Texas Rangers acquire power-hitting 1B/3B Jake Burger from Miami Marlins

The Texas Rangers, looking to get back to being an elite offense, agreed to acquire corner infield bat Jake Burger from the Miami Marlins for three prospects late Tuesday night, three people confirmed to The Dallas Morning News.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal initially reported that the Rangers had acquired the infielder, who has averaged about 31 homers the last two years with the Marlins and White Sox. The Rangers are sending infield prospects Max Acosta, Echedry Vargas and pitching prospect Brayan Mendoza to Miami in the deal.

Burger, who turns 29 in April, brings pure power on the cheap to the Rangers lineup. In addition to hitting 63 homers over the last two years, he also falls just six service days shy of being a Super Two arbitration player, meaning he will be paid under $800,000 in 2025 and the Rangers will control him through 2028. He was originally drafted by the Chicago White Sox and is close friends with Rangers’ pitcher Dane Dunning.

He could also give the club some flexibility for making another trade to potentially create more payroll flexibility. Left-handed hitting first baseman Nate Lowe is set to make $10 million or more in arbitration in 2025. But Burger could also simply be plugged in as a right-handed hitting first baseman or as a DH and also gives the Rangers additional insurance at third base where Josh Jung has dealt with a number of injuries.

For his career, Burger has equal splits against lefties (a .794 OPS) and right-handers (.787), but his splits tilted towards the reverse side in 2024 when he had a .799 OPS against right-handers and .678 against lefties.

He also gives the Rangers some insurance against the fastball. Burger slugged .645 against four-seamers last year, which ranked 11th in major league baseball, just behind Fernando Tatis Jr. and just ahead of Shohei Ohtani.

Vargas, who spent the whole season at Class A Down East, is the only one of the three prospects in The Dallas Morning News’ latest top 30 Rangers prospects rankings, checking in at No. 14. Acosta was once one of the Rangers’ top prospects, but bounced back with a nice year at Double-A Frisco before compiling a .934 OPS in the Arizona Fall League and was recently added to the Rangers’ 40-man roster. Mendoza turns 21 years old in January and spent 2024 with Class A Down East and Class A Hickory.

The deal also demonstrates the value of deep international scouting finds. While Acosta received $1.65 million coming out of Venezuela, Mendoza ($20,000) and Vargas ($10,000) were low-dollar signings from the international program.

The move comes on the heels of the Rangers retaining their most important free agent, Nathan Eovaldi, agreeing to a three-year, $75 million deal with the veteran starter.

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