ARLINGTON -- The Rangers traded for Jake Burger last December, hoping to infuse a healthy dose of slug into what had been an anemic offense in 2024.
Texas' offense regressed, that’s no secret. But Burger’s season didn’t go as planned for anybody involved, either. The first baseman had a roller-coaster year, slashing .236/.269/.419 with 16 home runs while dealing with multiple injured-list stints. For reference, he slashed .250/.301/.460 in 2024 with the Marlins.
His times on the injured list were all for different ailments: June 21-July 2 with a left oblique strain, and July 16-Aug. 7 with a left quadriceps injury before Aug. 18-Sept. 1 with the left wrist sprain that he ultimately played through for the rest of the year.
“Very inconsistent,” Burger said when asked to describe his season. “That’s not who I am. I know that obviously I have to stay healthy. I feel like if I get 500 to 600 ABs a year, I'm gonna be right where I need to be. That just didn't happen this year. [There were] some good moments, some really ugly moments.”
General manager Ross Fenstermaker recently announced that Burger had successful wrist surgery at the end of the regular season. After 6-8 weeks of downtime, Burger is expected to progress normally through the rest of the offseason and be prepared for Spring Training.
That’s when the work begins.
“I think, for me, it's addressing that inconsistency by making sure when I'm not seeing the ball well, how I can contribute at the plate rather than three- or four-pitch strikeouts,” Burger said. “Being able to move runners in those situations, even sac bunts, whatever it may take to win. At the end of the day, that's all I really care about -- winning baseball games. What I did this year helped some games and hurt others.”
Working on consistency sounds easy in theory. But what kind of work goes into being more consistent during an offseason? This past year was not his best, but it wasn’t all that far off. How does he get back to the player he knows he can be?
“Two things: first, probably working on how I'm going to game-plan day in and day out,” Burger explained. “Just working on approaches. And also having at-bats where it's like, ‘All right, work on your B swing here.’ You're not feeling good today. Let's see how we work in that bat.
“And for me, I think it's not going down the mechanical rabbit hole when you're not feeling good. I think that's the biggest thing a lot of us, myself included, where you might not feel good for a week, but you know that your mechanics are still there, and you don't have to chase the rabbit, in a sense.”
And honestly, the second step to a successful season -- the first being health -- is to fix his first-half struggles.
Career first half: .232/.277/.433
Career second half: .272/.330/.527
So how does he fix that?
“I do think in the last two years I've probably fallen into the trap -- starting in Spring Training -- of taking too many swings and doing too much,” Burger said. “I feel like I put together really good offseasons, and the first week of spring, I feel really good. The BP is electric, lives are good and then it kind of tapers off, because you're making minor tweaks, rather than just being like, ‘Hey, that's what I did for 16 weeks, just keep grinding that out.’
“Just trusting that process. So I think that's how I address that first month of the season.”