It's Time For Texas Rangers Fans to Panic About Marcus Semien's Performance

The Texas Rangers were a popular pick for a bounce-back season after a disappointing 2024 campaign.

The Rangers failed to even make the playoffs in their quest to defend their 2023 World Series championship, but pretty much every analyst agreed that there was too much talent in the clubhouse for a repeat this year.

A big part of the reason for that optimism was the belief in a resurgence for veteran second baseman Marcus Semien, whose OPS plummeted from a strong .826 in 2023 to a mediocre .699 in 2024.

The hope was rooted in his well-established trend of alternating between successful and unsuccessful years with the bat. Since 2019, his OPS in odd-year seasons has been at least .826 every time. In even-year campaigns, he hasn't topped .733.

So far, Texas has proven people right as a team, sitting with a record of 9-7, but it has not been due in any part to improvement from Semien.

Instead, the right-handed hitter's production has fallen off a cliff once again. As of Tuesday, he possesses a slash line of .123/.194/.193, and he's hit just one home run.

His OPS+ sits at 15, and he has already been worth -0.4 fWAR. Even without his bat at the peak of its power a year ago, he still provided the Rangers with 4.2 wins above replacement by that very same metric.

This early in the season, it's often easy to point to batted-ball luck as the reason for what could ultimately be a deceiving hot start or slump that will quickly level out given more time and plate appearances.

That's not the case for Semien. According to Baseball Savant data, he occupies the 16th percentile or worse in xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, hard hit rate, bat speed and launch angle sweet spot rate. His overall batting run value is in the first percentile in MLB.

This development is troublesome for the Rangers not because several other hitters on the team are experiencing similar spells of futility.

Key offseason acquisitions like Joc Pederson and Jake Burger are struggling mightily, and superstar Corey Seager shortstop is hitting well below his career averages.

Further, Semien still has three seasons on his contract beyond this one at a combined $72 million. Texas is not totally averse to spending big money, but the team has cut its total payroll allocations in each of the last three off-seasons.

If Semien can't turn it around, it could spell trouble for the Rangers both in 2025 and beyond.