I am doing a series where I offer up three fantasy baseball thoughts for every MLB team. I look at under-the-radar stats, playing time projections, projected roles, and off-season news to try and highlight the nuggets that might help you in your 2025 fantasy baseball drafts. We’ll do this thing in alphabetical order, and this time around I’ll consider three thoughts for the 2025 Texas Rangers.
3 Fantasy Baseball Thoughts for the 2025 Texas Rangers
Tread Carefully with Josh Jung
Last season, I was all in on Josh Jung. After 23 home runs and 70 RBI in 122 games, the future looked bright for Jung. Instead, a wrist fracture limited him to just 46 games. Jung was never truly the same after that and required a follow-up surgery in October. From a rehab perspective, Jung is in line to make a full recovery and return for the 2025 season. The problem though, is that wrist injuries are scary when it comes to power.
When he was on the field last year, Jung had seven home runs and 16 RBI in 46 games while hitting .264. It shouldn’t be surprising, but there was a significant decrease in his ISO from .201 to .157. With an ADP around pick 200 in early drafts, we are getting Jung at a nice value and a fair price. If you begin to stray higher, then there begins to be some concern about how quickly his power truly returns.
The optimistic view is that he was never healthy at all last season and the second surgery should help his wrist. There was a decrease in exit velocity year over year, and again, the wrist is the likely culprit here. Jung’s barrel rate decrease, to 9.9%, was less severe as he is still the same player he was at the start of 2024.
This will be an interesting situation to watch early in Spring Training. As long as you give Jung some patience, he could be a solid 2025 piece at his current price.
There is No Discount on Wyatt Langford
After the way he ended 2023, the buzz around Wyatt Langford entering last season was quite loud. Overall, it was a solid year for Langford, but there was some disappointment based on his draft cost. On a monthly basis, Langford hit .309 in June and .300 in September while struggling the rest of the season.
The problem, if you are looking for a value on Langford, is that his September blew those plans up. However, it also represents optimism heading into 2025. He hit eight home runs while stealing six bases to go along with 20 RBI and 25 runs scored. Langford finished with 16 home runs, 19 stolen bases, 74 RBI, and 74 runs scored as he heads toward 2025 with strong momentum.
Langford did a good job of limiting his chase rate as he swung at just 23.1% of balls outside the strike zone. He also makes contact at a rate of 79.6% while striking out 20.6% of the time which is manageable.
Looking towards 2025, the big question is whether or not we can expect to see Langford surge past the 25/25 mark. At the least, an extra 15 to 20 games, he played in 134 last year, along with a smoothing out of some of Langford’s valleys, should get us to that point.
Jacob deGrom is Not Worth a Third Round Pick
Jacob deGrom is an elite pitcher. There is no questioning his skill level, talent, or production. The problem though, is that this is all contingent upon him being on the field. And that hasn’t happened nearly as often as anyone would like.
In a vacuum, deGrom is certainly worthy of a third-round pick. The problem though, is that he hasn’t pitched more than 92 innings in a season since 2019. Over that five-year span, deGrom has only pitched 264.4 innings in total. Drafting the right-hander in the third round and expecting something different is a recipe for disaster. Of course, deGrom could stay healthy and deliver a Cy Young type season and this ages badly, but it’s a risk/reward situation. We only say deGrom pitch 10.2 innings last year, so its not like he’s given us to truly build on either.
For more of the great fantasy baseball rankings and analysis you’ve come to expect from FantraxHQ, check out our full 2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit! We’re here for you all the way up until Opening Day and then on into your championship run.
