Texas Rangers Pull Off Trade for the Perfect Power Bat

The Texas Rangers offseason grabbed a couple more gears at the MLB Winter Meetings on Tuesday. After re-signing Nathan Eovaldi to a three-year, $75 million contract, the club traded for corner infielder Jake Burger to plug into the middle of the lineup.

It is unclear how the Rangers will utilize the large 6-foot-2, 230-pound Burger defensively. The majority of his time has come at third base, but he did play 54 games at first base and 26 games at DH in 2024. Where he plays with Texas will depend on what additional moves the front office makes.

As the roster currently sits, Burger would easily fill the everyday DH roll while representing a backup option at both of the infield corners. The Rangers didn’t have a set power-hitting DH in 2024, so Burger immediately helps lengthen the lineup. His defensive skillset isn’t his strong suit, but his power bat should help cure some of the offensive woes that the Rangers had last season.

Burger is the Power Bat the Rangers Needed

In our piece on what the Rangers need to do to contend in 2025 last month, the top two keys listed were score more runs and get creative this offseason. This trade accomplishes both. Burger is set to only garner $800k in salary this season before he becomes arbitration-eligible heading into 2026.

And with the former first-round draft pick’s (11th overall in 2017 by the White Sox) pop, the Rangers shouldn’t have a hard time scoring more runs. This past year Burger slashed .250/.301/.460, while belting 29 home runs, 23 doubles, had 76 RBI, and scored 68 runs. And he put up those numbers on a Miami Marlins team that scored the 27th-fewest runs in baseball at 637.

Burger’s 2023 numbers were equally as impressive. That year he was traded from the White Sox to the Marlins and had a hitting line of .250/.309/.518, slugged 34 home runs, 28 doubles, had 80 RBI, and scored 71 runs.

Other than not being a great fielder, the other hole in Burger’s game is his higher-than-average strikeout rate. On his career he has a 27.5% strikeout rate compared to the league average of 22.7%.

The Rangers tend to stay away from high strikeout rate guys, but the need for pop in the lineup makes sense. The club overall kept their strikeouts down as evidenced by them coming in at 23rd in strikeout rate in 2024 at 21.2%. Burger’s strikeouts aren’t ideal, but the team will gladly give up some in order to get his powerful run production.

What Did the Rangers Give Up?

This trade saw no big-league talent leaving Arlington, with three prospects heading Miami’s way. The Rangers sent infielders Echedry Vargas and Max Acosta along with pitching prospect Brayan Mendoza.

Acosta had a solid season with Double-A Frisco before raking in the Arizona Fall League. He was added to the Rangers 40-man roster at the end of the season in order to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 Draft. Lacking in power, the skilled middle infielder projects out to be a solid utility guy in the future.

Just Baseball’s Aram Leighton had Vargas as the Rangers No. 13 prospect in his most recent top fifteen of the organization. You can check out his analysis of Vargas along with the rest of the Rangers top prospects here.

Mendoza is a 20-year-old lefty that had a great season. Spending most of his time at low Single-A DownEast, the hurler posted a 2.32 ERA across 101 innings pitched. He also had a 1.12 WHIP while striking out 109.