Robbie Grossman’s return to Texas didn’t go as well as anyone hoped
With the 2024 regular season over, it is time for us to go back and take a look at the players who appeared for the Texas Rangers this season.
Today, we look at designated hitter Robbie Grossman.
Were one to look at Robbie Grossman’s B-R page for the 2024 season, it would reflect a disappointing season, possibly even one that would be expected to be the final entry in a player’s major league career stats. In his age 34 season, between three clubs, playing mostly as a DH, Grossman slashed .212/.322/.293, with a -0.3 bWAR. That’s not good…and, in fact, it may be the final entry for Grossman’s major league page, as he has not signed with any team as of me typing this.
Of course, Grossman didn’t sign with any major league team last year until right before the season started. And even then, he signed with the Chicago White Sox, a team expected to be bad, and that ended up being worse than even the haters expected.
And he wasn’t good for Chicago, though he was asked to play semi-regularly, and was also asked to play the corner outfield spots — he only had one start at DH among the 25 games he played for them. He slashed .211/.329/.268 in those 25 games.
Grossman only played 25 games for the ChiSox because he was traded to the Texas Rangers on May 8, for Bubba Hoopii-Tuionetoa. And I will posit that that was the moment when I think it became clear that the Rangers’ offseason plan wasn’t working out the way the front office had hoped.
Generally speaking, for the first few months of the season, there aren’t many real trades. There will be a flurry of deals right around the start of the season, generally involving players who are out of options or otherwise squeezed out of a spot on a major league roster but who have enough value to fetch something of non-nominal value from another club. But from then until July, there’s generally a dearth of deals involving someone actually expected to contribute, with the occasional exception (notably including the May 2024 Luis Arraez trade).
So the Rangers going out and getting Robbie Grossman — someone who was a free agent less than six months prior — in early May was unusual. The Rangers didn’t pay a substantial price to land Grossman. Bubba Hoopii-Tuionetoa was — still is — a fringe prospect, one of the myriad of righthanded relievers that exist in the upper minors who could pan out, are more likely to be up-and-down guys than to pan out, and are more likely to never make it than be an up-and-down guy.
But a team with championship aspirations doesn’t make a deal like that in early May unless something has gone wrong, not just with their Plan A for the season, but also with their Plan B and Plan C, as well.
So yeah, when the Rangers got Grossman, things had gone wrong. Wyatt Langford had landed on the injured list, and wasn’t hitting before he went on the i.l. Josh Jung was on the injured list. Justin Foscue, expected to provide righthanded depth if needed, was on the injured list. Ezequiel Duran, expected to get playing time against lefties at DH and in the outfield, had a 623 OPS. Davis Wendzel, summoned to provide righthanded depth, was sporting a 292 OPS. Evan Carter wasn’t hitting lefties, and, as it turned out, wouldn’t hit at all after the acquisition of Grossman, going 0 for 20 with a walk before going on the injured list with what ended up being a season-ending back ailment.
The team as a whole was struggling against lefties, and the guys that they had hoped would be able to be their righthanded hitting backup and depth options were either hurt or not performing. Ergo, going for Robbie Grossman as a “Break Glass in Case of Lack of Righty DH Options Emergency” move.
Robbie Grossman, as it turned out, performed in a perfectly acceptable manner for the Rangers when asked to fill that limited role — the role of designated hitter against lefties. Grossman slashed .260/.365/.425 in 85 plate appearances against lefthanders for Texas in 2024. That’s perfectly acceptable. The league as a whole slashed .245.314/.397 against lefties. Fourteen Rangers in 2024 had at least 25 plate appearances against lefties in 2024, and the only players who had a higher OPS against them than Grossman were Wyatt Langford and Nathaniel Lowe.
As anything other than a DH against lefties, though, you don’t want Robbie Grossman as an option. He had 37 plate appearances against righthanded pitchers for the Rangers in 2024, and had a 489 OPS. Of the 18 players with at least 25 plate appearances for the Rangers in 2024 against righties, the only players with a lower OPS were Andrew Knizner and Justin Foscue. And he was asked to play the outfield for 69 innings for Texas, about which the most positive thing that can be said is that it was only 69 innings.
Grossman’s departure from the Rangers, much like his arrival, was a clear indicator that things weren’t going to plan. Grossman was placed on waivers at the end of August, with the Rangers, pretty much out of the playoff hunt at that point, looking to give him the opportunity to join a playoff contender for the final month of the season. Waiving Grossman — and Travis Jankowski, who joined Grossman on the waiver wire — isn’t exactly waving the white flag, given that they are Robbie Grossman and Travis Jankowski, but it was an acknowledgement of the reality of the Rangers’ situation.
Grossman was claimed on waivers by the Royals and was terrible, registering 4 singles in 32 ABs with 5 walks. I don’t care enough about what he did with the Royals to look at his splits with them.
If you are a major league club with playoff aspirations, would you want to devote a roster spot to Robbie Grossman? Part of the problem with devoting a bench spot to him is that, for someone with his job description, you probably want someone who is either better than “fine” in his primary role, or better than “abysmal” when asked to step outside of his ideal lane. So he’s probably not going to be your Plan A, Plan B or Plan C.
Instead, he would seem likely to, once again, end up with a bad team that needs to fill out their major roster, and wait for a contender to have an urgent need for someone who isn’t terrible at hitting against lefties to come calling.
Previously: