{"id":495399,"date":"2026-02-24T02:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495399\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T02:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:57:07","slug":"rangers-notes-langford-smith-foscue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495399\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers Notes: Langford, Smith, Foscue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring Training is the most common time of year for teams and players to discuss extensions. As exhibition play gets underway, Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News<\/a> chatted with Rangers outfielder\u00a0Wyatt Langford<\/a> about the possibility of a long-term deal.<\/p>\n

While Langford broadly expressed an openness to the conversation, he didn\u2019t seem to feel pressure to get something done. \u201cAmazing stadium, facilities, people and leadership here. So there\u2019s really a lot to like about it. I definitely would be open to it. There\u2019s no rush to do anything,\u201d the 24-year-old said. \u201cThat\u2019s my \u2026 view on it. No matter what, I\u2019m going to be here for four more seasons, unless I get traded or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Langford broke camp in 2024 and has exactly two years of MLB service. He\u2019ll be eligible for arbitration for the first time next winter. As he mentioned, he\u2019s four years away from free agency (barring a massive change to the process in the next set of collective bargaining negotiations). He\u2019s on track to hit the market before his age-28 season.<\/p>\n

While Langford has played for roughly league minimum salaries in each of the last two years, he banked an $8MM signing bonus as the fourth overall pick in 2023. He has also earned close to $1MM over the past two seasons via the pre-arbitration bonus pool. Langford should be well positioned financially to go year by year if he wants to bet on himself.<\/p>\n

Grant writes that there haven\u2019t been any recent conversations on the extension front. He reports that they had some brief talks last offseason that didn\u2019t progress and haven\u2019t resumed. It\u2019d hardly be a surprise if the front office checks in with his representatives at Wasserman closer to Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Langford is coming off a .241\/.344\/.431 showing with 22 homers and stolen bases apiece across 573 plate appearances. He\u2019s an excellent corner outfield defender who could play center field if the club needed. They\u2019re likely to use him primarily in right field alongside\u00a0Evan Carter<\/a> and\u00a0Brandon Nimmo<\/a>, but Langford could kick in to center if Carter suffers another injury.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a year closer to free agency than Jackson Merrill<\/a> was when he signed an eight-year, $135MM extension last April. He\u2019s a better defender than Tyler Soderstrom<\/a>, who signed for $86MM at the same age and service class in December. Langford isn\u2019t going to approach the $289MM guarantee which Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a> commanded as a franchise shortstop, but his camp could seek between $150-200MM to sign away multiple free agent years.<\/p>\n

Langford is locked into an everyday outfield role, but Texas has a few position battles to sort through during camp. Although second base appeared to be one such position, Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News<\/a> writes it seems to be\u00a0Josh Smith\u2019s<\/a> job to lose. The utilityman has started both of his exhibition appearances at the keystone and been lifted mid-game along with the team\u2019s other projected everyday players.<\/p>\n

Smith seemed the in-house favorite to replace\u00a0Marcus Semien<\/a> from the time that Texas dealt the veteran infielder to the Mets for Nimmo.\u00a0Cody Freeman<\/a> had the best opportunity to push him for that job, but he\u2019s going to miss virtually all of Spring Training after being diagnosed with a fracture in his lower back. Ezequiel Duran<\/a> should step into Smith\u2019s previous role as a utility infielder.<\/p>\n

Former first-round pick Justin Foscue<\/a> has taken the bulk of his minor league work at second base. Foscue has virtually no MLB track record, however, and Texas is planning to get him\u00a0some outfield work<\/a> in camp. That\u2019d give him a better chance of winning a bench job. That hit a bit of a snag this afternoon, as the 26-year-old left Monday\u2019s game with right hamstring discomfort (relayed by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com<\/a>). Foscue had started the game at first base. He singled in his first at-bat but was removed after one inning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spring Training is the most common time of year for teams and players to discuss extensions. As exhibition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,59750,197375,462,82,79864],"class_list":{"0":"post-495399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-josh-smith-1997","11":"tag-justin-foscue","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-wyatt-langford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495399","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=495399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}