Mark Teixeira Is Sleepwalking Into Congress

During his 14-year MLB career, Mark Teixeira’s average Wins Above Replacement (WAR) was a respectable 4.4. As a political candidate, Teixeira’s WAR—yes, there’s a platform that measures this sort of thing, and yes, he’s running for office—might very well be the inverse.

It is very likely that Teixeira will soon become the representative for Texas’ 21st congressional district. If he receives this honor, he will do so without putting any meaningful effort into his campaign. Teixeira is a carpetbagger who only recently moved close to, not even within the boundaries of, the district he hopes to represent. His assets portfolio presents endless conflicts of interest. He has zero political experience except for helping push through a school vouchers program so toxic and unpopular that it’s imperiling Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s re-election bid. The “issues” page of his campaign website reads like it was written by ChatGPT 1.0. In interviews, he’s struggled to convey basic policy positions or express why he’s running. The best he could muster to Sean Hannity is that, in 30 or 40 years, he hopes his children look back and say they’re glad their dad “stood up for capitalism and for our free-market economy and for freedom.”

The one thing Teixeira has going for him is that he was great at hitting home runs. Teixeira’s 409 dingers won him celebrity status and landed him the endorsements of Gov. Abbott and President Trump; those endorsements have provided a huge cushion in Texas’s deep-red 21st congressional district, which includes a handful of rural counties and the northern portion of San Antonio. In March, during a crowded primary to fill the soon-to-be-vacated seat of Rep. Chip Roy, Teixeira secured an overwhelming 60.9 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff.