RRosternomics
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Rangers TEX

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GM: Tom Grieve

Overview

REBUILD ↗ rising
cheap & losing · year 1 in this regime · payroll 0.55× league · TAB -3.5
-3.5TAB — talent above budget16th/26
+0.7WAB — realized wins (TAB + luck)13th/26
4.0depth — 2+ WAR regulars23rd/26
-3.6dead WAR — sub-replacement drag12th/26
28%dead money %11th/26
0.463win %20th/26
23.5roster fWAR24th/26
+1surplus $M (value vs cost)7th/26
$6Mpayroll $M25th/26

Roster

CFOddibe McDowell 125GBob Brower 67GRuben Sierra 4G
LFPete Incaviglia 132GBob Brower 45GTom Paciorek 8G
RFRuben Sierra 156GBob Brower 6GTom Paciorek 5G
SSScott Fletcher 155GCurtis Wilkerson 32GJeff Kunkel 1G
2BJerry Browne 130GCurtis Wilkerson 28GSteve Buechele 18G
3BSteve Buechele 123GTom O'Malley 40GLarry Parrish 28G
1BPete O'Brien 158GTom Paciorek 12GMike Stanley 12G
STARTERSCharlie Hough 3.7WARJose Guzman 2.2WARGreg Harris 1.7WARBobby Witt 1.7WARPaul Kilgus 0.4WAR
CDon Slaught 85GGeno Petralli 63GMike Stanley 61G
DHLarry Parrish 118GDarrell Porter 29GPete Incaviglia 5G
BULLPEN★ Dale Mohorcic 16svMitch Williams 0hJeff Russell 0hSteve Howe 0hRon Meridith 0hScott Anderson 0hKeith Creel 0hDwayne Henry 0h
CDon Slaught 85 · Geno Petralli 63 · Mike Stanley 61
1BPete O'Brien 158 · Tom Paciorek 12 · Mike Stanley 12
2BJerry Browne 130 · Curtis Wilkerson 28 · Steve Buechele 18
3BSteve Buechele 123 · Tom O'Malley 40 · Larry Parrish 28
SSScott Fletcher 155 · Curtis Wilkerson 32 · Jeff Kunkel 1
LFPete Incaviglia 132 · Bob Brower 45 · Tom Paciorek 8
CFOddibe McDowell 125 · Bob Brower 67 · Ruben Sierra 4
RFRuben Sierra 156 · Bob Brower 6 · Tom Paciorek 5
DHLarry Parrish 118 · Darrell Porter 29 · Pete Incaviglia 5
SPCharlie Hough 3.7 · Jose Guzman 2.2 · Greg Harris 1.7 · Bobby Witt 1.7 · Paul Kilgus 0.4
BP★ Dale Mohorcic 16 · Mitch Williams 0 · Jeff Russell 0 · Steve Howe 0 · Ron Meridith 0 · Scott Anderson 0 · Keith Creel 0 · Dwayne Henry 0

Each position lists its starter then backups by games (so platoons & bench show). Starters (mound) & bullpen (left, foul territory) are ranked by WAR; ★ marks the closer (most save chances). MLB Stats API.

1987 roster — value & surplus

PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Charlie Hough 39 FA-elig 403.7 0.8 +0.3
Pete O'Brien 29 arb 1592.8 0.5 +0.3
Scott Fletcher 28 FA-elig 1562.3 0.5 +0.2
Jose Guzman 24 pre-arb 372.2 0.1 +0.5
Bobby Witt 23 pre-arb 271.7 0.1 +0.4
Greg Harris 31 FA-elig 421.7 0.6 -0.1
Oddibe McDowell 24 pre-arb 1281.6 0.2 +0.3
Pete Incaviglia 23 pre-arb 1391.5 0.2 +0.2
Jerry Browne 21 pre-arb 1321.4 0.1 +0.3
Bob Brower 27 pre-arb 1271.3 0.1 +0.3
Larry Parrish 33 FA-elig 1521.2 0.6 -0.3
Dale Mohorcic 31 pre-arb 741.0 0.1 +0.2
Ruben Sierra 21 pre-arb 1580.9 0.1 +0.2
Geno Petralli 27 arb 1010.9 0.1 +0.1
Mitch Williams 22 pre-arb 840.6 0.1 +0.0
Tom O'Malley 26 arb 450.5 0.1 +0.0
Steve Howe 29 – 240.5 – –
Darrell Porter 35 FA-elig 850.5 0.3 -0.1
Paul Kilgus 25 pre-arb 250.4 0.1 +0.0
Jeff Russell 25 arb 520.3 0.1 -0.0
Tom Paciorek 40 FA-elig 270.2 0.2 -0.2
Steve Buechele 25 pre-arb 1360.1 0.1 -0.1
Scott Anderson 24 – 80.1 – –
Curtis Wilkerson 26 arb 85-0.0 0.2 -0.2
Cecil Espy 24 – 14-0.0 – –
Dave Meier 27 – 13-0.1 – –
Don Slaught 28 arb 95-0.1 0.4 -0.5
Keith Creel 28 – 6-0.1 – –
Gary Mielke 24 – 3-0.1 – –
Greg Tabor 26 – 9-0.1 – –
Dwayne Henry 25 arb 5-0.2 0.1 -0.1
Jeff Kunkel 25 – 15-0.2 – –
Mike Stanley 24 pre-arb 78-0.2 0.1 -0.1
Bob Malloy 22 – 2-0.3 – –
Mike Jeffcoat 27 – 2-0.4 – –
Mike Loynd 23 – 26-0.4 – –
Mike Mason↔ CHC 28 – 8-0.4 – –
Ron Meridith 30 – 11-0.5 – –
Ed Correa 21 pre-arb 15-0.6 0.1 -0.3

Key additions (new vs 1986)

PlayerfWAR
Tom O'Malley0.5
Steve Howe0.5
Paul Kilgus0.4
Scott Anderson0.1
Cecil Espy-0.0
Dave Meier-0.1

Key subtractions (gone from 1986)

Player1986 fWAR
Gary Ward2.8
Ricky Wright0.4
Mickey Mahler0.4
Kevin Brown0.3
Dave Rozema0.0
Toby Harrah-0.1

Current & Historical Payroll

1987 payroll
$6.0M

What the front office was committed to as of 1987, 1987–1993. Pre-2015 has no contract-terms data — forward italic $ are realized actuals (hindsight, not commitments known then). Control labels (ARB/FA) are point-in-time.

current $ guaranteed $ actual $ (hindsight) arbitration (proj) pre-arb (proj) free agent

Guaranteed / signed (7)

PlayerAgeSvc1987198819891990199119921993
Charlie Hough3917.000$820k$850k$900k$1.0MFREE AGENT
Greg Harris316.000$620kFREE AGENT
Larry Parrish3313.000$615k$312kFREE AGENT
Scott Fletcher286.000$475k$575k$701kFREE AGENT
Darrell Porter3516.000$260kFREE AGENT
Tom Paciorek4017.000$235kFREE AGENT
Steve Howe297.000—FREE AGENT

Arbitration-eligible (10)

PlayerAgeSvc1987198819891990199119921993
Pete O'Brien295.000$492kFREE AGENT
Don Slaught285.000$432kFREE AGENT
Curtis Wilkerson264.000$230kARB 3FREE AGENT
Tom O'Malley265.000$125kFREE AGENT
Geno Petralli275.000$105kFREE AGENT
Jeff Russell254.000$105kARB 3FREE AGENT
Dwayne Henry253.000$72kARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Cecil Espy244.000—ARB 3FREE AGENT
Mike Jeffcoat274.000—ARB 3FREE AGENT
Jeff Kunkel253.000—ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT

Pre-arbitration (22)

PlayerAgeSvc1987198819891990199119921993
Oddibe McDowell242.000$200kARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Pete Incaviglia231.000$197kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Steve Buechele252.000$135kARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Mitch Williams221.000$120kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Ed Correa212.000$115kARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Jose Guzman242.000$108kARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Ruben Sierra211.000$98kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Bobby Witt231.000$92kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Dale Mohorcic311.000$92kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Bob Brower271.000$62kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Jerry Browne211.000$62kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Paul Kilgus250.000$62kPre-ArbPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Mike Stanley241.000$62kPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Scott Anderson24–—
Keith Creel28–—
Mike Loynd231.000—Pre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Bob Malloy22–—
Mike Mason28–—
Dave Meier27–—
Ron Meridith30–—
Gary Mielke240.000—Pre-ArbPre-ArbARB 1ARB 2ARB 3FREE AGENT
Greg Tabor26–—

Graphs

Every roster slot ranked best→worst by WAR. Bars = Rangers 1987; the black line = the league-average player at each slot that season. Staying above the line deep into the roster is the depth edge; dropping below it = holes & dead weight.

What each regime is worth — every settled team-season since 1985

RegimeSeasonsWin %Playoff %Pennant %WS %
WINDOW 28152.131.05.01.1
CONTEND 30056.964.719.710.3
FORCED-SPEND 25648.09.81.61.6
REBUILD 32143.31.20.30.3
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.