The Texas Rangers worked to trim payroll last offseason. There’s a chance president of baseball operations Chris Young will be asked to do so again this offseason.

Young may not get much of a chance to do that right away. With MLB owners and the MLB Players Association trying to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, he may only get a month to conduct business before a potential lockout of players if an agreement is not reached by Dec. 1.

Young is juggling three buckets of payroll in terms of players he controls. The first is his veterans who are signed to long-term deals like pitchers Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, along with outfielder Brandon Nimmo. The second is his arbitration-eligible players, who probably won’t get a chance to go through the process until there is a new CBA unless Young and those players reach a new deal.

The third are his pre-arbitration players. Those players are the best way to control cost and a huge part of the equation to build around in 2027.

Rangers Pre-Arbitration Players

The pre-arbitration players are ones that don’t have at least three years of service time and are therefore not eligible for salary arbitration. As an example, outfielder Wyatt Langford has played three years in the Majors and is eligible for arbitration for the first time this offseason.

The rest of Texas’ arbitration-eligible players are pitcher MacKenzie Gore, first baseman Jake Burger, infielder Ezequiel Duran, third baseman Josh Jung, catcher Logan O’Hoppe, pitcher Cody Bradford, pitcher Robert Garcia, outfielder Evan Carter and pitcher Jacob Latz.

The remaining players that are under team control that aren’t signed to veteran contracts are the pre-arbitration players. Right now, these are players that are on the 40-man roster. They include:

Pitchers: Robby Ahlstrom, Carter Baumler, Gavin Collyer, Jose Corniell, David Davalillo, Peyton Gray, Jack Leiter, Leandro Lopez, Adam Macko, Michel Otanez, Ben Peoples, Kumar Rocker, Winston Santos, Chase Silseth, Emiliano Teodo and Cole Winn.

Position Players: Justin Foscue, Cody Freeman, Cam Cauley, Michael Helman and Alejandro Osuna.

On the pitching front, Leiter and Rocker are expected to compete for rotation spots. Ahlstrom, Collyer, Gray, Macko, Peoples, Santos, Silseth, Teodo and Winn logged bullpen time. Silseth and Macko were acquired in trade based in part on their pre-arb status.

In terms of hitters, Foscue, Freeman, Cauley, Helman and Osuna all logged MLB playing time in 2027, with Foscue and Osuna having particularly good offensive seasons. All of these players have importance to building next year’s roster.

The best part is players on a pre-arb deal make less than $1 million on the current CBA. That could change under a new CBA. The rate is likely to go up.

But whatever that new rate is, at least the Rangers can control it — and those players’ rights — with cost certainty.