2023 Texas Rangers Preview: Futures Odds, Lineup, Rotation, Bullpen Projections
Nick Galaida is here to break down the Texas Rangers’ pitching rotation and lineup as he prepares you for the 2023 MLB season. Follow along for an in-depth preview, along with a look at current odds, projections, and picks. Get a head start on the baseball action with PrizePicks Promo Code GRINDERS for a $100 deposit bonus.
Last season, the Texas Rangers once again finished an underwhelming 68-94 during the regular season, despite securing prized offseason additions Marcus Semien and Corey Seager. Heading into 2023, the Rangers spent aggressively in free agency again – this time, securing Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, and Andrew Heaney.
Below, we take a look at this roster position-by-position ahead of their Sunday Night Baseball matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies. We have insight into the futures market and leans for PrizePicks this evening!
Texas Rangers – Sunday Night Baseball DFS Pick’em
- PrizePicks Projection: Martin Perez more than 4.5 strikeouts
- PrizePicks Projection: Jonah Heim less than 0.5 strikeouts
- PrizePicks Projection: Nathaniel Lowe more than 1.5 hits+runs+RBIs
- PrizePicks Projection: Marcus Semien less than 0.5 runs
- PrizePicks Projection: Corey Seager o7.5 fantasy score
Starting Lineup
Catcher, Jonah Heim
- MVP Odds: +25000
- PrizePicks April 2 Projection: Jonah Heim less than 0.5 strikeouts
In 2022, Jonah Heim had a pop time worse than the league average, ranking in the 32nd percentile. However, he was an elite framer behind the plate, ranking in the 98th percentile among qualified players.
At the plate, he did enough to make people talk more about his framing than about his inability to be productive with the bat in his hands. He finished the year ranked in the 49th percentile in HardHit%, with a walk rate and strikeout percentage both slightly better than the league average hitter. He was far better against left-handed pitching than he was against right-handed pitching. Against southpaws, he had a 137 wRC+ and a .833 OPS, compared to an 83 wRC+ and a .640 OPS against right-handers.
First Base, Nathaniel Lowe
- MVP Odds: +20000
- PrizePicks April 2 Projection: Nathaniel Lowe more than 1.5 hits+runs+RBIs
Last summer, Nathaniel Lowe played 157 games for the second consecutive year, hitting a career-best 27 home runs. He was at his best against southpaws, with a 164 wRC+ and a .920 OPS, compared to a 133 wRC+ and an .817 OPS against right-handed pitching.
Overall, he ranked in the 75th percentile in HardHit% and 73rd percentile in average exit velocity as he established himself as one of the better hitting third basemen in baseball. He still chases bad pitches outside of the strike zone too often, but management will certainly live with it considering his 30-homer potential.
Second Base, Marcus Semien
- MVP Odds: +10000
- PrizePicks April 2 Projection: Marcus Semien less than 0.5 runs
Marcus Semien’s first season in Texas looks extremely underwhelming on the surface – and it was. However, he had a much better second half of the campaign. He did not hit a home run in his first 187 plate appearances with his new team, but had 26 home runs and batted .267 over his final 537 trips to the plate in 2022.
Similar to many other members of the Texas lineup, he was at his best against southpaws, with a 117 wRC+ and a .757 OPS.
Semien was once again elite defensively as well, ranking in the 94th percentile in outs above. He is under contract for nearly a decade with the Rangers, which is something that fans should be very happy about.
Shortstop, Corey Seager
- MVP Odds: +4500
- PrizePicks April 2 Projection: Corey Seager o7.5 fantasy score
In his first year with the Texas Rangers, Corey Seager produced his second-worst offensive season, measured by wRC+. He posted career worsts with a .245 batting average and a .772 OPS, making his $325 million contract over 10 years look like a mistake in the eyes of more than a few fans.
A deeper dive reveals that Seager was perhaps the most unlucky hitter in all of baseball last year. Among hitters with at least 510 plate appearances, no player had a larger negative discrepancy between their actual batting average and their expected batting average. Only four hitters had a larger negative discrepancy between their actual slugging percentage and their expected slugging percentage. Ryan Mountcastle was the only player with a larger gap between his wOBA and his expected wOBA.
Seager finished 2022 ranked in the 86th percentile in average exit velocity, 78th percentile in HardHit%, and 96th percentile in xwOBA. Nearly all of his expected stats were aligned with his impressive 95-game sample from 2021. The main difference was an unfortunate .242 BABIP, which was 94 points lower than it was the year prior, despite nearly identical batted ball metrics.
All things equal, Seager is primed for a massive year at the plate in 2023. He has shown no signs of imminent age-related decline in his zone-contact rates or other important offensive metrics. He remains a superb defender at shortstop, with his long injury history being the only major red flag here.
Pitching Staff
Starting Pitcher:
Starting Pitcher, Jacob deGrom
- Cy Young Odds: +600
- PrizePicks Projection: 2.61 ERA
It is not hyperbole to wonder if Jacob deGrom is the most talented pitcher to ever toe the rubber in Major League Baseball. Since the beginning of 2018, deGrom owns a 2.05 ERA, 2.14 FIP, and a 0.87 WHIP across a span of 645.1 innings. In that span, he has struck out 35.5% of opposing hitters while walking only 5.1% of those batters.
In 2022, deGrom reintroduced a curveball against left-handed batters, which generated a 45.0% whiff rate in a limited sample size. The offering gave deGrom three distinct offerings with a 45.0% whiff rate or higher, in addition to his 98.8 mph fastball, which earned a swing-and-a-miss 25.6% of the time.
His command is elite, his raw stuff is incomprehensibly filthy, and he signed a new contract this winter to toe the rubber in the pitcher-friendly confines at Globe Life Field for approximately half of his starts. If healthy, deGrom is a runaway favorite to win the American League Cy Young. The hard part is that he has not thrown more than 92.0 innings in a single season since 2019.
Starting Pitcher, Nathan Eovaldi
- Cy Young Odds: +1600
In 2022, Nathan Eovaldi was once again limited by injuries, throwing only 109.1 innings. Still, when he was healthy, he was more than serviceable on the mound – posting a 3.87 ERA, 4.30 FIP, and a 1.23 WHIP.
He once again gave up an abundance of hard contact, but his ERA was six percent better than the league average and his FIP was only three percent worse than the league average.
Starting Pitcher, Martin Perez
- Cy Young Odds: +15000
In 2022, Martin Perez posted his best season as a professional, finishing the year with an ERA that was 26 percent better than the league-average pitcher and a FIP that was 18 percent better than the league average. His 1.26 WHIP was a career-best, though he still struggled to limit traffic on the basepaths against right-handed hitters. Notably, Perez was at his strongest during his first time through the order (TTO). Among 196 qualified pitchers, he had the 14th largest discrepancy between his FIP during the first three innings of games and the first five innings of games — indicating that he was far more vulnerable the second TTO.
Generally, starting pitchers who make abnormal gains in their surface-level stats late in their career find it difficult to sustain their improved results the subsequent year. Perez will get his first chance to buck that trend on Sunday Night Baseball against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Texas Rangers – Futures Pick & Prediction
Though many people might argue that it’s an overreaction to the opening weekend of action, one thing is abundantly clear for the Rangers in 2023 – they have a much-improved approach at the plate. In two games to begin the season, they have scored 27 runs while playing reasonably good defense behind their pitchers.
At significant plus-money, they are worth a small wager to make the postseason, especially considering the injury bug that has impacted the rest of their division to begin the year.
PICK: To Make the Postseason (+145, DraftKings)
- Division Winner: (+1200), Caesars
- To Make the Postseason: (+145), DraftKings
- American League Winner: (+2500), FanDuel
- World Series Champion: (+5000), FanDuel