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After offseason acquisitions, is Corey Seager ready for Rangers season ahead?

As his second season with the Rangers approaches, Seager is more comfortable.

It was evident on the day Jacob deGrom officially became a Ranger. Later, in pictures that surfaced from teammate Joe Barlow’s wedding. And, again, last week during FanFest at Globe Life Field.

There is an easy smile that seems to say it all.

As his second season with the Rangers approaches, Corey Seager is more comfortable.

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“Absolutely,” he told reporters. “The biggest learning curve [last year] was just that everything was new. New organization. New people. New living situations. All those aspects come into it.”

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All were difficult adjustments, especially for a guy with strict adherence to a routine. But they were workable. You eventually put the names and faces together of everybody you meet. You eventually remember where you store your dishes and memorize routes around the neighborhood.

One change, though, was not as easily solvable: losing. For the first time in his MLB career, it was something Seager had to deal with. In seven years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he’d been on teams that averaged 99.5 wins — 100 if we’re rounding up — per 162-game season to one that lost 94. You hope you never get used to losing.

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It was something Seager fought all year, and it eventually showed. He’d come to the Rangers as part of a nearly $600 million makeover in free agency. Within hours of signing his 10-year, $325 million deal, he, and his new teammates were locked out by owners in a collective bargaining dispute that dragged on longer than anybody expected.

When they did return, this creature of habit, whose extraordinary preparation routine borders on obsessive, had no time to learn his teammates or staff. It didn’t help either when the Rangers blew a seven-run lead on opening day, when they lost nine of their first 11, when one-run losses became the norm or when, after scrambling back to .500 to start June, the team collapsed in a big heap.

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More changes. In August, manager Chris Woodward, one of the few players or coaches with whom Seager had a preexisting relationship, was fired. Two days later, Jon Daniels, president of baseball operations, was fired, too.

There is change. And then there is change.

Nothing prepares you for the latter.

It seemed to show. While Seager is not one to show much emotion on the field, fans noted what they believed was a sullen look while playing. Whether that was merely an illusion or not, there were more real evidence of a struggle in his performance at the plate.

A remarkably consistent hitter throughout his career whose numbers across the board ticked up slightly after the All-Star break, Seager instead went backward in 2022. He posted a .804 OPS in the first half; it fell to .728 in the second. It was the lowest second-half OPS of his career.

“Everything is a lot easier when you win,” Seager said. “Things get covered up when you win — relationships, things that happen, blah, blah, blah. You aren’t as affected when you are winning. And when you’re not, it’s trying to keep that in a bubble and stay on the right path moving forward. You don’t want to let losing spin you out from the goal of trying to succeed. I think that was the hardest thing last year. I’d just never had to do that.

“Not winning is always frustrating. I expect to win every single night. You must have that mentality to be a good team. When it’s 7 o’clock, you are ready to win. And it’s frustrating when you don’t, obviously.”

This self-evaluation was made with the benefit of hindsight, of putting a trying season behind him, even if it did include an All-Star berth and 33 home runs. Since the season ended, he digested it and watched as the Rangers started adding pieces.

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First: Manager Bruce Bochy, who lives not far from him south of Nashville. Then deGrom, who signed his deal while Seager and his wife, Maddie, were in Texas for a short stopover before attending former Dodgers teammate Chris Taylor’s wedding in Hawaii. Seager showed up for the news conference, standing off in the wings with about a dozen teammates. He was noticeable for the giant smile that seemed to never leave his face.

Since, he’s watched Andrew Heaney and Nathan Eovaldi join the rotation.

It hearkened back to a conversation Seager had with general manager Chris Young before he signed.

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“When we were going through it, he said he wanted to have a guy that can show the young guys what a No. 1 truly looks like,” Seager said. “And he went out and basically got three.

“It just makes everybody better., When you’ve got the five guys we have — six or seven, really — there’s that much more confidence. There’s more buy-in of expecting to win every night. … It means the world. The sky is the limit.

“We’ve got three different perspectives. We’ve got guys throwing from both sides. We’ve got a chance to really teach anybody anything that we need. It means the world. The sky is the limit now.”

He said it with a visible smile.

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Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

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