The next era of Texas Rangers baseball won’t include the ironman infielder who was a staple of the last.
The Rangers traded second baseman Marcus Semien to the New York Mets in exchange for outfielder Brandon Nimmo, a person with direct knowledge confirmed to The Dallas Morning News Sunday afternoon, and continued what’s already been an offseason of change. The club nontendered outfielder Adolis García and catcher Jonah Heim — who, like Semien, were former All-Star position players — on Friday afternoon.
Semien, 35, spent four seasons with the Rangers after he signed a seven-year, $175 million contract before the 2022 season as part of a big-money offseason that brought shortstop Corey Seager into the fold as well. He was a two-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger award and set a league record for single-season plate appearances the year that the Rangers won the World Series.
He played the second-most games of any player leaguewide between the 2022-24 seasons and missed only four games in that span. He was a plus hitter in the first two years of his contract and was a first-team All-MLB honoree at second base in 2023 after he yielded a .826 OPS in 162 games.
Semien regressed offensively in each of the last two years, though, and slashed just .234/.307/.379 since the start of the 2024 season. His 2025 campaign was cut short when he fouled a pitch off of his left foot, landed on the injured list for the first time in eight years and missed the last month and a half.
The Rangers shifted Semien out of the leadoff spot just over a month into last season in an effort to jump-start an offense that never took off. His .669 OPS was the 10th-lowest among all qualified hitters leaguewide last season and, outside of a standout June performance, he showed little signs of major improvement before his season ended prematurely.
Semien has $72 million left on his contract to pay out in the next three years while Nimmo, who reportedly waived his no-trade clause, will earn $20.5 million for each the next five years and is under contract through the 2030 season. The Mets will send the Rangers $5 million as part of the deal, a person with knowledge of the transaction confirmed to The News. Nimmo signed an eight-year, $162 million contract before the 2023 season.
The Semien-Nimmo swap, coupled with decisions to cut ties with García, Heim, and right-handers Josh Sborz and Jacob Webb, can be viewed as decisions that can save the Rangers north of $25 million next season as they proceed into a winter when they’ll need to rebuild their bullpen and fortify their bottom-five offense.
Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young acknowledged at the general manager meetings earlier this month that there was “probably” a scenario in which the club could improve if it offloaded a high-figure salary like Semien’s. He also said that wasn’t the organization’s a goal and it wasn’t something they were “actively” pursuing.
Sunday’s deal is less of a salary dump and more so a salary swap. Nimmo, 32, has spent the entirety of his 10-year career with the Mets and owns a .262/.364/.438 slash line in 1,066 games. He’s played in at least 151 games in each of the last four seasons and has posted a .760 OPS or better in eight of the last nine years.
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The Cheyenne, Wyo., native slashed .262/.324/.436 last season and hit a career-high 25 home runs. He had a negative-7 run value vs. four-seam fastballs last season, per Baseball Savant, but had largely performed well prior against that pitch in his career.
Nimmo largely played left field (150 of his 159 games) for the Mets last season but has spent the majority of his career (538 games) in center field. The Rangers will have Nimmo, Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter, Alejandro Osuna and Sam Haggerty to fill three outfield spots with García gone. Langford played both left and center field last season and was a Gold Glove finalist in his second big league season.
Carter is traditionally a center fielder but has yet to prove he can be healthy for an entire season. Osuna showed flashes of promise at times after he was called up last season but still finished with just a .591 OPS in 63 games. Haggerty — whom the club re-signed to a one-year contract Friday afternoon — is best served as a platoon bat vs. left-handed pitchers.
Nimmo is considered an average defender and may fit better in one of the corner positions, with Langford — who has fared well in several center field stints in the last two years — in the middle.
The trade created an opening at second base, too, where Semien was one of baseball’s best defensive players in each of the last four seasons. The Rangers could use infielder Cody Freeman (a spark plug with a .600 OPS in 36 games as a rookie last season) or utility player Josh Smith (whom the Rangers have historically preferred to retain in a versatile role) at second next season if they don’t pursue an external addition.
Free agent Luis Arráez — who played for Rangers manager Skip Schumaker in Miami and would greatly fit the club’s need to improve its ability to put the ball in play — has played 338 career games at second base. The 28-year-old was projected by ESPN to earn a two-year, $17 million contract this winter after a season in which he hit .292 in 154 games with the San Diego Padres.
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