- Trenton native Wyatt Langford, 24, is posting a career-best stat line for the contending Texas Rangers.
- At age 23 in 2025, Langford became the youngest Ranger with a 20-20 season, hitting 22 home runs and stealing 22 bases with a .775 OPS.
- Langford has battled through injuries to establish himself as one of baseball's best young players and a future MVP, according to manager Skip Schumaker.
- Wyatt Langford, Texas Rangers outfielder, has emerged as a leading MVP candidate with a career-best .277 batting average in 2026 despite injury setbacks.
ST. PETERSBURG—Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker made a bold statement about outfielder Wyatt Langford during Major League Baseball spring training in February. He repeated it in June.
“He’s an MVP type of player,” Schumaker said after Langford, who previously starred at Trenton High School and the University of Florida, drove in three of his team’s four runs in a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres. “He’s a guy that will help you win more games than not.”
Schumaker’s comments raised some eyebrows. Langford already has a team MVP under his belt after being named the Rangers’ Player of the Year last season. But MVP of the entire American League? Schumaker’s statement vaults the 24-year-old left fielder into elite territory alongside superstars like Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees and Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros.
A peek under the hood shows what fuels Schumaker’s praise.
In 2025, at age 23, Langford quietly posted a superb sophomore season, racking up 22 home runs, 22 steals (the youngest in team history to post a 20-20 season) and a .775 OPS, while also becoming a Gold Glove finalist. Despite three trips to the injured list, he finished with 5.6 WAR (wins above replacement), good for 12th-best in the AL and one of the top 100 age-23 seasons in baseball history, according to ESPN.
It appears that was just a warm-up for 2026. Langford has battled through injuries again to improve his stat line across the board, including a career-best batting average (.277), slugging percentage (.502) and OPS (.822) heading into play in August. More importantly, Langford has emerged as a leader on the contending Texas Rangers, repeatedly winning games with clutch hits in the absence of the team’s injured star shortstop, Corey Seager.
“He’s been—I don’t want to say the savior, but we’ve been on an offensive run since he’s come back [from the injured list],” Schumaker told a group of reporters before the Rangers opened a series against the Tampa Bay Rays last week in St. Petersburg. “It’s just different—on the bases, his defense, in the outfield. He’s just a complete player, and that’s why I said he’s going to win an MVP one day.”
Where it all began
Schumaker does not need to tell anyone in Trenton that Wyatt Langford is a winner. In 2015—as an eighth grader—he played on the Tigers’ undefeated state championship football team. He followed that up by hitting .359 during the baseball season, good for second-best on the team.
As a freshman in 2017, Langford helped lead Trenton to a state baseball title with a .391 batting average and .486 on-base percentage.
“Being from a small town, it means a lot to me,” Langford told Mainstreet last week before a game against the Rays at Tropicana Field. “Just to have a bunch of people that you know kind of care and support me—it’s super cool.”
Langford, who still lives in Trenton, has given those supporters plenty of reason to cheer. After sitting most of his freshman year at UF, he had a breakout season as a sophomore in 2022, leading the Gators in batting average (.355), on-base percentage (.447), slugging percentage (.719) and hits (91), while tying the Gators’ single-season home run record with 26.
Langford’s 2023 was the stuff of legend. He increased his batting average (.373), on-base percentage (.498) and slugging percentage (.784) and led the Gators to the College World Series in June. In July, Texas made him the No. 4 overall pick in the Major League Baseball Draft, after which he signed for $8 million.
That would have been a fine year for most players, but Langford was not done. He used the next two-plus months to zip through every level of the minor leagues, posting a composite 1.157 OPS with 10 home runs and 30 RBIs in 44 games across play in rookie ball through AAA.
He followed that up with a huge spring training in 2024, hitting .388 with six home runs and a majors-leading 1.137 OPS. The performance forced the Texas Rangers, fresh off a World Series title, to put Langford on the team and into the Opening Day starting lineup.
“He’s earned it,” then-Rangers’ manager Bruce Bochy said. “He’s just carried himself like a major leaguer since day one.”
Facing challenges
The last time Langford played at Tropicana Field, he was in the first week of his big-league career (the Rays played at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa in 2025) and coming off an unbroken string of professional success.
Now two and a half years later, the Langford who returned last week arrived with marks of maturity that comes with experience. After playing in more than 320 major league games, he’s experienced the highs of winning AL Rookie of the Month (twice) and AL Player of the Month (September 2024), but also the lows of batting slumps, losing streaks and a combined six trips to the injured list.
“I didn’t really know what I was getting into, exactly,” Langford said. “You don’t really realize all the amount of travel and everything, the sheer amount of games that you play. I mean, 162 games is a lot.”
Langford said, overall, the experience has exceeded his expectations. Still, the grind of a six-month season has tested him and put new stress on his body, after a relatively injury-free high school and college career. He missed time in 2024 with a hamstring strain, suffered three oblique strains in 2025, and hit the IL with forearm and hamstring strains in 2026.
“It’s been tough,” Langford said. “It’s something that you definitely don’t want to ever happen… You want to be out there, want to be available every day.”
Langford said he’s used the downtime to learn how to prevent injuries such as oblique strains.
“I haven’t dealt with it at all this year, so I’m doing something right, I guess, when it comes to that,” he said. “It’s all a learning process.”
When Langford is on the field, he’s been the best player for the Rangers this season. In July, he talked his way back from the IL early to play in four divisional games before the All-Star break—without going on a rehab assignment.
In his first game back, he lined a shot off the wall in left field for a walk-off, 7-6 win over the Anaheim Angels, catapulting Texas into first place in the American League West. He smiled broadly as his teammates mobbed him between first and second base.
A day later, on July 10, Langford hit a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to lead Texas to a 7-3 win over the Astros.
“It’s not as easy as he’s making it look,” Schumaker said after the game.
Mark DeRosa, who managed the U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic, called Langford a “franchise pillar” in July 22 comments on MLB Network.
“Since June 12, he’s the best hitter in the game,” DeRosa said, citing Langford’s .365 average, .698 slugging percentage and improved plate discipline. He also pointed to Langford lowering his hands in his batting stance as a key adjustment that turned around his season after a slow start.
Langford said all the high praise does not put any pressure on him. He’s focused on staying healthy and consistently contributing.
“As long as you’re in there and playing, you never know,” he said. “Any given night you can help the team win.”
Langford said he does not have any personal goals beyond staying in the lineup and winning, as the Rangers try to return to the postseason for the first time since their title run in 2023.
“Personal goals are cool, I guess, but you know, if you’re playing in not-meaningful games, they don’t really matter,” he said. “I just want to be able to make the playoffs every year. I mean, that’s what’s fun. That’s why you play the game.”
