AAA: Round Rock 1, at Tacoma (SEA) 6
Round Rock: 7 hits, 4 walks, 10 strikeouts
Opponent: 10 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts
Record: 0-1, 1 GB
SP Caleb Boushley: 3.2 IP, 3 H (1 HR), 2 R, 1 BB, 2 SO, 56 P / 39 S, 4.91 ERA
RP Emiliano Teodo: 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 SO
RP Hunter Strickland: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 SO
RP Daniel Robert: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 SO
CF Evan Carer: 0-4, BB
2B Justin Foscue: 1-3, BB
SS Jonathan Ornelas: 2-4
3B Cody Freeman: 1-2, 2 BB
Evan Carter led off the game with a swing-free plate appearance that began with two strikes and ended with four straight balls. Later, Carter had his best contact of the night against lefty Drew Pomeranz, driving a low fastball 101.6 MPH at 18 degrees into the waiting glove of CF Samad Taylor. Carter has 27 career balls in play against MLB lefties in the regular season and postseason. 101.6 is harder than all but one. That it was caught doesn’t matter. That type of contact is essentially 50% outs and 50% doubles in the long run. Carter finished with a pop and strikeout against righties.
Emiliano Teodo made his AAA debut in what could be construed as a high leverage situation for development purposes. The deficit was already four runs, but he entered the 5th with runners on the corners and two out. Teodo allowed a comebacker that grazed his heel and found its way into center to plate a run. He struck out the next batter to retire the side. In the 6th, Teodo issued a walk and allowed a double before inducing a pop and two groundouts to prevent further damage. Teodo split nearly equally between sinkers (96-99) and sliders (84-88) while ignoring the change, as he’d done all spring.
Cody Freeman reached safely three times in his AAA debut. Justin Foscue’s single exited at 105.5, the hardest-hit ball by either team.
Nolan Hoffman allowed a three-run homer at 97 MPH and 36 degrees off the bat. There were 17 exit/angle shots like that in the Pacific Coast League last year, and only two left the yard. Annoying.
David Buchanan will start tonight.
The Big Club
Hooray for Jack Leiter. The kick-change wasn’t critical to his success last night — in fact, the hardest-hit ball by Boston came on a change — but in any case, here’s the difference from 2024:
Leiter’s horizontal movement hasn’t moved (it’s about league-average), but he has more speed and depth.
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
2025’s replacement for the “Five Years Ago Yesterday” will feature the best individual seasons by hitters and pitchers in the Texas minor league system, the best overall teams, best offenses and pitching staffs, and other categories. I’ll also cover the worsts, but not to excess, plus some bests and worsts among other teams in the leagues in which a Texas-affiliated team played. The starting date is 2007, when I started covering the minors in earnest. At some point I may have a piece about how I arrived at my conclusions, but that will be an separate article you can read or ignore as desired.
The 20th-best minor league season by a position player in full-season ball belongs to:
18 years ago, I mentioned Davis in my first game report for the Newberg Report. I was still in my 30s. I had been married less than three years. Goodness. “Losing 5-4 in the 7th, consecutive doubles by 3B Chris Davis and [John] Mayberry retied the game. And, facing a one-run deficit in the 9th, Davis walked, 1B Freddie Thon singled, and LF Brandon Boggs homered to give Bakersfield the lead. A double by DH Jake Blalock and RBI single by [Tim] Smith provided insurance. Davis… went 1-4 with a double, walk, run and RBI.”
Davis was Joey Gallo before Joey Gallo, just a breathtaking power source and the hitter to watch in 2007. Unlike Gallo, he wasn’t especially keen on walks, and a good number of those were from being pitched around. He struck out in 27% of his plate appearances, excessive for the time, but still managed a .297 average and would bat .317 in his minor league career. Davis played nearly half of his career minor league games at third while Texas tried to figure out his best fit, and roughly half of those games occurred in 2007.
Bakersfield was probably the worst facility in minor league ball (I could easily write 10,000 words), so even though he had skipped low-A, Texas bumped him to AA Frisco as soon as possible. He actually hit better in the Texas League (.294/.371/.688, 12 HR in 30 games). Entering 2008, he would be Texas’s #2 prospect behind recently acquired Elvis Andrus, per Baseball America.
Notes: wRC+ is essentially a fine-tuned version of OPS+, and for most hitters, wRC+ and OPS+ tend to be similar. My Wins Above Replacement and Wins Above Average estimates include steal success but not other baserunning, and they include a positional adjustment but not quality at the position. For the purpose of this feature, I’m handling all that subjectively. My rankings are loosely based on WAA, which is better at picking up briefer bursts of heroics, versus WAR, for which a significant component is simply playing time. I also adjust for age relative to level.