It’s a fun and challenging exercise to try to put together an “all-decade” roster for any team, but the Rangers organization would seem simpler than most, wouldn’t it? After all, they’ve had had a pretty linear decade: two World Series appearances to kick things off in 2010 and 2011, then a slow descent into rebuilding. The easy thing would be to just start with the 2011 Rangers and selectively replace, say, Arthur Rhodes with Yu Darvish and call it a day.

But the rules of baseball allow for a quirk that the other sports do not: could I make the starting ten (including DH) by including one player from each season?

I’ll tell you this: adhering to that arbitrary challenge definitely made it more difficult. Not only did it limit the number of players I could include from 2010-11, but it also provided some interesting secondary challenges. Which of Adrián Beltré’s seasons should I include, for instance, and who the heck gets a berth from that cursed 2014 team?

Readers, I did my best. Here we go.

Starting lineup

2010 — Josh Hamilton, CF — 359/.411/.633 (1.044), 32 HR, 100 RBI, AL MVP (8.7 WAR)

Yes, the allegations surrounding Hamilton’s October arrest in Tarrant County are harrowing. To ignore them for the sake of a baseball article would be irresponsible. Similarly, while we await the pending investigation and legal proceedings, it’s also true that no conversation about Rangers baseball in the 2010s is complete without Hamilton. His AL MVP campaign in 2010 was the greatest season by any Ranger in the 2010s, and arguably the best in franchise history. (Alex Rodriguez’ 2002 season also has a legitimate argument.) Hamilton’s peak was short-lived but utterly otherworldly, and 2010 was its apex. It should be noted that Hamilton played far more games in left field (92) than center field (40) in 2010, but he’s the closest thing the Rangers have had to an all-decade center fielder since 2010, so we’ll slot him here for now.

2011 — Mike Napoli, C — .320/.414/.631 (1.046), 30 HR (5.5 WAR)

There are a lot of remarkable things about Napoli’s 2011 season, but here are two that stick out most to me:

1. Those numbers are fantastic, but he only caught 61 games, playing first base or DH for the remaining 54 appearances. Surely he hit better when he wasn’t handling catching duties, right? Nope. Breaking down his splits, he hit .364 with an OPS of 1.142 as a catcher.

2. Even with those numbers (including “only” 85 strikeouts), he took 44.4 percent of his at-bats in the sixth spot in the lineup. That 2011 team was absolutely stacked, making this one of the more challenging parts of the exercise. I considered taking Ian Kinsler and his 7.0 WAR season from that squad, but doing so would have meant putting 2013 A.J. Pierzynski in the lineup. This seemed the right trade-off.

2012 — Nelson Cruz, RF — .260/.319/.460 (.779), 24 HR (0.8 WAR)

Admittedly, 2012 was not Nellie’s best season in Texas. At the age of 32, it appeared that he might be heading into decline. But my options were to go with this or to put Adrián Beltré as the 2012 player and leave 2016 Nomar Mazara as the all-decade’s starting right fielder. We went with Cruz, given the outsized role he played in the Rangers’ postseason runs, including this unforgettable walk-off grand slam in the ALCS.

2013 — Ian Kinsler, 2B — .277/.344/.413 (.757), 13 HR (5.0 WAR)

As mentioned earlier, 2011 was a better season for Kinsler than 2013. In fact, you could make the argument that 2013 was Kinsler’s third-best of his four eligible seasons in a Rangers uniform in the decade. Still, a puzzle sometimes requires the piece that fits best, not the one that looks best. 2013 it is.

2014 — Yu Darvish, SP — 10-7, 3.06 ERA, 1.261 WHIP, 182 strikeouts, 49 walks, 2.84 FIP, 130 ERA+

Despite making just 22 starts, Darvish was still a rare bright spot in an otherwise total witch’s fevered dream curse of a 2014 season. These numbers pale in comparison to his 2013 season, but until Rougned Odor can put together some consistency, Kinsler still feels like the right call at second base, and he was traded for Prince Fielder after the 2013 season. So 2014 Darvish gets the nod as the Opening Day starter, this time with a lineup behind him that would be almost guaranteed not to lose a 1-0 game.

2015 — Mitch Moreland, 1B — .278/.330/.482 (.812), 23 HR (2.3 WAR), Gold Glove winner

It was either Moreland or Fielder. Fielder’s numbers were better in his only truly productive season in Texas — he won comeback player of the year and hit .305/.378/.463 (.841) with 23 home runs — but those numbers weren’t that much better than Moreland’s, plus Fielder played just 18 games at first base that season, spending the other 139 at DH. Moreland, meanwhile, won the Gold Glove. That, plus his extended tenure in Texas, gets him the nod at first base.

2016 — Adrián Beltré, 3B — .300/.358/.521 (.879), 32 HR, 104 RBI (6.5 WAR), Gold Glove winner

Beltré spent eight seasons in Texas and at least five of them would have been an easy choice to make this list. The 2016 season was his last truly effective year before hamstring injuries and age began to signal the impending end of his Hall of Fame career. It was also the Rangers’ last postseason appearance before the rebuild truly began in earnest in 2017. Any Rangers all-decade list — season-by-season or cumulative — was going to include Adrián Beltre, who played the second-most games in a Rangers uniform from 2010-19, trailing only …

2017 — Elvis Andrus, SS — .297/.337/.471 (.808), 20 HR, 25 SB, 44 2B (4.5 WAR)

While we had to make some compromises for this exercise, this was an easy one. Elvis has been the Rangers’ shortstop for the entire decade. We just had to pick which season to use. The 2017 season was Andrus’ best at the plate: He socked 20 home runs and alllmost hit .300.

2018 — Shin-Soo Choo, DH — .264/.377/.434 (.810), 21 HR, 92 BB (2.0 WAR)

Choo was another one who was always going to make the team. It was just so happened that his lone All-Star campaign came in 2018, a season that saw him get on base at his highest clip since coming to Texas.

2019 — Joey Gallo, LF — .253/.389/.598 (.986), 22 HR (3.0 WAR)

You might wonder why we didn’t take the 2018 version of Joey Gallo, since he spent so much of the 2019 season on the IL and hit 40 home runs in 2018. The answer is twofold. First, Gallo’s OPS jumped 170 points from 2018 to 2019. His slugging was a full 100 points higher than it had been the season before, and his batting average spiked nearly 50 points. All of this in spite of being quite bad in the second half as he battled an oblique injury before losing the rest of the season to a broken hamate bone. In short, 2019 was the season Gallo went from being a masher to being a legitimately good hitter.

Of course, if this is your Opening Day starting lineup, you have to put them in some kind of batting order. While the Rangers have spent an entire decade being more left-handed than right-handed, we did a pretty reasonable job of balancing this one:

1. 2B — 2013 Kinsler (R) 2. LF — 2010 Hamilton (L) 3. C — 2011 Napoli (R) 4. RF — 2012 Cruz (R) 5. CF — 2019 Gallo (L) 6. 3B — 2012 Beltré (R) 7. DH — 2018 Choo (L) 8. SS — 2017 Andrus (R) 9. 1B — 2015 Moreland (L)

Given the number of great left-handed hitters the Rangers have had in their history, I think we should be particularly proud of the right/left balanced nature of this lineup.

But, hey, that’s just the Opening Day lineup. We still have to round out the bench, rotation and bullpen. Since all ten years have been covered in the starting lineup, let’s lean away from the individual years and fill the remaining spots based on the sum total of what they contributed to the Rangers organization between 2010 and 2019.

Bench

UTIL — Michael Young

Yes, his best years were pre-2010, but he was an integral part of those two World Series teams and logged 213 hits in 2011 while playing every infield position. He’s also right-handed and can play all four infield positions, so he’s a perfect fit for this team.

Backup catcher — Robinson Chirinos

Chirinos played more games at catcher for the Rangers than anyone else in the 2010s, so he has to be on the team. Injuries threatened to derail his career early, but Chirinos got on base at a .360 clip and hit 17 home runs in just 309 plate appearances in 2017, prompting the Rangers to finally give him the full-time gig in 2018.

Outfield / left-handed bat — David Murphy

A staple on the World Series teams, Murphy is capable of playing all three outfield positions (maybe a late-innings defensive replacement in right field?) and provides a bit of speed off the bench if a pinch-runner is needed for Napoli, Moreland or Beltré. In addition, he’s almost universally loved by Rangers fans. He’s not only an all-decade Ranger, but he’s also a good fit for this squad.

Bench bat — 2016 Rougned Odor

I know. I said I was leaning away from specific years, but in Odor’s case, it seems necessary. Not only did Odor hit career highs in runs (89), batting average (.271), doubles (33), home runs (33), slugging (.502) and OPS (.798), but he provided one of the most enduring images of the decade when he clocked José Bautista right in the mouth. He balances the bench as a second left-handed hitter and provides situational speed and power.

(George Walker / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)

Rotation

Yu Darvish is already on the squad as a starter based on the per-season format, but he would have been part of the rotation either way. From 2012 until being traded to the Dodgers in 2017, Darvish was 52-39 with an ERA of 3.42, a FIP of 3.51 and a strikeout-per-nine-innings ratio of 11.0. He was an All-Star in each of his first three seasons, finishing second in the AL Cy Young voting in 2015. When he was on, there weren’t many in the game better than him.

Cole Hamels came to the Rangers in 2015 when many thought the team should be sellers. He proceeded to lead the team to a dramatic late-season pennant run, culminating in a final-day victory over the Angels to seal the AL West.

Mike Minor has only been in a Rangers uniform for two years, but might qualify as Jon Daniels’ best signing of the decade. Teammate Lance Lynn might eventually prove to be even better after more than just one year, but for now, it’s Minor who gets the nod as the third starter.

Colby Lewis was never flashy or overwhelming, but time and again, he got the job done. The all-time franchise leader in postseason wins, Lewis was the Rangers’ gritty baseball dad for six of the ten years of the decade. He slots in at No. 4 to break up the three southpaws in the rotation, just ahead of …

Derek Holland, who gets some credit for his off-the-field contributions as well. Until his departure after the 2016 season, Holland was ubiquitous at team events and extracurricular activities. He met kids at Whataburger, visited children’s hospitals, showed up at fundraisers and started his own foundation to battle children’s cancer. Of course, we wouldn’t put him on the team for simply being a nice guy — while he could be frustratingly inconsistent, Holland was also lights-out when he was on, including an unforgettable 8 1/3 innings of shutout ball against the Cardinals in Game Four of the 2011 World Series. 

Honorable mentions: C.J. Wilson (only two years in the 2010s), Lance Lynn, Cliff Lee, Andrew Cashner (one year each).

Bullpen

Neftali Feliz, closer — Was the most dominant closer the Rangers had in the decade and has a statue outside the new park for his role in sending Texas to the franchise’s first World Series. The bullpen starts with him, no question.

Joe Nathan, setup — Nathan’s best years were in Minnesota, so it might be easy to forget that he had 80 saves and a 2.09 ERA — striking out 151 and walking just 35 in 133 games (129 innings) — over his two years in Texas.

Jose Leclerc, setup — One of the best late-innings strikeout guys the Rangers have ever had when he’s on. Leclerc’s two-changeup arsenal makes him baffling, and his second half in 2018 was wicked.

Jake Diekman, middle relief — We need to balance the handedness of this bullpen a bit, and Diekman might have been the nastiest left-handed reliever the Rangers had this decade. He also made the seventh-most relief appearances for Texas in the decade (150). In addition, his comeback from colon surgery was one of the most memorable off-the-field stories of the past ten years.

Keone Kela, middle relief — It’s easy to allow the injuries and off-the-field questions to mar the fact that Kela had extended stretches of dominance in a Texas uniform. Sporting the fifth-most relief appearances for the Rangers this decade (180), he struck out 208 hitters in 169 2/3 innings over the course of his Rangers career before being traded to Pittsburgh in 2018. 

Alex Claudio, middle relief — We need another left-hander, so why not go with the guy who made more relief appearances as a Texas Ranger (208) than anyone else this decade. Claudio was never overwhelming, but his above-average control and his too-slow-to-hit changeup made him a staple in the Rangers bullpen, even winning him the organization’s 2017 Pitcher of the Year award.

Matt Harrison, long relief — Okay, perhaps this is cheating a little bit, but Harrison had to be on the team and made enough relief appearances as a Ranger (32) that we carved out space for him in the bullpen. Harrison was a pivotal part of the Rangers’ World Series team and while back injuries ended his career prematurely, he accomplished enough to earn a spot on this 25-man roster.

Honorable mention: Shawn Tolleson, Alexi Ogando, Tanner Scheppers, Robbie Ross, Matt Bush.

(Photo of Beltré in 2016: Albert Pena / Associated Press)