Texas Rangers' All-Quarter Century Team, a 26-man roster of the club's best since 2000

New York Times

27-05-2025

Editor's note: The Athletic is marking 2025 by naming an MLB All-Quarter Century Team, selected by Jayson Stark. We're inviting readers to take our survey and make their picks for the best players at each position since 2000, with the results announced in an upcoming story. Some of our beat writers are picking All-Quarter Century Teams for the teams they cover. Check this page to find all of our All-Quarter Century Team coverage.
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On Thursday, Jayson Stark gave us his version of an MLB All-Quarter Century Team, and that got a few of us around here thinking: What would a franchise-specific team look like?
Let's dig in and find out.
First, the rules: Only stats from 2000-2025 count toward this exercise. So, for instance, you won't find Rusty Greer on this list, even though he stuck around until 2002, because he played only 218 games over those three years, for a combined 2.4 WAR (Baseball Reference). He has a case for an all-time Rangers team, but for the purposes of this exercise, he's out — his biggest contributions came from 1994-1999.
The other way my team differs from Stark's is that I'm putting together a full 26-man roster with a dual goal: honor the players who contributed the most in this era and build a roster constructed to win a playoff bracket against other teams our writers are cooking up around the league.
Here we go.
Yes, his best years were pre-2000, so we're not getting vintage Pudge here. But even though Rodriguez played only four seasons in Texas after the turn of the century (one of which was the back half of the 2009 season, in which he played just 28 games), he's still the team's most valuable catcher of the 2000s with 12.9 WAR (FanGraphs). Imagine how much easier this exercise would be if the team hadn't let him depart in free agency after 2002, when he went on to win the 2003 World Series with the Marlins and the last three of his 13 Gold Gloves in Detroit.
Rafael Palmeiro certainly has an argument here. He hit 14 more home runs than Teixeira in the 2000s, and … actually, that's it. Of Palmeiro's 44.6 bWAR as a Ranger, 23.7 of it came in the 1990s, leaving 20.9 bWAR in the 2000s. Teixeira outpaces him in just about every other category (and he's close in on-base percentage and slugging percentage). Notably, he was worth 21.5 bWAR with the Rangers, just ahead of Palmeiro's total for this exercise. But I'm giving Teixeira bonus value for this: When the Rangers traded him, they acquired five players, including three — Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison and Neftalí Feliz — who helped the team make its first World Series appearances in 2010 and '11.
We could have a debate about Michael Young here, but bear with me. (Spoiler: He'll be on this list, just not at second base.) It might surprise you to know that when I filtered for Rangers players between 2000 and 2025, Kinsler was the third-most valuable player by fWAR (29.3, trailing only Adrián Beltré and Andrus). Kinsler caught a lot of flak for a perceived plethora of popups (#IKPU was a frequent hashtag in those days), but the facts are the facts: No other second baseman since 2000 comes close.
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Before you scroll immediately to the comments section, let me just say: I know. But I'm building a team to win, and while Andrus was indubitably a better ambassador for the team, Rodriguez's three years in Texas were otherworldly. Look at these numbers, accumulated in three seasons.
.305/.395/.615 (1.011 OPS), 156 home runs, 395 RBIs, 25.5 bWAR, 1,146 total bases.
He was not a Ranger at heart, no. And given his later suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs, there's every reason to believe those numbers were a byproduct of the, uh, era. But I'm sorry, I don't think there has been a Rangers player — maybe not even in their entire history — who was a more dangerous hitter than 2002-04 A-Rod. His 27.0 fWAR as a Ranger ranks fourth since 2000, and he did it in 485 games. Nobody else in the top five played fewer than 1,066.
Roast me if you will, but look: Do you want to beat Chandler Rome's Astros or not?
By far the easiest choice of this entire exercise. Beltré sealed his Hall of Fame induction over his eight-year tenure in Arlington. In the process, he provided Rangers fans with some milestones — his 300th and 400th home runs, his 3,000th hit, his last three Gold Glove awards, precisely one stolen base per year — and more than a few moments of sheer joy.
If you want to hear more about why this pick was so easy, I wrote about him when he was elected to the Hall of Fame.
I'm not sure there's much argument to be had here, either. Shin-Soo Choo got on base at a much higher clip, but never approached Cruz's power. Joey Gallo did, but his 36.7 percent strikeout rate blows past Cruz's 22.4 percent. (To be fair, Gallo's 14.9 percent walk rate was close to double Cruz's 7.8 percent.)
Gallo (who was better in Texas than you remember if you're a Yankees, Twins or Nationals fan) was kind of close. But while it's easy to remember the one moment — you know the one — the fact is that the Rangers don't make it to the 2011 World Series without Cruz going 8-for-22 (.364) with six home runs in six games against the Tigers in the ALCS. His walk-off grand slam in the 11th inning of Game 2 is one of the top five greatest moments in franchise history.
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Some idiot once said 'I don't think there has been a Rangers player — maybe not even in their entire history — who was a more dangerous hitter than 2002-04 A-Rod.' What a fool. What an absolute buffoon. Because 2010 Josh Hamilton was so good that I might have included him on this list even if that was the only season he ever played for Texas. Fortunately for me, the choice is much easier, since he was in Texas for five years, including that transcendent MVP season.
One hundred nineteen players have gotten at least one start in left field for the Rangers since 2000. Murphy started 482 games there from 2007-2013, the most among the group. The next three on the list? Hamilton (253) and Kevin Mench (239).
In the 1,731 games (counting the 60-game 2020 season plus 51 this year) since Murphy's departure, the Rangers have started 61 different players in left field. The leader? Willie Calhoun with 149 starts. Not a single left fielder has even played 162 games at the position in over 11 years.
The only other real contender here is Choo, but he played more right field than left. Their career numbers with the Rangers are comparable — Choo had more home runs, but Murphy's slugging percentage was still higher — so I'm giving the nod to Murphy, just because he's been the only stable left fielder the Rangers have had since Greer.
Since defense and speed (and ergo, range) were the biggest knocks on Young elsewhere — but it doesn't seem right to bench the club's all-time leader in so many offensive categories — this feels like the best fit. The upside: If this hypothetical team ever played a full 162, having Young on the roster would give it a lot of flexibility, since he could fill in at all four infield positions. That's going to come into play later.
Just for fun, here's my batting order:
2B Kinsler
CF Hamilton
SS A. Rodriguez
3B Beltré
RF Cruz
1B Teixeira
C I. Rodriguez
DH Young
LF Murphy
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That lineup isn't hugely imbalanced, with six right-handed hitters, two lefties and a switch-hitter. But we'll balance it a little more by taking switch-hitting Heim as our second catcher, with big apologies to Mike Napoli, who spent only two full seasons with the Rangers (plus 35 games in 2015). Napoli's postseason heroics made this a tough choice, but with Pudge as our starter, the ability to have a defense-first switch hitter on the bench was too tempting.
With Young capable of filling in for a different infielder every day, that leaves us with three spots, so let's identify our three biggest needs: speed, a big left-handed bat, and outfield defense. The team doesn't feel right without Andrus, and he just so happens to be the franchise's all-time leader in stolen bases. Bonus: He could serve as a late-innings defensive replacement for Rodriguez or Kinsler at shortstop or second base, respectively.
If we'd gone with a 25-man roster, I would have to shake things up and include Leonys Martín, since he hit left-handed and was a good defender. Instead, we still have two spots: a lefty bat and a fourth outfielder. That allows us to sneak Corey Seager onto the team.
There. We have Seager and Andrus on the team. You can now forgive me for putting Alex Rodriguez on this list.
That leaves one spot. Maybe this is recency bias, but given how good García was in the 2023 postseason before he was injured (and the fact he won a Gold Glove that year), I didn't have to think too hard about adding him to the roster. He can pinch hit for Murphy if the opposition brings in a lefty late in the game, and would also be a fantastic late-innings defensive replacement in right field if the team happens to be one out away from winning a World Series.
Which brings me to this decision:
Sorry, Wash. Bochy was at helm when the Rangers won their first-ever World Series. Maybe we should ding him for being on the other side of the field when Ron Washington's 2010 squad made the first World Series appearance in franchise history. But I'm not gonna do that.
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You know what's tricky? Evaluating pitching value across this century. If I were putting together a roster to win a World Series, I would absolutely take Rangers-era Jacob deGrom over peak Kenny Rogers, and it's not even close. If this exercise was to put together the best single seasons in these years, I'd have to take a hard look at 2015 Mike Minor and 2019 Lance Lynn.
But if the point is to choose a team based on their contributions to the Rangers from 2000-25, we can't leave out Rogers — or Lewis, for that matter. For what it's worth, they're both tied for second with the Rangers in fWAR (14.1) over this period. For a franchise that was so long defined by its big bats, Rogers and Lewis were the two biggest workhorses of this century.
The leader in that category, by the way, is Darvish at 18.1 fWAR. He was the first guy who came to mind even before I consulted the numbers. That's an easy slam-dunk.
For the other two, I'm including their importance to the franchise beyond just regular-season numbers. I debated putting Cliff Lee on here, since his presence was central to the first World Series team, but he was only in Texas for 15 starts. Instead, we'll go with Hamels, who was central to the team's return to the postseason in 2015-16.
And of course, Eovaldi was the ace on the first World-Series-winning team in franchise history, and started the clinching game.
Apologies to Kevin Millwood, Martín Pérez, Derek Holland and C.J. Wilson (for now).
Cordero has more saves (117) than any other Ranger in this timeframe and Feliz is second (93). The latter also has a statue outside the stadium commemorating the moment he struck out another member of this list to send the Rangers to their first World Series. Those two are easy picks. So is Francisco, who pitched 277 games and carried a 3.75 ERA for the Rangers in a time when home runs were soaring out of ballparks around the league.
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Nathan's best years were in Minnesota, but in two seasons in Texas, he amassed more value (4.1 bWAR) than all but three relievers, and more saves than all but the two I just mentioned. It was a brief-but-brilliant tenure.
As for Leclerc: His ninth-inning meltdowns (and there were a few) notwithstanding, he was also untouchable when he was on — maybe the nastiest reliever I've seen in a Rangers uniform. He also appeared in more games during these years than any Rangers reliever besides Cordero, and his 11.83 K/9 ranks third (behind Kirby Yates and David Robertson, each of whom pitched just one year in Texas).
You might be surprised to see Claudio on this list. Not only was he one of my favorite pitchers to watch (the soft-slinging lefty wibble-wobble set was an all-time signature pitching move), but he also amassed more bWAR than any other left-handed Rangers reliever since 2000. Not Darren Oliver, not Matt Moore, not Jake Diekman — not even Wilson, who I am including here as a nod to his importance to the 2010 and 2011 World Series teams (even though he started in those years). I'm also including Wilson because his versatility would allow him to spot start, close, or anything in between.
That brings us to the last name on the list: Sborz, who threw the curveball that sealed the franchise's first championship. There are a few franchises that don't have that guy in their history books yet. Sborz has been worth a mere 1.4 fWAR (and -0.6 bWAR) in his four seasons with the Rangers (though his 11.11 K/9 is fourth-best of all candidates).
Don't care. He threw the pitch. He's on the list.
(Top photo of Adrián Beltré: Rick Yeatts / Getty Images)