Bruce Bochy Won’t Be in the Rangers’ Dugout for 2026

Someday in the future, when Bruce Bochy is inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, he won’t be wearing a Texas Rangers cap. But that in no way diminishes the impact that the legendary manager had on the organization and their fans.

Three years ago, Rangers POBO Chris Young made a huge splash by convincing Bochy to come out of retirement to manage the team. Bochy had been out of the game for three years and was willing to jump back into the fray for a chance at another World Series title.

The game plan was laid out for a three-year contract and vision that would give Bochy the best opportunity to lead the Rangers to the peak of the sport. There was little doubt when he was hired that this was a significant turning point for the Rangers organization. It just felt different.

Although the vision was fully realized, it occurred a year or two earlier than expected. That doesn’t take away the fact that it was accomplished.

In a “what have you done for me lately?” world, the last two seasons have been a struggle for the Rangers.

So, with the team in a bit of a transition period and looking to shed payroll (the Rangers were seventh in payroll in 2025), CY couldn’t make the same sales pitch to Bochy that he did when they met in Tennessee just three short years ago.

And with that, the white knight that came in and helped generations of Rangers fans realize a lifelong dream will not be coming back in 2026 to manage the team.

Bochy has been offered a position in the front office, but it is unclear if he will be taking it.  

Bochy Ball

Bruce Bochy is a lifelong baseball guy who has had success everywhere that he has been. Some people will point to his .498 all-time regular-season winning percentage (all-time winningest manager Connie Mack had a .486 winning percentage) and say that he is an average manager.

That is just silly talk. Bochy has accumulated 2,252 MLB regular-season wins over his 28 years of managing. That places him sixth all-time. It isn’t like he ever managed one of the Yankees clubs that dominated the sport for decades at a time.

He was first in San Diego and was able to take a not very good team and get them all the way to the 1998 World Series.

Then, in 2007, Bochy took over a Giants team that had been struggling for a few years. It took some time, but he would lead the team on one of the most dominant modern-day runs that we have seen.

Winning three World Series titles in the span of just five years is almost unprecedented in this day and age. But that is exactly what Bochy and his Giants did by winning it all in 2010, 2012, and again in 2014.

Bochy is a wonderful manager, but he is at another level in the playoffs. Over the course of his career, Bochy is 57-37 for a .606 overall winning percentage.

If you look at just his playoff runs with the Giants and the Rangers in 2023, the legend is 49-21 for a .700 winning percentage. That is salty, to say the least.

When the stakes are high, Bochy has his boys ready to play and has a knack for making the right in-game calls to help lead them to victory.

Bochy’s Rangers Run

The 2023 season will be memorable for Rangers fans for the rest of their lives. It kind of came out of nowhere and was a truly magical run through the October playoff gauntlet.

Going undefeated on the road (11-0) on the way to the organization’s first-ever World Series title is something that future fans may need to fact-check just to verify that it actually happened.

With Bochy leading the way, the club played clutch baseball throughout the playoff run. When things looked bleak after they dropped all three home games at the hands of their rival Astros, Bochy got the guys on the plane and headed down to Houston to shock the baseball world by winning both game six and seven in Houston.

Watching Bochy in the dugout, you can nearly see his baseball mind at work. It is like watching an artist painting a masterpiece.