The Rangers announced today that they have reinstated infielder Jake Burger from the 10-day injured list. Fellow infielder Josh Jung has been optioned to Triple-A Round Rock as the corresponding move, the first time in his career he’s been optioned to the minors.
The move highlights what a tough time Jung has been having of late. Since the calendar flipped to June, he has produced an awful .158/.208/.221 slash line in 101 plate appearances. His 19 wRC+ in that time is the third-worst mark in the majors, ahead of just Brenton Doyle and Michael Harris II.
“He keeps working, but I don’t know what else to tell you,” manager Bruce Bochy said this week, per Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. “If it’s, you know, another break, and you have to do it, it’s a performance-based game, as we always say. We’ve got to find a way to score runs. … We do have some options if we have to give a guy a break.”
The lack of performance was naturally not lost on Jung himself. “I haven’t been very good,” he said on Monday, per Grant. “It’s been the worst [month] ever. I’m just trying to stay in my routine and make adjustments. It’s a daily grind, daily battle, but I’m doing everything I can. It’s frustrating. It’s hard. But this game isn’t easy. It’s just me versus me right now.”
Grant also relays that the club wants Jung to work on fastballs up-and-in, a pitch that he hasn’t been able to lay off of, with one of the worst rates in the majors for swinging at such pitches outside the strike zone.
It’s a stark contrast to Jung’s previous work. The eighth overall pick in the 2019 draft, Jung got a cup of coffee in the majors in 2022. He got a fuller opportunity in 2023 and ran with it, hitting .266/.315/.467 in 122 games. He then hit .308/.329/.538 in 17 postseason games, helping the Rangers win their first title in franchise history. Last year, a right wrist fracture limited him to 46 games but he still put up a stout .264/.298/.421 line when on the field. Here in 2025, he was doing fine before the month of June, as he was sporting a .277/.321/.440 line at the end of May.
It seems possible that the book is out on him, which has led to his aforementioned struggles with those up-and-in fastballs. That’s been one part of a larger team-wide lack of offense this year, as the Rangers have a collective .228/.296/.366 batting line. Their 87 wRC+ is only better than four teams: the Royals, Pirates, White Sox and Rockies. Ezequiel Durán played third last night and is in there again tonight. He’s been even worse than Jung, with a .145/.229/.226 line this year, but the Rangers are probably hoping that Jung can quickly find his form and retake the job.
How that plays out could impact the club’s deadline plans. They are currently 42-44 and 2.5 games back of a playoff spot in the American League. If they can hang in the race and Jung is still struggling, perhaps the club would look to external third base options, or they could perhaps move Josh Smith over to the hot corner and leave Burger in charge of first base. That would open the designated hitter spot for the return of Joc Pederson or someone else on the roster. There are a few moving pieces there and the situation could change in a few different ways in the coming weeks.
For Jung personally, the length of this rehab assignment could impact him professionally. He came into this year with two years and 27 days of service time. By my count, he has added 97 days so far this year, getting him to 2.124. That’s 48 days shy of the three-year mark. If he’s recalled by the middle of August, he could still get over the three-year line before the offseason. If not, then his path to free agency would be pushed by a year. As of now, he may have enough service time to qualify for arbitration as a Super Two player, depending on where this year’s cutoff ultimately falls. Any service time he could add later in the year would increase his chances of qualifying for arb, while hitting the three-year line would guarantee it.
Photos courtesy of Jerome Miron and Kevin Jairaj, Imagn Images
Kevin Pillar is hanging up his Superman cape. On an appearance on Foul Territory, he announced that he is retiring from playing. He was with the Rangers earlier this year but was released about a month ago.
Pillar, now 36, was able to engineer an incredible zero-to-hero career. The Blue Jays drafted him in the 32nd round of the 2011 draft. But despite that humble beginning, he would not only make it to the big leagues but he would stick around for more than a decade.
His best asset was his defense, as he quickly earned a reputation for making highlight-reel catches, often diving horizontally in a way that earned him his Superman nickname. He got some limited big league time in 2013 and 2014 before fully cementing himself as a big leaguer in 2015.
That year, he got into 159 games for the Jays, producing a batting line of .278/.314/.399. His 94 wRC+ indicated he was 6% below league average at the plate, but that was more than adequate to pair with his other attributes. He stole 25 bases and received strong grades for his glovework, leading FanGraphs to credit him with 3.7 wins above replacement. That played a big role in getting the Jays to the postseason for the first time since 1993. Though the club was eventually felled by the Royals in the ALCS, the Jays got José Bautista’s legendary bat flip game along the way.
That would ultimately prove to be an apex for Pillar. He never again stole more than 15 bases nor topped a 90 wRC+ in a full season. But he still proved to be a useful player in generally the same shape, with his speed and defense making up for some subpar offense. From 2016 to 2018, he got into 442 games for the Jays, slashing .258/.296/.401 for an 86 wRC+ and producing 4.5 fWAR.
By the time the 2019 season had rolled around, Pillar was 30 years old and the Jays were rebuilding. Early that year, he was flipped to the Giants, which started the journeyman period of his career. Over the next few years, he would bounce to the Red Sox, Rockies, Mets, Dodgers, Braves, White Sox, Angels and Rangers. Though he had moved into his 30s, his performance was roughly the same as before, though with his glovework naturally slipping a bit. Over those 2019-25 seasons, he played 544 games and hit .246/.284/.415 for an 85 wRC+ and produced 2.4 fWAR.
Most recently, he had a stint with the Rangers but hit just .209/.209/.256 in 20 games before getting designated for assignment and released. He had flirted with retirement before but now seems to have decided that it’s time to hang up the spikes.
Any 32nd-round pick making it to the big leagues is exceedingly rare. In fact, the draft was shortened to 20 rounds a few years ago, so it likely won’t happen again. Pillar not only made it, but he got into 1,234 games over 13 seasons. He racked up 1,053 hits, including 114 home runs. He was credited with 10.8 WAR from FanGraphs and 16.1 from Baseball Reference. He earned about $25MM in his career, according to Baseball Reference. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Pillar on an impressive career and wish him the best with whatever comes next.
The Rangers have spent most of the season hovering around .500. They have as strong a 1-2 rotation punch as any team in MLB. Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi give Texas a good chance to win every time out. They have little margin for error with a lineup that has struggled to score runs for a second straight year. Assuming the Rangers find themselves in position to buy, they need to swing for an impact bat. They still have much of the personnel from the 2023 team that mashed its way to a championship, but most of the hitters from that club have gone backwards over the past two seasons.
Record: 48-49 (18% playoff probability, per FanGraphs)
For other entrants in this series, see this post.
Buy Mode
Potential needs: First base, catcher, right field, power bullpen arm
The Rangers enter the second half tied for 22nd in MLB in scoring. They are eighth in runs scored over the past month, so things have been better lately, but they're still hitting .243/.322/.387 even over this recent stretch. They're in the bottom third in average, on-base percentage and slugging for the season. There have been far too many easy outs.
This is not a one-year problem. Texas had a .238/.305/.380 team batting line in 2024. They tried to remedy that -- with a particular focus on their woeful numbers against fastballs -- by signing Joc Pederson and acquiring Jake Burger. The offense hasn't gotten any better, at least in part because both Pederson and Burger have played poorly.
President of baseball operations Chris Young and his staff are back to the drawing board. The Rangers have had by far the worst designated hitter production (.160/.241/.265) in MLB. Most of that falls on Pederson, who has hit .131/.269/.238 in 46 games. He has been out nearly two months with a broken hand and is still weeks away from a rehab assignment. They've mostly used catcher Jonah Heim at DH in Pederson's absence. He's hitting .219/.262/.346 across 280 plate appearances. The Rangers need to find someone who can draw into that position.
Only 21 players have taken at least 150 plate appearances at the DH spot this season. Of that group, Marcell Ozuna is the most obvious trade candidate. He's playing on a $16MM salary that might be too rich for Texas, and he hasn't hit well over the past two months. The Nationals would happily dump what remains of Josh Bell's $6MM salary. The ever streaky Bell was terrible in April, raked in May, had an awful June, and is hitting well in a tiny sample in July. Texas could send the Nats a middling prospect and hope to catch lightning in a bottle.
Bell would only make sense as one of multiple offensive acquisitions. The DH spot has been the biggest issue but is far from the only problem. Texas has also gotten below-average production out of catcher, first base, third base and right field. They're not going to be able to afford upgrades at five different positions, of course, but that at least gives them a wide positional net they can cast.
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