{"id":279429,"date":"2025-11-13T02:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T02:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/279429\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T02:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T02:07:13","slug":"chris-young-not-making-excuses-as-rangers-face-payroll-constraints-it-doesnt-deter-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/279429\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Young not making excuses as Rangers face payroll constraints: \u2018It doesn\u2019t deter me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 Chris Young still does not know exactly what payroll constraints the Rangers<\/a> have this offseason. Nor does he particularly care. <\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be $240 million again is all that is certain<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Whether it winds up at $220 million or $200 million or even a couple of million below, Young said Wednesday the Rangers will put together a \u201cvery good team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t feel sorry for ourselves that our payroll is going to be smaller than it was,\u201d Young said Wednesday during his media availability during the GM meetings at The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to inhibit us. I\u2019ve been on a team [the 2010 San Diego Padres] that had a $30 million payroll and was a game away from making the playoffs and lost to the World Series champion. I\u2019m a competitor. It doesn\u2019t deter me. It means we better be better at our jobs. And that\u2019s what I expect to do.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the biggest thing that we need to do is play up to our expectations. This past season and the year before, we did not do that. If we play up to our expectations, I\u2019m confident that the roster we build will be good enough to compete for a playoff spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strong words and conviction. Now comes the hard part: Figuring out how. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been over the math before, but it\u2019s worth reiterating that no amount of creativity can turn a roster currently at $190 million in commitments and lacking at least seven or eight roster spots into a contender at $200 million without a significant rearranging of the finances. <\/p>\n

That is the Rangers conundrum as winter free agency season begins. Forget the official date, but it doesn\u2019t really start until agent Scott Boras sets up his makeshift soap box and his Boras Corporation backdrop and starts pedaling puns related to his clients and potential suitors. That happened Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

And even that sent a pretty stark sign that not even Boras expects the Rangers to be big bidders in free agency for a client list that includes pitchers Dylan Cease (he pitches \u201con a level where others Cease to exist\u201d), Zac Gallen (\u201cif you want to fill a pitcher, why not a Gallen?\u201d) and Ranger Suarez (whose command makes him the \u201czone Ranger\u201d) and hitters like Pete Alonso (a whole punch of \u201cP\u201d alliteration) and Cody Bellinger (many Top Gun references). <\/p>\n

Boras didn\u2019t workshop any Rangers-related material into his 40-minute set. When asked about the club potentially scaling back payroll and its impact on his two high-profile clients on long-term deals with the Rangers (Corey Seager and Marcus Semien) all he could offer was this: <\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019m asked about payrolls, I have to say \u201cWhen don\u2019t you advance? And why don\u2019t you advance?\u201d Boras said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody wants to announce what they are going to do at this point, because they want it to be a surprise. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also have to think that in this business, like any great business, you don\u2019t move in response to an internal, subjective payroll. A few years ago, I sat down with [Young] and I said, we have two players that we think that if you sign these players, you are on a very short track to the World Series. They signed both, went way over budget and were rewarded a year later with a world championship. So, if you\u2019ve to first, and foremost, look at talent and what advantages are for your team, but the word \u2018budget\u2019 is a barrier to success in sport.\u201d <\/p>\n

What it lacked in puns, it made up for in substance. <\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Young and the Rangers\u2019 situation. Semien is making $25 million a year and Seager $32 million. Those are just the Boras clients at the $25 million level. To get the full figure, you have to include Jacob deGrom at $37 million and Nathan Eovaldi at $25 million. That\u2019s almost $150 million on four players. <\/p>\n

Would Young consider trading any of them to get some financial flexibility<\/a> to fill multiple needs with the extra resources? <\/p>\n

\u201cDo scenarios exist in which we can get better by moving those [players]?\u201d Young repeated a question presented to him Wednesday. \u201cProbably, yes. Is that our goal? No. Is it something we\u2019re actively pursuing? No. But we have an obligation to always be open-minded. So, we want to find any way we can to make this team better.\u201d <\/p>\n

It leaves some room for interpretation. A definitive no? Not quite. Nor was it any kind of an acknowledgement the Rangers are open for business. <\/p>\n

Asked another way, if the Rangers could hold on to all the contractual obligations and still finish off a contending team under the financial constraints, Young maintained focus on only one thing: Contending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won a World Series in 2023 with those contracts, and I don\u2019t see why we can\u2019t do it again, but we\u2019ve got to do a better job of building a roster that complements one another, that can play the game in a way that\u2019s going to result in and wins that allow us to hopefully win the division and then compete in the playoffs,\u201d he said. \u201cThe guys we paid big money to are great players, and they\u2019re important pieces for our success, and we need those guys to be at their best, but we\u2019ve got to build out the rest of a complete roster.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other words, no excuses. Whatever the constraints, the challenge remains the same: Win.<\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Chris Young still does not know exactly what payroll constraints the Rangers have this offseason.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[1331,49,48,40641,11713,10625,55360,462,2224,11714,82,3992],"class_list":["post-279429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-article","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-young","tag-corey-seager","tag-jacob-degrom","tag-marcus-semien","tag-mlb","tag-nathan-eovaldi","tag-rangers","tag-sports","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}