AAA: Round Rock 6, Oklahoma City (LAD) 3
Round Rock: 7 hits, 8 walks, 6 strikeouts
Opponent: 6 hits, 4 walks, 15 strikeouts
Record: 7-8, 3 GB
SP Jacob Latz: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 SO, 43 P / 33 S, 3.12 ERA
RP Nolan Hoffman: 2.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 5.19 ERA
RP Daniel Robert: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, 0.00 ERA
2B Justin Foscue: 1-2, 2B, 2 BB, .327/.415/.436
RF Trevor Hauver: 1-3, HR (2), BB, .216/.328/.392
CF Evan Carter: 1-3, 2B, BB, SB (3), .138/.342/.276
Evan Carter slashed a double to the left-center gap at 107 MPH. Both of his extra-base hits have come in his last two games. He batted sixth instead of leadoff for the first time. I don’t care much about batting orders in the minors, but in this case the drop does increase the likelihood of one less plate appearance than some of the guys ahead of him. Perhaps that’s an aspect of workload management.
He’s now hitting .200/.385/.400 against righties, which doesn’t quite leap off the screen but isn’t unreasonable at all, and the underlying statcast data is solid. He still only has 12 plate appearances against lefties and is hitless with three walks.
Justin Foscue is at least putting himself into position for a call if needed. Joc Pederson, Jake Burger and Marcus Semien are among the bottom 20 of 177 qualifiers in WAR among position players, but obviously they are going anywhere for now, nor should they. Taking Pederson for example, I found similar stretches of 14 games for him in 2015, 2017 and 2022. There are some worrying aspects of his statcast data, but I’m not going to worry too much now. Maybe next week. Texas’s .267 OBP is baseball’s worst.
Circling back to Carter, I feel his situation is at best loosely tethered to the needs of the parent club, which is to say, the front office isn’t going recall Carter because of Texas’s MLB-worst .267 OBP. He’ll be ready when he’s ready.
AA: Frisco 4, at NW Arkansas (KAN) 11
Frisco: 7 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts
Opponent: 10 hits, 6 walks, 6 strikeouts
Record: 6-3, tied for 1st
SP Florencio Serrano: 3.1 IP, 6 H (2 HR), 6 R, 2 BB, 1 HBP, 2 SO, 63 P / 38 S, 13.50 ERA
SS Sebastian Walcott: 1-4, HR (1)
2B Cam Cauley: 2-4, HR (1)
C Cooper Johnson: 1-3, HR (1), BB
Sebastian Walcott (.229/.308/.400) lashed a homer to left. Cam Cauley also hit his first to improve to .364/.476/.606.
Listed starter Winston Santos did not pitch. His roster status is unchanged.
Hi-A: Hub City 1, at Wilmington (WAS) 7
Hub City: 3 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts
Opponent: 14 hits, 6 walks, 4 strikeouts
Record: 5-4, tied for 1st
SP Jose Gonzalez: 4 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 HBP, 1 SO, 58 P / 37 S, 0.00 ERA
Hub City heads home for its franchise-first home game with a 5-4 record and a modest hitting slump: seven runs and 14 hits in the last four games. Malcolm Moore doubled to reach .222/.432/.296. After Jose Gonzalez’s departure, Wilmington scored off Anthony Susac (1 IP, 3 runners, 1 R), Dylan MacLean (2 IP, 8 runners, 5 R) and Victor Simeon (1 IP, 3 runners, 1 R).
Lo-A: Hickory 4, Augusta (ATL) 3
Hickory: 7 hits, 2 walks, 10 strikeouts
Opponent: 6 hits, 9 walks, 11 strikeouts
Record: 6-3, tied for 1st
SP Dalton Pence: 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 2 SO, 46 P / 25 S, 5.40 ERA
RP Angel Anazco: 2 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 3 SO, 4.91 ERA
RP Jake Jekielek: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 SO, 0.00 ERA
RP Ismael Agreda: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 SO, 1.50 ERA
C Jesus Lopez: 2-3, HR (1)
RF Wady Mendez: 2-4, 2B
Hickory trailed early but won on Bullpen Day. Catcher Jesus Lopez has four extra-base hits in six games. Last year, he had 16 all season. In 2024, he was batting a respectable .284/.340/.412 at the midpoint but hit .143/.229/.206 down an injury-shortened stretch.
Both Hub City and Hickory are second in their respective leagues in runs allowed.
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
The 17th-best positional season during 2007-2024 belongs to Chris Davis.
In 2007, Davis had the 20th-best season. He began 2008 in Frisco, where he’d spent a little over a month to close the prior year. Given his success then (.294/.371/.688, 12 HR in 30 games) and Texas’s predilection for aggressive assignments, he could have advanced to AAA immediately, but instead he’d spend another two months destroying Texas League pitching. After a month in AAA with no dropoff in production, the Rangers called him up. Drafted in the fifth round from junior college as a 20-year-old, Davis would reach the Majors after only 275 games. With Texas, he batted .285/.331/.549 with 17 homers in 80 games as a rookie, a performance he wouldn’t surpass until five years later as an Oriole.
Sad that he didn’t establish himself as Texas’s 1B. It’s easy to misremember his situation and assume he was jettisoned too quickly, but he played 224 MLB games prior to Mitch Moreland’s debut and another 43 before being traded. Davis had a stupendous four-year stretch with the O’s (.244/.343/.522, 164 homers) but was sub-replacement thereafter.
Here’s the most boring but also earliest picture of Davis in my collection, from October 2007:
