2023 Season Recap - Rangers 3B Josh Jung

Jung's rookie campaign was promising, especially as he showed an ability to make consistent hard contact and hit homers, but there are valid concerns about his contact issues and durability.

Josh Jung put together a solid rookie campaign in 2023 as he hit .266 with 70 RBI and 75 runs scored across 515 plate appearances, with a wRC+ of 110 attesting to his above-average production at the plate. One does wonder, though, what a full season of action would have yielded, as he missed about six weeks of action after recovering from surgery to repair a fractured thumb and he was less productive after he returned, which was unsurprising since he indicated that the injury isn’t fully healed yet.

The 25 year-old does have an extensive injury history since the Rangers drafted him 8^th overall out of Texas Tech back in 2019. That year he, made a brief stop in Rookie ball (.588 average, 1 homer, 5 RBI, and 5 runs scored across just 19 PA, with a 16% strikeout rate, 11% walk rate, and a wRC+ of 308) before spending the balance of the campaign in Single-A. There, he hit .287 with 1 dinger, 23 RBI, and 18 runs scored, with a 16% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate, and 121 wRC+ across a much more meaningful sample size of 179 PA. While the average was solid and the command of the plate was pretty good, the lack of power output was a bit surprising given his plus pop.

In 2020, of course, he did not play in any true game action thanks to the pandemic. Nevertheless, he was ranked within the top 100 prospects in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and Baseball Prospectus before the season began. He would remain in each outlet’s top 100 in advance of the 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons, peaking in 2022 at between #26 and #31 for the three that year.

Unfortunately for Jung, he got a late start to the 2021 campaign after he underwent surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot. When he was healthy enough to make his season debut, Jung began the campaign at Double-A, where he impressed with a .308 average, 10 homers, 40 RBI, and 25 runs scored across 186 PA, with a well above-average wRC+ of 140. His walk rate did, however, dip to 7% while his strikeout rate reached 23%. After his swinging-strike rate had come in at an acceptable 10% in Single-A back in 2019, it came in at 13% in Double-A as he faced stronger talent. Jung closed the 2021 season in Triple-A, where he was even more impressive, batting .348 with 9 dingers, 21 RBI, 29 runs scored, and a wRC+ of 166 in 156 PA. He trimmed his strikeout rate to 22% despite climbing a level while raising his walk rate to 12%; his swinging-strike rate again came in at 13%.

Based on his strong work in Double-A and Triple-A in 2021, Jung was expected to reach the majors in early 2022, perhaps out of spring training. But he was sidelined until late July after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder in February. When he returned to Triple-A action, he batted .273 with 6 homers, 24 RBI, and 15 runs scored across just 106 PA, with a wRC+ of 104. But Jung’s strikeout rate was way up (28%) as his swinging-strike rate jumped to 15% while his walk rate cratered to just 4%.

But that effort was good enough, as the Rangers called him up for a cup of coffee in September. His MLB debut was a mixed bag, as Jung hit just .204 with 5 big flies, 14 RBI, and 9 runs scored across 102 PA, with a wRC+ of 79. The power output was encouraging as he posted a solid 37% hard-hit rate, but otherwise things were rough as he logged a 38% strikeout rate against just a 4% walk rate. Jung’s contact rate was low at 72% while he posted a 13% swinging-strike rate, but he encouragingly ripped lots of liners (25%) and a bunch of flyballs (34%) when he did make contact, which pairs well with his tendency to make hard contact. While it wasn’t the strongest start to a big-league career, it was enough to help make Jung the frontrunner to land the starting gig at the hot corner for the Rangers entering spring training 2023.

As noted above, Jung hit .266 with 23 homers, 70 RBI, and 75 runs scored, with a wRC+ of 110 across 515 total PA in 2023. His strikeout rate was high at 29% and his walk rate was only 6%, but those figures represent improvements on what he posted in his cup of coffee in 2022. Meanwhile, Jung did slightly improve his contact rate to 74%, although his swinging-strike rate ticked upward slightly to 14%. His hard-hit rate, meanwhile, climbed to a healthy 41%. As he continued to rip lots of liners (24% of batted balls) and lofted flyballs at a 39% clip. In general, his quality of contact went up this season, as his average exit velocity of 92mph and his 12% barrel rate were both above the league average; his average exit velocity ranked #33 among qualified players – tied with Bryce Harper and Marcell Ozuna, among others – while his barrel rate ranked 60^th just after Julio Rodriguez.

Jung by far did his best work in 2023 before he got injured in early August. Before he landed on the IL, he batted .274 with 22 dingers, 67 RBI, and 70 runs scored, with a wRC+ of 119 across 461 PA. He did fan at a 29% rate while walking at just a 6% clip, but he logged a hard-hit rate of 42% while 25% of his batted balls were liners and another 40% were flyballs. He was hardly the same player after he returned from his injury in mid-September, though, as he batted just .196 with one homer, 3 RBI, and 5 runs scored, with a wRC+ of just 38 across 54 PA. He struck out a little more frequently (30%) while walking less often (4%). Even more telling, his hard-hit rate plummeted to just 31% while his liner rate was down to 20% and his flyball rate dipped to 34%, leaving a 46% groundball rate that doesn’t suit his game.

Overall, 2023 was an encouraging campaign for Jung from a fantasy standpoint. The contact issues are a bit concerning, but it was his first full(ish) season in the majors and he did show significant improvement from his cup of coffee in 2022. On the other hand, his ability to consistently make hard contact – and use it to generate round trippers – was apparent. He certainly seems capable of .260 with 30+ homers in a full season, although that’s clearly not a given as he’s missed a significant chunk of each of the last three seasons.