{"id":165908,"date":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/165908\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","slug":"newly-acquired-brandon-nimmo-in-line-to-take-over-as-texas-rangers-new-leadoff-hitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/165908\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly acquired Brandon Nimmo in line to take over as Texas Rangers\u2019 new leadoff hitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

SURPRISE, Ariz. \u2014 First things first. There does not seem to be much question about the leadoff spot for the Texas Rangers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Even before the team\u2019s first full-squad workout began Sunday morning, Skip Schumaker said he expects there\u2019s a \u201cpretty good\u201d chance new right fielder Brandon Nimmo will top the lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a pretty good idea about it,\u201d Schumaker said when asked about the top spot, which, like almost everything else about the offense last year, didn\u2019t live up to expectations. \u201cHe\u2019s been pretty good at it for a long time. He kind of changes the dynamic of the game with slug plus on base. He can steal bases. He can face right-handers and lefties. So, yeah, there\u2019s a pretty good chance.\u201d <\/p>\n

A year ago, when the Rangers used eight different leadoff hitters, the top spot was the tip of the iceberg for an underwhelming offense. The leaodff spot ranked 27th of 30 teams in on-base percentage at .305, 28 points below league average. In OPS, it was worse: 29th at .669, more than 80 points below league average.<\/p>\n

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The Rangers moved Marcus Semien, who had held the spot from 2022-24, down in the order after an awful first month<\/a> and then tried a lot of auditions. Josh Smith, who has the lead to be the everyday second baseman, ended up taking a team-high 88 starts in the leadoff spot<\/a>. In addition, six other hitters got at least one start in the leadoff spot. The Rangers hadn\u2019t used as many as eight different hitters in the leadoff spot since 2016.<\/p>\n

The issue with Smith is that he\u2019s a decidedly worse against lefties than right-handed hitters. He had a .502 OPS against lefties; .755 against right-handers. Nimmo is much more platoon-neutral. He had a .773 OPS against right-handers last year and a .732 vs. lefties. He has a .759 OPS against lefties for his career. To use Smith at the top of the lineup would likely require the Rangers to shuffle the leadoff hitter against lefties, thus creating more moving parts. Nimmo can face both lefties and right-handers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really, really see it as competition, because he\u2019s going to play a lot, but we\u2019re also trying to figure out what\u2019s the best spot to protect other guys, too,\u201d Schumaker said.<\/p>\n

Nimmo, who turns 33 on the second day of the regular season, has more plate appearances in the leadoff spot than any other spot in the lineup for his career, but had moved lower in the New York Mets lineup the last two seasons with Francisco Lindor getting more time at the top. A year ago, Nimmo had most of his at-bats in the Nos. 4-5 spots.<\/p>\n

Wyatt Langford wants \u2018whatever\u2019s best\u2019 as Rangers work out plan for him, Evan Carter in CF<\/a>Texas Rangers add veteran Mark Canha on minor league deal for right-handed hitting depth<\/a><\/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":"SURPRISE, Ariz. \u2014 First things first. There does not seem to be much question about the leadoff spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1816,32775,1638,32767,6812,1032,154,27,29,28,429],"class_list":{"0":"post-165908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brandon-nimmo","10":"tag-brief","11":"tag-marcus-semien","12":"tag-rangers","13":"tag-skip-schumaker","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-texas-headlines","17":"tag-texas-news","18":"tag-texas-rangers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}