Texas officially signed 18-year-old Korean RHP/SS Seong-Jun Kim, Per local media, the intent to to develop him at both positions. Don’t look for his name in the stats in 2025, as he’ll be heading back to Korea to finish his primary education.
Also, the beats say Kumar Rocker’s live bullpen session on Sunday went well, and absent further issues he’ll commence a multi-game rehab assignment. I couldn’t say when or where, but Frisco hosts Midland this week, while Round Rock heads to Charlotte and returns to face Reno next week.
Box Scores
AAA: Round Rock 5, Oklahoma City (LAD) 4 (10)
Round Rock: 5 hits, 8 walks, 11 strikeouts
Opponent: 8 hits, 4 walks, 8 strikeouts
Record: 21-24, 9 GB
SP Gerson Garabito: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 58 P / 37 S, 8.44 ERA
RP Emiliano Teodo: 0.2 IP, 1 H (1 HR), 1 R, 2 BB, 2 SO, 8.18 ERA
1B Blaine Crim: 1-4, HR (9), BB, .283/.348/.543
3B Jonathan Ornelas: 1-3, 2 BB, SB (3), .204/.339/.235
One out from a 3-0 shut out, Blaine Crim homered to send the game to extras. Jonathan Ornelas and Alejandro Osuna preceded him by getting hit. Round Rock again trailed and was an out from defeat, but Kellen’s Strahm’s two-run single.
OF Alejandro Osuna’s first week in AAA concluded with a line of .286/.474/.500 in four games. Osuna had only one hard hit out of eight in play, but he found some empty spots in the defense. He was particularly good at avoiding chases, and when he did, his contact rate was well above average.
Round Rock visits White Sox-affiliated Charlotte this week for one of the handful of interleague matchups.
AA: cancelled
Frisco and Corpus don’t meet again in the first half, so this won’t be rescheduled. The Riders host division-leading Midland this week. They were last year’s two best teams in the Texas League and are again leading the pack in 2025.
Hi-A: Hub City 6, @ Greenville (BOS) 3
Hub City: 6 hits, 8 walks, 11 strikeouts
Opponent: 8 hits, 4 walks, 9 strikeouts
Record: 20-19, 1 GB
SP Jose Gonzalez: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 1 HBP, 1 SO, 41 P / 24 S, 3.24 ERA
RP Josh Sanders: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 SO, 1.35 ERA
RP Willan Bormie: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 SO, 0.90 ERA
RF Keith Jones II: 2-3, BB, SB (8), .280/.430/.441
C Julian Brock: 1-2, 2 BB, .156/.252/.256
3B Gleider Figuereo: 1-3, HR (4), .212/.275/.331
Hub City’s oft-quiet offense managed a stout 5.8 runs per game this week. Greenville is glad to be rid of Keith Jones II, who batted .417/.533/.708 and reached safely 16 times.
Lo-A: Hickory 2, Kannapolis (CHW) 5
Hickory: 4 hits, 6 walks, 8 strikeouts
Opponent: 9 hits, 10 walks, 10 strikeouts
Record: 18-20, 3.5 GB
SP Dalton Pence: 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 SO, 47 P / 33 S, 2.91 ERA
CF Yeremi Cabrera: 2-4, .229/.354/.303
Pence’s five strikeouts were a season high. Yeremi Cabrera has a six-game hit streak with 11 hits. Before that, he was 0-for-14 with eight strikeouts. Funny game, baseball.
It’s early, but Hickory is on pace for 55 homers, which would easily be the fewest by any Texas-affiliated low-A team since at least 2007 (probably the fewest of any full-season club, but I haven’t checked yet). Down East hit 76 last year in a tougher park. In fairness, the entire league isn’t hitting many, with the average team on pace for just 70. Rafe Perich leads the Crawdads with five.
Elsewhere
IF Alan Trejo is a free agent again. Colorado called him up immediately after acquiring him from the Rangers for cash. He’d never hit much for the Rockies previously and didn’t this time, and after being outrighted he took his leave.
The Angles called up Hunter Strickland, who’d left the Rangers two weeks ago. I didn’t see anything to suggest he’d get a chance in Arlington any time soon.
Rule 5 catcher Liam Hicks is hitting .282/.357/.482 for the Marlins. His slugging percentage in 190 AA games was .361. Maimi swiped him from Detroit last December following his deadline trade from Texas. As I’ve mentioned, I doubt the Rangers would have added him to the 40, either. More power to him.
Sam Huff isn’t hitting much (.190/.239/.286, 1 HR) but has maintained an MLB paycheck. The Giants are 28-19 despite getting next to nothing from their catcher. Top dog Patrick Bailey is hitting .185/.237/.252, albeit with exceptional defense.
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
For the final look at pitchers, I wanted to measure how well they helped themselves with some “little things” that either don’t appear in typical stat tables or tend to be ignored. Each pitcher gets a point for a GIDP and caught stealing and loses a point for each steal, hit batter, wild pitch and balk. Then I indexed that sum per 100 batters faced. I could’ve adjusted for eras and assigned run values to each component, but I decided to keep things simple. Most pitchers had net negative scores, but nearly everyone atop these lists was positive. This is, admittedly, a pretty random assortment of names, but some are interesting. As always, everyone on the list is or was at least marginally a prospect; I’ve omitted AAA vets and the like.
The best starting season was produced by Ryan Tatusko, who was also featured yesterday for his two homers allowed in 100 innings in 2010 preceding his trade (with Tanner Roark) to Washington. The best relief season belongs to Wes Littleton in 2007. That’s a little bit of a cheat since he was no longer technically a prospect, having pitched 35 MLB innings the year before, but I wanted to include him because he pitched 32 AAA innings without a single hit batter, wild pitch, balk or stolen base allowed. (He also walked only eight and allowed a reasonable 31 hits, but two terrible outings out of 23 boosted his ERA to an unsightly 5.01.)
Best at net steals plus avoiding hit batters, wild pitches and balks, per 100 batters, min. 90 IP:
Best at all that stuff mentioned above, per 100 batters, min. 30 IP:
Best, 400+ IP career:
Best, 300-399 IP career:
Best, 200-299 IP career:
Best, 100-199 IP career:
