Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young made an appearance on the GBag Nation on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) to discuss the Rangers’ final road trip, Wyatt Langford’s September surge, lessons learned from the 2024 season and more.
Here are some of the highlights, edited for clarity.
What do you think about the last series in Oakland for the Rangers? It’s a place rich in baseball history, what first comes to mind for you?
Chris Young: It’s funny, I pulled into the stadium here this afternoon in the parking lot and there were already fans lined up in the parking lot waiting to get in. I spent a lot of time here as a player. I like this place, there’s a lot of history here, lots of a great players, lots of great teams that have come through Oakland. You know, it’s sad. It’s sad for baseball that they’re leaving, but I’m happy we’re here to close it out. I do have fond memories of pitching here, of playing against the A’s. It’s a great environment when the place is full, the fans are here and they’re rowdy. It creates a great environment. I think that’s what we’re going to expect these last three games here. I’m excited to see it and I just hope we play well and find a way to win in a rowdy environment.
It’s an old ballpark, it’s run down, the amenities are not the best. But I always thought that was a part of the A’s identity, too. They found a way to embrace that and just have a chip on their shoulder. There weren’t many thrills of being a player for Oakland, but they always have put together good teams and they play hard. This year’s team is no different. Mark Kotsay’s got them playing very hard and the guys seem to embrace the blue-collar mentality that exists in playing in the Coliseum.
How impressive is Wyatt Langford’s strong finish to 2024 within the context of excitement heading into next year?
Young: I can speak from personal experience, in your first full season, by the end of September it’s a mental grind. You’ve never been through a season that long in your life, you’ve never played this many games in your life. So you kind of hope to get to the finish line, you don’t expect to sprint through it. Wyatt is accelerating as he’s reaching the finish line. It’s really fun to see. I think it speaks to Wyatt’s aptitude, the adjustments he’s made over the course of the season, his mentality of getting better, not letting things faze him and just taking it day-to-day. He’s got all the attributes of a really good player. To see what he’s done over the last six weeks and the way he’s come on strong, it’s so exciting to think about what he’s going to be in 2025 and beyond.
Josh Jung is shut down, what’s his outlook?
Young: We’re trying to get some answers there. I think that it’s been frustrating for Josh. He’s such a hard worker and he’s so committed. To have him have a little bit of a setback right now, it’s been hard for him. I know he wanted to finish the season strong. But this thing flared up just a little bit. It’s kind of normal, they put a plate into his wrist to stabilize the bone. But there’s a tendon that runs along that plate that has continued to get irritated. So I think we have to step back and evaluate the best way to mitigate this and manage it moving forward. We hope to have answers within the next four or five days as to what that looks like.
What would you say were some of the biggest things you learned in challenges to repeating, what are some of your thoughts reflecting back on that?
Young: Well I experienced this as a player in 2015, going into the 2016 season in Kansas City when we won the World Series. I think as a player, it’s natural that you have this emotional month where you reach the pinnacle of the game and you win. Then you start your offseason, and you need time mentally and physically to recover, then you’re kind of behind the eight ball. So the offseason accelerates on you. Then you get into spring training and you think, ‘Okay, I’ve got to ease into it because I’m not as far along as I was last year when there was a full offseason.’ All of a sudden you look up and you get into May and June and you’re a little bit behind the eight ball still, because you haven’t sped up and caught up in terms of the work you’ve missed out on. I’m not sure there’s a perfect way to avoid that, aside from just making sure that you really have the same complete offseason and do it with the same edge and mentality as you did in the losing seasons.
It may be just natural that guys do let down their guard a little bit after they win. I saw that in Kansas City. I think one of the things that’s important about this game is that you really never arrive. There are very few players that ever have the job security and they’ve fully arrived in this game. So I think for all of our guys, to stay hungry, to stay focused and continue to work, because the offseason is the foundation in terms of what you can expect during the regular season. If you don’t build that good, strong foundation in the offseason, it’s really hard to catch up during the season.
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