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 -- The Rangers got the first piece of offseason business handled in September, when the club announced an extension and promotion for Chris Young, now the president of baseball operations.

Texas handled a few other business items over the past few weeks, promoting assistant general manager Ross Fenstermaker to general manager and tabbing Justin Viele as the big league hitting coach as Tim Hyers departed for the Braves.

Now, with those major items out of the way, the Rangers can finally hit the ground running with free agency, trades and everything else that entails the Hot Stove season.

Here are three takeaways from Young’s session this week with MLB.com reporter Sonja Chen at the General Managers Meetings in San Antonio:

1. What will the payroll look like?
The elephant in the room over the past two winters has been the uncertainty surrounding the Rangers’ budget, especially as owner Ray Davis and team leadership strategizes amid an unstable television situation with Bally Sports. Texas had big-spending offseasons following the 2021 and ’22 seasons, when it committed long-term contracts to Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney.

That tapered last offseason as the Bally situation became more and more uncertain.

Young said he won’t commit to what the payroll budget will be going into 2025, but he added that he’s confident in the core group and the front office’s ability to build around that group and field a competitive team. Young added that there are “contingencies” in the budget, depending on how things transpire over the winter.

“Ownership has always been supportive of us, especially the last couple years here,” Young said. “We're very confident with where our payroll will be, that we're going to put a winning team out on the field and compete for a division title and, hopefully, a championship.

“Certainly, we're cognizant of the uncertainty financially that the organization has been through. Ray almost apologizes to me on a daily basis about the RSN situation. That was something beyond his control, and we're going to make the most of it. No matter what, I truly believe that we will have the resources to compete and be successful.”

2. Offensive upgrades
In 2023, the Rangers won the inaugural team AL Silver Slugger Award. Their 881 runs were the most in the AL, and the club had a slash line of .263/.337/.452 and a 114 wRC+ en route to the first World Series title in franchise history.

Young said at his end-of-season press conference that he felt much of the anticipated improvement in 2025 would come internally, both in getting healthy and limiting regression, both of which plagued the Rangers in ’24 en route to a 78-84 season.

Infusing new blood like Viele into the coaching staff might be as helpful as anything. Viele worked with Texas offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker in San Francisco from 2020-21.

“We need to be able to adjust our approach a little bit and tailor it to the way we're being pitched,” Young said. “To some degree, I think that we maybe got a little stubborn last year at times -- really not doing some of the things that the opponent was giving us and taking what was being given to us. The style that we had in 2023, the league adapted. We came in with a similar mindset and approach, and we were a little late to adjust, in my opinion.

“Some of our guys internally got off to slow starts and never really recovered. I think those are the big things. I said this, but some of the biggest improvements we can make are going to be internal improvements and getting the best out of our own players. And I still stand by that.”

3. What’s next for the Vandy pair?
You can never have too much starting pitching, as Young always reminds anyone who will listen. So while the Rangers are sure to pursue starting pitching, both in free agency and on the trade market, that begs the question about what they will do with a couple of their young stars.

The six-man rotation is currently deGrom, Tyler Mahle, Gray, Cody Bradford, No. 2 prospect Kumar Rocker and No. 4 prospect Jack Leiter. Rocker and Leiter -- college teammates at Vanderbilt -- made their MLB debuts in 2024, with a number of highs and lows for each of them.

“I think we're very excited about both of their futures,” Young said. “We're hopeful that they will be significant contributors to our team in 2025 and beyond, but they have to go earn that, improve that. But we're excited about both of them. …. [It’s about] continued refinement -- time and experience for both of them. Development doesn't stop at the Major League level. So it's a continued work in progress, and we want to see continued refinement for both.”