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 -- Rangers fans walked around the showroom as Marcus Semien and Cody Bradford took the stage for 105.3 The FAN¡¯s weekly ¡°Hot Stove¡± show.

¡°Are we going to win the World Series in 2025?¡± a fan shouted from the back of The Fan Showroom.

Chuckles percolated throughout the room, before Semien shouted back sarcastically: ¡°What do you think I¡¯m going to say to that?!¡±

The Rangers kicked off the 2025 Winter Caravan on Monday night at The Fan Showroom, with Semien and Bradford signing autographs before participating in the live radio show. The Caravan -- which was delayed five days due to weather in the DFW area -- has an updated schedule of appearances at rangers.com/caravan. All events are free of charge and open to the public to attend. The schedule of participants is subject to change.

For Semien, this time of year is invigorating. Though the players are not yet in Spring Training mode, once the calendar turns to January, it feels like the new season is right around the corner.

¡°I'm really excited,¡± Semien said. ¡°We have a good group at the stadium that trains in the offseason. The group is getting bigger and bigger. When we have things like Fan Fest going on, you get to see everybody, and it feels like the season when everybody's in there training. I get really excited. I can't wait.¡±

¡°It's fun to do events like this, especially things around the stadium with fans,¡± Bradford added. ¡°It just starts getting you ready for the season, it just gets you excited. So yeah, it's fun to do things like this.¡±

It¡¯s no secret that the Rangers underperformed in 2024. The 2023 World Series champs did not make the postseason, finishing third in the American League West with a 78-84 record.

¡°I think we got off to a decent start,¡± Semien recalled. ¡°Our durability was hit or miss. We missed some guys for a while. We just didn't have the whole team together when we needed them. I wish we had the same group as ¡®23 all healthy, because we were great. We got hot at the right time in ¡®23, and we were going to build momentum into ¡®24. It didn't happen, but I still think we have the same group pretty much. We lost a couple guys, but there's still the same group that are champions. We're ready to go in ¡®25.¡±

Semien isn¡¯t trying to make excuses. The 2024 season didn¡¯t fully come down to injuries alone. He didn¡¯t have the season he wanted with a .237/.308/.391 slash line. But the club was missing key players -- Bradford included -- at various points throughout the season.

Bradford was arguably the Rangers¡¯ best starting pitcher before he landed on the injured list on April 14 with a nagging back/rib injury that kept him on the shelf for months. At that time, he had a 1.40 ERA in 19 1/3 innings across three starts while holding opposing batters to a .145/.169/.203 slash line.

Bradford finished the year with a 3.54 ERA in 14 games (13 starts) and 76 1/3 innings. He could almost be sharpied into the rotation come Opening Day.

¡°I learned how to pitch through a lineup three times, which I think was a big deal,¡± Bradford said of his development. ¡°Couple starts that I had in ¡®23, it was tough trying to navigate a big league lineup that third time through. I seemed to just get stuck. I think last year, mixing in an extra pitch, using a curveball a lot and finding good spots in games to throw it was a big deal.¡±

Looking ahead to 2025, Semien -- ¡°our captain,¡± as Bradford said -- is confident in the club¡¯s ability to bounce back.

Whether that¡¯s the existing players like himself, others who didn¡¯t have the seasons they wanted like Adolis Garc¨ªa and Jonah Heim or newcomers like Joc Pederson and Jake Burger, things for the Rangers could and should be looking up.

Pederson -- who signed a two-year, $37 million deal with the Rangers -- should be the perfect fit for Texas both on and off the field.

¡°I'm looking forward to his bat and his personality,¡± Semien said. ¡°He's a guy who wants to be a leader in this clubhouse, just based on how he brings people together. I think his personality is more out there than some of us. We have a lot of guys who may be a little bit more reserved, so just having a guy like that to keep the clubhouse loose is always good. He¡¯s somebody who has fun.

"I think that we were missing that last year with guys like [Austin] Hedges or [Will] Smith ¡­ They put you in a good mood, and that's all you really ask for from your teammate.¡±