When the final seconds tick off to the Super Bowl, and all that nonsense is finally over, the most glorious time of the year arrives.

Time for baseball. 

Pitchers and catchers return this week. The World Baseball Classic returns in early March. The 2026 season arrives in late March, and for six months, there will be baseball. It all ends in early November when the last out of the World Series is recorded. 

It will be the last baseball for quite some time. The collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players will expire. And this time, the owners are so angry with other owners, they are going to take it out on the players and, ultimately, the fans. 

We don’t know which American League team will face the Dodgers in this year’s fall classic. Chances are, it won’t be the Rangers.

Texas comes into 2026 with a new manager and a new coaching staff. They approached the offseason as if dad lost his job and they had cut back. Instead of making sweeping changes to an offense that has been woeful the past two seasons, they made minor tweaks. Yes, outfielder Brandon Nimmo and catcher Danny Janson make them better. But small baby steps are not what was needed. The Rangers are hoping Jake Burger, Josh Jung, and Joc Pederson somehow figure it out, like they had hoped Adolis Garcia, Marcus Semien, and Jonah Heim would have done last year and didn’t.  

They added a pitcher whose career can only be described as a total disappointment, then in a head-scratching move, claimed they now had the best rotation in baseball. MacKenzie Gore comes to Texas with reputation for piling up strikeouts but with it a 4.19 career ERA and a propensity for walking opposing hitters. It will be interesting to see if the Rangers still possess that magic for turning around struggling starters now that legendary pitching guru Mike Maddux is gone.

Future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy is gone, replaced by Skip Schumaker. The 45-year-old manager brings with him a stellar reputation, having won the N.L. Manager of the Year award in 2023 with the Miami Marlins. 

Schumaker will have the unenviable task of guiding this team back to the playoffs, a position the Rangers have been in only once in the previous nine seasons. 

Let there be baseball. Let there be hope.