With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.
Today we are looking at second baseman Marcus Semien.
Former second baseman Marcus Semien, I guess I should say.
Marcus Semien being traded felt like…not the end of an era, necessarily, but definitely the end of a particular chapter in the book of the Texas Rangers.
51 months ago, the Texas Rangers were coming off a disastrous season. The team had committed to an (arguably) long overdue rebuild after a disappointing 2020 season. The 2021 team was bad, reaching 100 losses for the first time since the first two years the franchise was in Arlington. Joey Gallo, a year and a half away from free agency and playing like a superstar, was traded to the Yankees at the deadline after rejecting a contract extension as the Rangers took on a “no half measures” approach. Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy were shipped off to Philadelphia at the break. Things appeared bleak, to say the least.
At the end of season press conference, Jon Daniels and Chris Young told fans that the rebuild was over, and the team was committed to going big in the free agent market that winter. Payroll would be going up, the Rangers were looking to get much better, quickly, and they were going to spend money to accomplish that. It was a very strong free agent class, headed by five stellar shortstops, and the Rangers were going big game hunting.
The reaction was predictable. There was scoffing. There was mockery. There were predictions that the Rangers would miss out on the top players, say they made competitive offers and were really trying, and then add some third-tier free agents and call it a day. Folks pointed to the pursuit of Anthony Rendon after the 2019 season, a player the Rangers prioritized, and how they fell woefully short to the offer made by Arte Moreno and the Angels. That was proof the Rangers might talk a big game, but when push came to shove they would fall short.
Then, on the afternoon of November 28, 2021, news broke that the Texas Rangers were landing Marcus Semien, one of the big five shortstops, on a 7 year, $175 million deal.
The baseball world was shook. Rangers fans were floored. The skeptics had to eat their words. The Rangers went big, on a long-term contract for a guy with two top-three MVP finishes in the previous three years.
The rebuild was over, and the Rangers were committed to winning again.
A day later, news broke that the Rangers were signing Corey Seager to a 10 year, $325 million deal. In a two day period, a team that had just lost 102 games committed a half-billion dollars to two of the best free agents available. And they still weren’t done, agreeing to terms with free agent pitcher Jon Gray on a four year deal. All three players were officially signed right before the owners locked out the players, resulting in an especially frustrating period where our celebration over the new acquisitions was muted due to the uncertainty of the coming 2022 season.
Seager, of course, was the prize addition, and so far appears to be one of the best signings in Texas Rangers history. He’s who we think of first when we think about the big moves that offseason that kickstarted the return to contention, ultimately culminating in a World Series title in 2023, the first in franchise history.
But it all started with Marcus Semien.
And now, Semien is gone, traded with three years left on his deal, to the New York Mets for Brandon Nimmo. Gray is gone, a free agent, his career in question because of ongoing health issues. Corey Seager is still here, of course, and hopefully isn’t going anywhere. But both the roster and the dynamics of this club are much different now.
Marcus Semien’s final season with the Rangers was much like his first and third seasons with the team. He was excellent defensively, not so excellent offensively. He won a Gold Glove, and gets a good chunk of credit for the Rangers’ team Gold Glove award in 2025. He also put up a 97 OPS+ and an 89 wRC+, which isn’t ideal.
Semien slashed .230/.305/.364 in 2025, and regardless of circumstances, that’s not what you want. He did have a noticeable home/road split, slashing .217/.303/.314 at home and .242/.308/.410 on the road. He also missed the final six weeks of the season, and one could possibly surmise that his overall slash line would have looked better had he not missed that time, since over the course of his career, his OPS by month goes up in orderly fashion, lowest in April, second lowest in May, and so on. He has a career 815 OPS in the month of September, 59 points better than his career OPS, and his 65 career homers in the final month of the season is 19 more than his second highest month (August, natch).
Looking at Semien’s offensive profile, you can see how he would be particularly affected by the Shed in 2025, and the way the ball just flat didn’t travel well there. Semien hits the ball in the air a lot, particularly to the pull side — in his four seasons with the Rangers, he had just two opposite field home runs. However, he’s never hit the ball particularly hard — his hard hit rate was right at his career average in 2025, but was just good enough to be in the 17th percentile in 2025, per Statcast.
Hitting the ball in the air but not particularly hard is how you end up with a .251 BABIP, which is what Semien sported in 2025. It was tied for fourth lowest among 145 qualifying hitters in 2025, behind Eugenio Suarez, Josh Bell, and Cal Raleigh, and tied with Sal Perez. And if the ball isn’t carrying, that exacerbates the power problem, since you aren’t picking up doubles as much either. Semien’s 16 doubles in 2025 were the lowest in a full season in his career, and even if you extrapolate it out to 160 games like he usually plays, it would be the lowest total. His ISO of .134 was the second lowest of his career, behind only 2018, when he had a .133 ISO.
Marcus Semien is still a good player. In 127 games, he put up 2.1 fWAR and 3.3 bWAR. At the age of 35, he is obviously in the decline phase of his career, but a 2-4 win second baseman has value, and I don’t think there’s any question he will work to get as much as he can out of himself for the remainder of his contract.
He’ll just be doing it with the Mets, instead of the Rangers, going forward.
Previously:
Gerson Garabito
Tyler Mahle
Kyle Higashioka
Adolis Garcia
Luis Curvelo
Alejandro Osuna
Blaine Crim
Jake Burger
Jacob Webb
Nick Ahmed
Jon Gray
Carl Edwards Jr.
Josh Jung
Leody Taveras
Dustin Harris
Marc Church
Luke Jackson
Danny Coulombe
Wyatt Langford
Dylan Moore
Michael Helman
Evan Carter
Cole Winn
Rowdy Tellez
Dane Dunning
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