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Ask 10 Rangers fans about Ian Kinsler, who retired last week after a decade-plus in Major League Baseball, and you’ll get 10 different answers. Most of them will be bad, something about his lack of hustle maybe or his propensity for popping up. Eventually, someone will bring up his comments after the Rangers traded him for Prince Fielder before the 2014 season, when Kinsler said he hoped the Rangers would lose every game the following season.
Six years after that deal, Kinsler remains as unfairly maligned as he was during his time with the Rangers, remembered through the lens of a local media he never really got along with and his teams’ failure to deliver North Texas’ first World Series championship.
Facts are facts, though. By any statistical measure, Kinsler is one of the Rangers’ best-ever position players. His best seasons by wins above replacement are comparable to the tier of players that includes Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez and Josh Hamilton, and significantly better than his more fondly remembered contemporary, Michael Young. The only Ranger with consistently higher highs than Kinsler is Alex Rodriguez, who’s remembered poorly for different reasons.