As a player used to playing every day, Marcus Semien finally relented to taking days off late last season. Will that benefit him in 2025?
ARLINGTON, Texas — Marcus Semien’s grip on the reins at second base is as tight as ever for the Texas Rangers entering the 2025 season, but a little rest might be the key to unlocking another MVP-caliber year.
Semien is about to play in the fourth season of a seven-year contract and has firmly entrenched himself as a leader on and off the field. However, approaching his mid-30s, Semien detractors might be quick to say that he’s on the decline.
A drop in his numbers in 2024 might suggest that too, but what might be more telling is the fact that Semien was on the bench for three whole games last season. A perennial iron man who led the league in games played in four of the previous five seasons, seeing Semien’s name absent from the lineup on some nights was newsworthy.
Now the question becomes, is Semien accepting the occasional night off a sign that he’s slowing down or is the rest a way for Texas to keep him fresh and productive?
2024 starting second baseman: Marcus Semien
2025 projected Opening Day second baseman: Marcus Semien
As the leadoff hitter for all 162 games, Semien was the consistent, driving force behind the Rangers’ lineup in their World Series championship season.
Corey Seager may have been the star power, and Adolis Garcia might have been the postseason flash bang, but as Semien went, so too usually did the Rangers’ offense. That was good news in 2023, as Semien finished third in the American League MVP voting and won the Silver Slugger award for the position.
But the mirror also continued into 2024, and while the Rangers as a whole were a massively underperforming team last season, Semien would be the first to tell you that he could have and should have done better.
Slashing just .237/.308/.391, Semien saw all facets of his game drop, with the exception being his defense which garnered him a Gold Glove finalist nod. While the dip in production could be attributed to a league-wide drop in offense, the line is statistically the worst of Semien’s career (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).
Is Semien’s decline as simple as age? Or maybe it was the fact that his endless availability finally caught up to him as his streak of consecutive games played went over 300 and he brought the record for most plate appearances in a single year in league history in 2023.
Manager Bruce Bochy finally put his foot down and left Semien out of the lineup, having rested Semien in those three games, a rarity for the second baseman. With one of the highest plate appearance numbers as a leadoff hitter and ranking statistically as one of the worst, changing Semien might be asking to teach an old dog new tricks but Texas is banking on a lesser workload revitalizing their keystone contributor.
Peripherally, Semien didn’t profile as much as a leadoff hitter, garnering an on-base percentage 40 points below his rate from 2023 while stealing just eight bases over the course of the season, and scoring far fewer runs while taking fewer walks as well. Like the rest of the Rangers, Semien also had an awful time hitting against fastballs in 2024, with an average of .254 on them, compared to .282 in 2023. Semien also hit more ground balls than he had in five years, with nearly 40% of his batted balls.
For a second baseman with great defense, Semien was still valuable, and indeed even with the down year, he was at exactly league average with the lumber – it just wasn’t up to the standards that he or the team set for themselves.
As we’ve seen in the past, Semien is the pulse of the team. If he’s going well, the runs are piling up. With a down year from Semien, the 2024 lineup also did not perform well enough to get Texas back to October. That doesn’t fall squarely on Semien’s shoulders, and the expectations to repeat the production in 2023 were quite high – and, likely, unfair.
Bochy’s strategy of resting his star second baseman more might be the ticket, but the other problem that the Rangers will run into is a lack of depth in the infield. Defensively, Semien is still one of the best second basemen in the game.
Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran can certainly hold their own at the position, but if their services are required elsewhere, Texas doesn’t have a lot of help up the middle. Luckily for Texas, they don’t need much help with Semien, just the occasional night now to keep him fresh.
The Rangers would certainly not be in the position to contend again that they are now without Semien, but a bit more production from their leadoff hitter would be a team-defining boon, especially as Texas has gathered up some additional power bats to drive the top of the order in.
Do you think Marcus Semien will play more than 150 games for Texas in 2025? Share your predictions with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.