Some great prospects are about to find a home on the Rangers. I wrote about their future at some length back on December 1 after they’d signed Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jon Gray and Kole Calhoun. Click here if you’d like to mosey through their organizational outlook in Prospect News: Texas Rangers Wrangle a Future For Their Jung.
Format: Position Player | Age on 4/1/2022 | Highest level played | ETA
1. 3B Josh Jung | 24 | AAA | 2022
The puns across the years might be promising here. One of the few ways to stay young, puns. Jokes in general, really. Organizational rebuilds are one way to get old in a hurry, so I’ll bet Jung was happy to see the Rangers sign Seager and Semien, who should lengthen the lineup and take pressure off Jung to carry the club. At 6’2” 214 lbs, he’d been a hit-over-power type until 2021, when he blasted 19 HR in 78 games across two levels and slashed .326/.398/.592. If not for an early injury, he was tracking as a mid-season call-up in 2021 and should become a big league lineup cog a few weeks into the 2022 campaign. Doesn’t make much sense to spend all that coin in free agency then tinker with the timeline of your best prospect.
2. RHP Jack Leiter | 21 | NCAA | 2023
If I roll around in the memory of it, I’m still a little shocked nobody took a run at Leiter out of high school in 2019. The Yankees drafted him in the 20th round, but he was easily a first-round talent at the time. It’s obvious now of course but it was pretty plain then, too, but the Al Leiter piece and a strong commitment to Vanderbuilt kept anyone from really trying to buy him away from Vandy. I feel a little bad for thinking this way, but it might’ve netted a better pitcher if someone had brought him in then. As is, Leiter has pitched in highly competitive games against talented opponents, so his experience is not a bad thing by any means, but outs have been more important than development, and Leiter has leaned into his fastball and hasn’t needed the off-speed stuff much. Fastball command is still the most important thing, so again it’s not a bad thing that he went to college, and he made money doing it. Just a flight of fancy on my part that gives us a glance at what he has to work on and why. Could he come up in 2022 and compete? Probably. His slider and curveball both work well when he commands them. Should he? I doubt it. His changeup feel needs refinement so he can depend on it against lefties. At 6’0” 205 lbs, Leiter doesn’t fit the prototype of an innings eater, but he’s strong through his base, and his delivery is balanced and fluid. I’ll probably wind up low on Leiter compared to the field, but I’d love to have him in any league.
3. 1B Dustin Harris | 22 | A+ | 2023
The other day, I saw a fantasy-facing list that had Harris ranked 9th, so the Buy window isn’t fully closed on this guy in some corners of the Internet. Looked more like a real-life list all the way through, to be honest, but that’s pretty common. Already near the bottom of the defensive spectrum, the 6’2” 185 lb lefthanded hitter will have to mash to make it. Lucky for us, he has the swing to make it happen: a speedy-short uppercut that brings 2021 Matt Olson to mind when he turns on one. He can vary the hands to hit tough pitches, too. In 110 games across two levels in 2021, Harris slashed .327/.401/.542 with 20 HR and 25 SB, striking out just 73 times and drawing 47 walks. His 8.1%/15.6% BB/K rate in High-A is enticing, especially considering he was 1.9 years younger than his average competitor.
4. RHP Cole Winn | 22 | AAA | 2022
I can see a case for going pitcher-heavy with this list, given the wide margin for error in the club’s cavernous new ballpark, and Winn would be a good fantasy piece in any non-Colorado environment anyway. At 6’2” 190 lbs, he features fluid mechanics and a four-pitch arsenal. He controls each of his fastball, slider, curveball and changeup well enough to use them in any count, so it will be interesting to see how he deploys them as a big leaguer. Double-A proved to be little challenge for the 15th overall pick in the 2018 draft. Winn aced the level for 78 innings across 19 starts, posting a 2.31 ERA and 0.82 WHIP with a 32.8 percent strikeout rate. He was less dominant in two starts at AAA, but who cares about how a 21-year-old looks for a week and a half at AAA to end a season? Not me, really, and he snagged a 3.38 ERA for his troubles there despite a 13.9 percent walk rate. He has a decent case to be ranked ahead of Leiter, but you wouldn’t have to pay anything like that to acquire him.
5. SS Luisangel Acuña | SS | A | 2024
Ronald’s little brother played well in his first full-season assignment, slashing .266/.345/.404 with 12 HR and 44 SB in 111 games. He doesn’t have his big brother’s thunder, but his hand-eye coordination offers paths to power that aren’t strength based, and it’s not like the 5’10” 181 lb righty is a weakling. On the plus side, he’s a very tough out, fouling off good pitches to find more hittable ones. He played just about every day, batting mostly third for the Down East Wood Ducks and filling the role admirably. He does look a little like Ronald in the batter’s box, especially at the point of contact and beyond, and he does have the easy-looking opposite-field punch that helps make the elder elite.
6. OF Bubba Thompson | 23 | AA | 2022
I watched Thompson and Josh Smith lead off the season’s final game with back-to-back bunt singles. First time I’ve seen that since the Marlins with Juan Pierre and Luis Castillo. He led off all year, actually, Thompson, picking up a meaty 470 plate appearances in 104 games, all at AA. His lines are not spectacular, but they’re plenty good for a multi-sport athlete drafted out of high school playing his third full pro season at AA. Context is a slippery situation in the pandemic. I caught some Reddit flak for putting Thompson at the back of a top 100 early in 2021 as people remembered his empty 2019 when he slashed .178/.261/.312 with 5 HR and 12 SB in 57 games at High-A. I totally get how something like that could stick in your mind, but he bounced back with 16 HR, 25 SB and a .275/.325/.483 slash line along with solid to plus defense in centerfield, where he should continue to progress given his plus speed and athletic feel. It’s kind of a funny scenario in the sense that Cristian Pache is still safely inside most Top 100 lists I see, and if you give me the choice between him and Thompson today, I think I’m taking Thompson. I wouldn’t go trading for him though. That park is double tough, and he should be borderline free for those interested in rostering him.
7. 2B Ezequiel Duran | 22 | A+ | 2023
Acquired from the Yankees in the Joey Gallo deal, Duran is a twitch factory who logged 19 HR and 19 SB in 105 games in High-A this year, slashing .267/.342/.486 between the two organizations. He also went to the fall league and slashed .278/.333/.611 with another three home runs in 16 games. I’ve been into this guy’s baseball actions since the first time I saw video of him way back in 2017. He’s a stout right handed hitter at 5’11” 185 lbs who swings like he’s killing snakes, as my old man used to say. Texas didn’t get any real big names in return for Joey Gallo, but I think they did okay in adding multiple players with good potential.
8. 2B Justin Foscue | 23 | AA | 2023
Foscue laid waste to High-A pitching for 33 games, blasting 14 home runs and slashing .296/.407/.736 before moving on to Double-A and finding his first resistance as a pro. His 89 wRC+ in 26 games at the level isn’t a big red flag, nor is the 27.9 percent strikeout rate, but Foscue did find himself selling out for power at the lower levels before paying the price against better pitching, and if he struggles early in 2022, prospect people will start dropping him down their lists. Plus he has no speed to float the fantasy profile during slumps. For these reasons and because I don’t think he’ll be an elite power source in Texas, he’s more of a Sell than a Buy for me if anyone comes to your teams asking after him.
9. RHP Owen White | 22 | A | 2022
A star of this year’s Arizona Fall League, Here’s what I wrote about him in December:
“Delayed, abbreviated debuts don’t go much better than White’s. He cruised through A ball with the Down East Wood Ducks then dominated the Arizona Fall League, going 5-0 in six starts with a 1.91 ERA despite being 2.3 years younger and much less experienced than his average competitor. Most impressively, he allowed just 0.3 HR/9. Looks good, right?
Yes, Inner Voice, it looks very good.
So I told my brother to snap him up in the draft, right?
Well, no. I told him I’d probably avoid White altogether. I wouldn’t say I’m anti Fall League, but someone else might say as much if they were expecting every fall star to fly up my rankings. It’s an exhibition league, is my take. Very little opponent scouting or familiarity involved, if any, which makes it a far cry from regular season baseball.”
So that was me quoting myself talking to my brother about whether or not he should draft Owen White early in a 20-team First-Year-Player Draft this winter. Not that I don’t want him if he can be brought in on the cheap. I just think he probably needs more time and is due for a downturn in value if he struggles at all or gets hurt again. If you count the Arizona League, he’s thrown 63.2 professional innings since being drafted in 2018. He was lights out in Low-A and again in the exhibition league, and he’s a fun prospect on a team with a good opportunity awaiting him when he’s ready.
10. SS Josh H. Smith | 24 | AA | 2022
Texas has two 24-year-olds named Josh Smith on the roster. Suffice it to say they’ve got a deep system. Several names who could be included will miss the list, with C Sam Huff and OF Evan Carter being the biggest names left off the list for the likes of Josh H. Smith, another player the club acquired in the return for Gallo. This Agent Smith carried a 14.2%/15.7% BB/K rate for 30 games in AA after the trade and has generally been pretty awesome with the bat. I’ll list his on base percentages across the levels here:
A- = .450
A = .480
A+ = .414
AA = .425
So that’s pretty good, and it’s not born from passivity either as he’s hit .324, .333, .313, .294 at those stops. Perhaps I laid this out poorly. Sorry if I made this unnecessarily complicated. That’s the opposite of what Smith does in the batter’s box, where everything looks pretty simple for the left-handed hitter with a sweet swing and the hand-eye coordination to hit (or lay off) just about any pitch he’s seen to this point in his career.
Thanks for reading!
I’m @theprospectitch on Twitter.
