The Rangers offense after one month

TL;DR

The Texas Rangers have played 31 games in the 2026 season, showing varied offensive performance based on different metrics. Fangraphs ranks their offense at 21st in the majors, while Baseball Reference places them 9th, indicating a mixed evaluation of their hitting capabilities.

Key points

Texas Rangers have played 31 games in the 2026 season.
Fangraphs ranks Rangers' offense 21st with a wRC+ of 95.
Baseball Reference ranks Rangers' offense 9th with an OPS+ of 105.
Rangers faced the most difficult schedule in MLB so far.
Brandon Nimmo and Josh Jung are standout offensive players.

Texas Rangers

ARLINGTON, TEXAS - APRIL 28: Josh Jung #6 of the Texas Rangers hits a runs scoring single against the New York Yankees during the ninth inning at Globe Life Field on April 28, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images) | Getty Images The Texas Rangers are 31 games into the 2026 season, and having closed the book on the month of April,\* I think it is a worthwhile time to take a look at how the Rangers hitters have fared so far. *\* Idiomatically, when we discuss the month of April in regards to the MLB regular season, we also include the few days when games are played in March. Similarly, when we talk about September, we also mean any regular season games in October. Baseball language is weird sometimes.* Big picture-wise, there is once again a fair-sized split in our Fangraphs measures the team’s offense and how Baseball Reference does. Fangraphs has the Rangers, as a team, with a wRC+ of 95, which is tied for 21st in the majors. B-R has the Rangers’ team OPS+ at 105, which is 9th in the majors.\* If you average the two out you’d end up at 100, which is, by definition, league average. So you can say that the Rangers’ offense has been above average, average, or below average so far this season, depending on how you want to measure things. *\* As a reminder, the split between FG and B-R is mainly due to the difference in park factors they apply to the Shed. B-R’s park factors have the Shed has extremely pitcher-friendly for its 2026 calculations, while FG has the Shed as more neutral.* One thing to also keep in mind is that the Rangers have played a very difficult schedule in the early going. So far in 2026, the Rangers have, per Power Rankings Guru, played the most difficult schedule on MLB.\* ESPN has the Rangers . 25 of the team’s 31 games have come against teams with a 110 ERA+ this season or better, with the other six coming against (101 ERA+) and the (91 ERA+). *\* The flip side of the difficult early schedule is that they show the Rangers as having the second-easiest schedule the rest of the way.* Below is a chart with each player’s xwOBA, wOBA, and the difference between the two numbers. All data is from Statcast. table.tableizer-table { font-size: 12px; border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #CCC; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; }

Q&A

What is the Texas Rangers' offensive ranking according to Fangraphs and Baseball Reference?

Fangraphs ranks the Rangers' offense 21st in the majors with a wRC+ of 95, while Baseball Reference places them 9th with an OPS+ of 105.

How difficult has the Texas Rangers' schedule been in the 2026 season?

The Rangers have faced the most difficult schedule in MLB according to Power Rankings Guru, with 25 of their 31 games against teams with a 110 ERA+ or better.

Who are the standout players for the Texas Rangers in terms of offensive performance?

Brandon Nimmo and Josh Jung have been standout performers, with Jung's wOBA significantly higher than his expected wOBA, while Corey Seager has struggled with a high strikeout rate.

What is the significance of the Rangers' offensive metrics being split between different sources?

The split in offensive metrics between Fangraphs and Baseball Reference highlights differing evaluations of the Rangers' performance, influenced by their respective park factors.

xwOBA

wOBA

wOBA-xwOBA

Osuna, Alejandro

.504

.483

-.021

Nimmo, Brandon

140

.370

.364

-.006

Jung, Josh

113

.368

.403

.035

Seager, Corey

130

.335

.315

-.020

Pederson, Joc

.317

.311

-.006

Carter, Evan

110

.316

.297

-.019

Smith, Josh

.300

.252

-.048

Higashioka, Kyle

.296

.282

-.014

Duran, Ezequiel

.289

.348

.059

Langford, Wyatt

.282

.000

Burger, Jake

129

.269

.272

.003

Jansen, Danny

.240

.284

.044

McCutchen, Andrew

.226

.250

.024

Haggerty, Sam

.161

.201

.040

That is…not really surprising, for the most part? Brandon Nimmo and Josh Jung are raking. Jung appears to benefitting from a little bit of good fortune, though his xwOBA is still barely behind Nimmo for second on the team among those with significant playing time.

Corey Seager is not off to a great start, even considering his xwOBA is 20 points higher than his wOBA. His biggest issue right now is that his K rate has spiked — he’s striking out over 25% of the time, compared to an 18.1% career K rate. Evan Carter’s expected numbers are also about 20 points higher than his actual wOBA.

What really jumps out to me here is the dichotomy between Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran. Smith has gotten off to an awful start to the season, while Duran has been putting up great numbers — Duran’s wOBA is almost 100 points higher than Smith’s so far this season.

In terms of xwOBA, however, Smith has actually out-performed Duran by 11 points. Smith’s wOBA is almost 50 points below his xwOBA, while Duran’s xwOBA trails his wOBA by almost 60 points.

Looking a little closer at their numbers, Duran is striking out more often than Smith (20% to 18.4%), while Smith has a 13.3% walk rate compared to Duran’s 9.2% walk rate. Fangraphs has their line drive rates as being almost identical, and has Smith with a hard hit rate higher than Duran.

Despite that, Duran has a .356 BABIP and .136 ISO, compared to a .242 BABIP and .024 ISO for Smith.

There’s been talk about Duran possibly eating into some of Smith’s playing time at second base, due to Duran’s hot start and Smith’s early struggles. When we drill down on their underlying metrics, though, Duran’s case for more playing time weakens.

The bottom two Rangers in terms of both wOBA and xwOBA are Andrew McCutchen and Sam Haggerty, two guys who are here as short-side platoon bats. This certainly helps explain why the Rangers have had so many issues against lefthanded starting pitchers this year.

The Rangers offense after one month

TL;DR

Key points

Q&A

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