Bruce Bochy’s enjoying his offseason, but looking ahead to Texas Rangers’ 2024 season

With a fishing vacation and a family holiday behind him, Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy is starting to look toward the 2024 baseball season.

Bochy met with the media on Tuesday for the first time since the Rangers won the franchise’s first World Series title five weeks ago.

He admitted that he enjoyed the past month away from the ballpark, going fishing in Florida and enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with his family at his Nashville-area home.

“Good to catch your breath, not going to lie about that,” Bochy said during the Major League Baseball winter meetings at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Conference Center.

While general manager Chris Young and other Rangers executives met behind closed doors and in hideaway places in the massive resort to talk about possible trades and free agent signings, Bochy and the other major league managers took their turns at the podium answering questions from the media horde.

With spring training just 10 weeks away, the fan base’s attention is slowly swaying from celebrating the championship to looking forward to the 2024 team that will gather in Surpise, Ariz., the second week of February.

“It’s been good. It’s been quiet, the last two to three weeks,” Bochy said about his break. “It was fun to look back and reflect on everything, what a special season was. I hope everybody does. Pretty cool what happened. You gotta savior these things. Been a good month. Good to catch your breath. Not going to lie about that.”

And while the media pundits project that the Rangers could possibly be a landing place for free agent superstar Shohei Ohtani (something that Young discounted for budget reasons earlier this month), Bochy is content with the nucleus he has returning.

“I love what we have here right now,” Bochy said. “The core guys that we have, particularly you look at the position side. It’s nice to have all of these guys coming back. We are missing, some free agents. (Catcher/designated hitter) Mitch Garver’s not easy to replace. Not that it can’t happen. He’s a free agent. (Travis) Jankowski, (Robbie) Grossman, they did a tremendous job for us. You look at what we went through with injuries, they played a huge part in our success. I don’t want to leave anybody out.”

Jankowski hit .263 in 107 games while playing all three outfield positions and designated hitter; Grossman hit .238 in 115 games playing the corner outfield positions and designated hitter.

Neither were as important as Garver who belted 19 home runs in 87 games during the regular season, then added three home runs and 11 RBIs in the postseason.

Certainly, he’d like to see some of them return. But he’s also a realist. The Rangers also need to replace or re-sign free agent starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery.

“You look at our club, I think it is fair to say we’re looking at a starter (staring pitcher) and a arm in the pen,” Bochy said. “We are looking at our best options, maybe a bat.”

On other Rangers-related topics:

ON CONTRACT EXTENSION: “I’m under contract. I haven’t had any talks about any extension.”

When Bochy came out retirement, he signed a three-year deal that goes through 2025.

BOCHY ON JIM LEYLAND HALL OF FAME: “I was thrilled for him. He’s done a lot for the game. The tremendous job he did managing. So it’s good to see him get rewarded like this. Special day I I’m sure for him. I can’t imagine how he felt. “

Leyland managed 22 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1986-96), Florida Marlins (‘97-98), Colorado Rockies (‘99) and Detroit Tigers (2000-13), posting a 1769-1728 record and winning the World Sedries with the Marlins.

BOCHY ON NASHVILLE GETTING EXPANSION TEAM: “Oh, I hope it happens. I’ve been in this city now going on three years. What a wonderful city, area. I’m south of here a little bit. But, I think it is certainly prime to get a major league team. It has football, it has hockey. It’s growing, an exciting team. I know, all of the people here, they are having a great time ... there’s a lot of action in this city. I hope it happens.”

RICE HONORED: Rich Rice, Vice President of Baseball Communications for the Rangers, has been named the recipient of the 2023 Robert O. Fishel Award for Public Relations Excellence. The award was announced on Monday.