This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ARLINGTON -- Nathaniel Lowe is a self-aware guy.

So when asked about his 2024 season, he was brutally honest about his own performance.

“A shrug, I guess,” Lowe said in Anaheim during the last week of the season.

A shrug?

“Shrug, I guess,” Lowe reiterated. “Yes, that’s my quote. It was a good month [September], but it was a bad season. We didn't win, I didn't perform. I could have helped the team a lot better than I did. It was frustrating, dealing with all we dealt with this year, especially coming off a championship and talking about a championship standard. So we had a losing record, we missed the playoffs by a lot. We didn't perform. A lot of guys got hurt. So, a couple homers are cool, but it would have been nice to produce all year long.”

Lowe opened the 2024 season by landing on the injured list for the first time in his big league career with an oblique strain.

At the time, it was a fairly emotional affair for Lowe, who was coming off a 2022 season in which he was the American League Silver Slugger Award winner and a ‘23 season when he was a Gold Glove Award winner at first base, on top of being part of the core that led the Rangers to their first World Series championship in franchise history.

But Lowe isn’t one to make excuses. Despite a slow start, he doesn’t think the oblique had anything to do with his early struggles.

“I wish I could kind of quantify it, but I can't really,” Lowe said. “I got hurt. I missed a month, and missed Spring Training. I showed up with a pretty mediocre season, in my opinion.”

Lowe isn’t -- and shouldn’t be viewed as -- the only reason for the Rangers’ struggles in 2024. There were injuries and regression across the diamond.

But Lowe, like many of his teammates, finished strong. He slashed .310/.413/.517 in September, bringing his season numbers closer to that of his career. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but it ended up being a quality body of work for Lowe.

“It's all about how you finish. I finished strong, so I'm proud of my finishing effort. I think September turned out pretty nicely, splits wise. But, you know, I -- we were done a week and a half ago, so I got a chance to like, kind of, I guess, play for me instead of play for the bigger goal. You never really want to do that. So it would have been nice to be in contention and have a chance to play in the postseason.”

All of that being said, Lowe’s self-awareness always comes out.

He knows he needs to be better. As a first baseman, he needs to slug the ball and hit more home runs.

Lowe hasn’t yet reached the same heights he did in 2022. That season, he had career highs in home runs (27), batting average (.302), slugging percentage (.492) and OPS+ (139).

Despite that, Lowe played 157 games in both 2021 and ‘22 and 161 in ‘23, as well as all 17 games of the Rangers' World Series run. He played 140 games in ‘24 after missing much of April with the oblique injury. He’s been as synonymous with this era of the Rangers as anybody.

This year was good. But Lowe knows he can be better. The September he had is encouraging for the future.

“Nate's overall body of work was really solid,” president of baseball operations Chris Young said. “I mean, he had a good year. When you look at the total body of work, he got hurt in Spring Training and missed about a month there at the beginning of the season, and I think it led to a little bit of a slow start. I think there's a lot to look forward to with Nate.

“In our meeting with Nate, Nate said he has not reached the level of player that he believes he can be. It's encouraging to hear when a player offers that and says that. It's encouraging, because it means they're motivated. Nate seems to believe that, and I think he's right. There's another level, another gear there for him, and we're excited to see the work that he puts in this offseason to come back next year hungry and achieve that. To achieve that next level.”