The news cycle only spins forward, never gazes back. Lane Kiffin’s jumping ship. What comes next? Well, that’s the easy one: Chaos. But we digress. The Cowboys win three in a row. What’s that mean come playoff time? The Rangers trade Marcus Semien. What happens at second?
It’s just the way things work now. Eyes always forward. But in the wake of Thanksgiving when we’re supposed to be grateful, and a host of Rangers moves in the days leading up to the holiday, it’s at least worth an appreciative glance back.
In not tendering contracts to Adolis Garcia, Jonah Heim and Josh Sborz and trading Semien to the Mets, the Rangers let go four more key pieces from the only World Series-winning team in their history. Contrary to popular belief, time moves fast in baseball. It’s barely two years since the Rangers captured their first World Series title. The commissioner’s trophy has barely had time to gather dust, and yet, if you are counting, there are now just six players who appeared in the 2023 World Series left on the 40-man roster. Seven, if you count Ezequiel Duran, who didn’t play, but was on the roster. Eight if you throw in new coach Travis Jankowski.
The Dallas Morning News printed three commemorative front pages the day after the series was clinched. You can make out the faces of eight different players in those covers. Of them, only Josh Smith remains. Look, the longest-tenured Ranger is now … Corey Seager, who debuted with the team in 2022.
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In baseball lore, the 2023 team will go down as one-off wonders, who got hot at the right moment and broke season-long trends of blown leads and road struggles to set a post-season record for a road winning streak. Before they won the World Series, they had six consecutive non-winning seasons. Since, they’ve had two. To baseball, they were a fluke.
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To Ranger fans: They were divinely sent and they should be remembered that way.
Some time during the 2026 season, all are likely to return to Arlington for a series. They should get the full video montage treatment and a hearty ovations. As far as their receptions are concerned, time should stop with 2023.
Garcia struggled the last two years, sure. But what you’ll remember is that even when this team had no pulse in 2021 and 2022, Garcia provided a heartbeat. When moments mattered most in 2023, and always against the Houston Astros, Garcia found a way to elevate his game. On a team that was business-like, at its best, Garcia was the primal scream that gave it life.
After the Rangers couldn’t hold the lead he gave them with a three-run homer in Game 5 of the ALCS, he put the punctuation mark on the must-win in Game 6 with a ninth-inning grand slam. The momentum of that only carried over to Game 7 when he hit two to slam the door on the Astros and take home the ALCS MVP. He followed it up with a walkoff homer in Game 1 of the World Series. Seager was the World Series MVP; García was the team’s postseason MVP.
Texas Rangers right fielder Adolis Garcia hits a home run in front of Houston Astros catcher Martin Maldonado during the third inning against the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Monday, Oct. 23, in Houston.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Semien struggled the last two years, too (really, among the Rangers, who hasn’t). But in 2023, he started every game, regular, All-Star and postseason. 180 of them. A major league record. And, as the Rangers leadoff hitter, too, he came to bat more often than any hitter in any season ever before. He came up 835 times – 837 if you include the All-Star Game. All the while, he played Gold Glove-caliber defense and found a way to both score and drive in 100 runs. Oh, yeah, was there for the birth of his daughter in the middle of the playoff run and still didn’t miss a game. Then, after catching his breath, he homered in the final two games of the World Series to put it away.
If the best description of that Rangers team was “all business,” Semien was the CEO. On the field all the time. Productive. And often the team spokesman, too. He was the pro’s pro in 2023.
Heim (cue the “last two years disclaimer) was an All-Star in 2023, damaged a ligament in his wrist that might have needed surgery, but came back in barely two weeks. Though he wasn’t offensively the same, he started regularly down the stretch and all 17 games of the World Series. His two-run homer in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series gave the Rangers the ability to breathe.
Sborz, who appeared in just 17 games in 2024 and none this past season due to shoulder issues, left it on the field in the postseason run. He fortified the bullpen, allowing one run in 12 innings while striking out 13. The last of that baker’s dozen was Arizona’s Ketel Marte, looking at a high curveball that set off that momentarily delayed reaction before Sborz slammed his glove to the ground and the Rangers began their first-ever reign as World Champions.
Of the quartet, Sborz could still return. The Rangers didn’t tender him a contract that would have cost them at least $1 million in guaranteed money and a spot on the roster, but he could still sign a minor league deal laden with incentives. He’s been through all his rehab here, knows the Rangers medical personnel well and, given the state of the bullpen, there is opportunity for him to quickly ascend to a leverage role if healthy.
Either way, their chapters in Rangers history should not be remembered for how it ended, but rather for how they helped change Rangers history.
Besides, we can count how many bridges in Baton Rouge cross the Mississippi River tomorrow and figure out how long it will take Kiffin to burn them all.
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