The Rangers are generally a veteran collection coming off relatively injury-free seasons, and their best players had career years in 1998. That's a roundabout way of saying that there aren't many positions that are going to post offensive gains this year. The two spots that should crank out more runs are shortstop and left field. Though re-signed for his defensive play, a full season of Royce Clayton at shortstop is worth about a dozen runs that the Rangers didn't plate when Kevin Elster was hanging around for the first four months. While it's silly to use Grapefruit League games to project regular season performance, the springs of Tom Goodwin and Mark McLemore only further the cause for concern.
All signs point to Texas losing at least twenty-five runs from the top two spots in the order.
Juan Gonzalez credits his personal fitness guru for his first injury-free season in six years. If healthy, there's nothing to suggest an offensive downturn for Gonzo. I just don't have that much faith in the fitness community. Texas can expect reduced offense at nearly half of their positions. Combine this with the fact that they most likely exceeded their expected run output last year and the Rangers are ripe for a large offensive drop-off in 1999.