Corey Seager’s 2026 season acquired a new complication Monday afternoon. Chris Young, the Rangers’ baseball operations chief, disclosed that Seager has been dealing with a bone spur in his elbow for roughly two months and may undergo a procedure. No decision has been made, though Young described the possible operation as minor and anticipated a complete recovery.
The new information changes the Rangers’ winter conversation without supplying a complete explanation for Seager’s uneven season. His performance and availability both need scrutiny. The club now also has an unresolved treatment decision to account for as it plans around an important hitter.
The finished line is too significant to wave away: Seager played 102 games and hit .227/.312/.424, with 20 home runs, 51 RBIs, 103 strikeouts and 45 walks. The power total kept him from disappearing offensively, but a .736 OPS was well short of the production Texas expects from a centerpiece hitter. An elbow spur could be relevant to that assessment.
It does not, by itself, explain every strikeout, missed opportunity or difficult stretch.
Availability remains the first problem. Seager and Wyatt Langford appeared together in the starting lineup 76 times, and those 76 shared starts came amid five combined injured-list stints for the two players. That is not a count of games lost by the Rangers, nor does it isolate Seager’s elbow, but it illustrates how often Texas was forced to evaluate its lineup in incomplete form.
A team can survive a star’s absence for a while. It becomes much harder when the replacement plan and the performance baseline are both uncertain.
Then came the late-season evidence that complicates any simple diagnosis. After returning from his final injured-list stint, Seager appeared in 51 of the Rangers’ final 53 games and produced a .269/.332/.472 line with 10 home runs. That was plainly better than his season-wide output.
It gives Texas reason to believe there was still a productive hitter available, even if it does not prove the elbow caused the earlier decline or that a procedure would preserve the improvement.
A pending treatment choice creates planning uncertainty, even when the club’s stated expectation is a full recovery. Texas should preserve room to adjust its preparations as the decision becomes clearer. Neither pursuing a procedure nor avoiding one would, by itself, establish what Seager will produce next season. The baseball plan still needs alternatives and a realistic assessment of the hitter’s recent work.
Young’s broader comments also resist a convenient blame assignment. Texas plans to examine individual offseason routines, track them as closely as possible and adjust programs when needed. The club has used outside doctors, therapists, private evaluations and customized plans, while Young specifically declined to fault the training staff and cited its role in keeping Jacob deGrom available.
