbaar\u2019s 20.4% strikeout rate isn\u2019t all that far south of league average, but it\u2019s several ticks lower than that of Garc\u00eda. Additionally, Nootbaar\u2019s contact rate is about four percentage points higher than average, while his swinging-strike rate is about 3.5 percentage points lower than average.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little sense in reading too heavily into one individual target, but interest in Nootbaar supports the idea that the Rangers, who had the tenth-highest chase rate in MLB as a team and the eight-worst walk rate, are looking for a different type of approach at the plate. Nootbaar, like Garc\u00eda, draws strong defensive marks for his corner outfield work. He lacks Garc\u00eda\u2019s raw power but still makes hard contact at plus levels.<\/p>\n

The salary discrepancy between the two players is of some note, too. When announcing at season\u2019s end that Bruce Bochy would not be returning as the Rangers\u2019 manager, president of baseball operations said that when Bochy was hired in 2022, the team had \u201ca little more certainty in terms of payroll\u201d before adding, \u201cWe don\u2019t have that at this point\u201d (link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t necessarily indicate that Texas will gut payroll in extreme fashion this winter, but Nootbaar\u2019s salary is far more palatable than a projected $12.1MM for Garc\u00eda. Texas finished the 2025 season with a payroll north of $224MM and currently is projected for a $198MM payroll in 2026 (per RosterResource<\/a>) before making a single offseason move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers are looking for several new bats as they look to, as GM Ross Fenstermaker indicated at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[17854,64,63,95953,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-277381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-adolis-garcia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-lars-nootbaar","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}