It Begins
The Rangers play their first Spring Training game tomorrow, 33 days before Opening Day. That is ridiculously overlong. In that spirit, I have a 3,100-word report, but I’ll split it in half. Today, major news, prospect rankings, thoughts on the challenge system, etc. Tomorrow, all the incoming minor league free agents, returning Rangers, and where ex-Rangers landed.
Walcott
Sebastian Walcott’s rehab of last fall’s sore elbow didn’t pan out, and he’ll soon undergo surgery, either the full-blown Tommy John or the slightly friendlier brace procedure. Regardless, he’s essentially out for the season, although some late batting action remains a possibility. Terrible news, but hopefully nothing more than a delay in his ascent. Despite spending all of last year in AA, he doesn’t have to be added to the 40-man roster until after 2027, so Texas doesn’t have to worry about a “wasted” option year or burned service time.
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
In my report on the Gore trade, I mentioned preferring another starter in on an MLB deal rather than leaving the fifth spot open to competition. That’s nothing against Jacob Latz and Kumar Rocker, who could well prove up to the task. But even with strong rotations, Texas has needed an average of 40 starts from starters outside the top five during 2023-2025.
Texas has acknowledged my preference, after a fashion, bringing in LHP Jordan Montgomery on a one-year, $1.25 million deal. He won’t be the fifth starter in April, though, as his elbow surgery less than a year ago likely pushes his return to July.
Montgomery’s post-Texas career has been dismal. His outsized contract demand after the Series brought no takers, and he settled for a 1+1 deal with Arizona after missing the entirety of Spring Training. He ditched his agent, didn’t pitch well in 2024 and spent 2025 on a gurney.
If he can regain form, he’ll be equivalent to a “free” trade-deadline acquisition. If not, well, it’s not as though the Rangers were pinning their hopes on him. He will be transferred to the 60-day IL but has to occupy the “regular” 40-man roster for at least a few seconds, so Texas cleared a spot by designating righty Zak Kent, acquired on waivers from St. Louis a month ago. Kent was promptly reclaimed by the Cards, but in any case he could have and very likely would have taken free agency.
Farm Rankings
22 – ESPN
24 – Baseball America
26 – The Athletic
28 – Baseball Prospectus
Not a surprise. Texas’s formerly mid-tier system lost several top-30 prospects to deadline trades and five more in the Gore trade. Rocker and Leiter graduated. 2024 top pick Malcolm Moore had a bad year.
Sebastian Walcott and several promising pitchers remain, but the vaunted depth of the past is depleted, and obligatory top-30 lists have been backfilled mostly with low-level, high-risk types.
When you focus on the farm, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of it as a thing apart from the Major League club. It’s worth remembering the farm is a means to an end, that being more wins in Arlington, and the operative question for any prospect may be less “how good can he be” than “what could we get for him.”
Top 100 Prospects
IF Sebastian Walcott
(all rankings pre-injury except FanGraphs)
#5 per ESPN
#7 per MLB Pipeline
#11 per Baseball Prospectus
#16 per The Athletic and Baseball America
#30 per FanGraphs
(I wrote this before the injury.) Walcott more-or-less maintained his stature despite a superficially ordinary line in AA (.255/.355/.386). As a 19-year-old in AA, he improved his plate control considerably while maintaining his homers. A 50-point drop in isolated power was due entirely to fewer doubles and triples. I don’t know what that means, if anything. Much as I’d love to see him in person in Round Rock in April, more time in Frisco is in order.
(And now, back to the present.) The FanGraphs placement acknowledges Walcott’s injury, but he’d have ranked lowest among the various publications even if healthy. They’re ever-so-slightly more skeptical of his future for a variety of reasons: physical projection, instincts, eventual position, plate approach, swing.
RHP Caden Scarborough
#65 per Baseball America
#71 per FanGraphs
#99 per ESPN
Easily the biggest riser in the system, Scarborough transformed his electric stuff into electric results more quickly than I anticipated. His BB+HBP rate was 8%; I’d have taken the over on that without hesitation and even given odds. In his final 11 regular season starts, he walked or hit 15 batters while fanning 58.
For a different view, Baseball Prospectus had him 12th before the Gore trade. Not 12th overall, 12th in the Texas system (now up to 9th following the departures of Fien, Rosario and Fitz-Gerald, all ranked higher). And that ranking was decided mostly if not entirely by Friend Of The Report Grant Schiller! How dare he!
But seriously, differing viewpoints are welcome. Put another way, if every publication ranked everyone similarly, that would come across as groupthink. BP’s primary issue is that Scarborough has considerable reliever risk because of immature offerings beyond the fastball and slider. Other publications aren’t as worried, but it’s a valid concern.
IF Yolfran Castillo
#70 per FanGraphs
When I saw Castillo in person last March, I could easily envision this placement a year later. But not after his subsequent, middling showing in real games. FanGraphs’ love remains steadfast if not unconditional; their lengthy outro to his writeup stating that they’re ignoring Texas’s track record of transforming this type of player into a worthy big-leaguer.
RHP David Davalillo
#89 per FanGraphs
I’ve seen him reach the upper 90s and overwhelm hitters in short spurts, but neither is his forte. The fastball doesn’t stand out, actually. What does is great control of a very deep arsenal (we’re up to seven pitches, I think) featuring an angry splitter.
RHP Jose Corniell
#116 per ESPN
RHP Winston Santos
#103 per FanGraphs
#141 per ESPN
Elsewhere:
IF Gavin Fien (59th by BP, 76th by The Athletic, and 117th by ESPN)
IF Devin Fitz-Gerald (#133 ESPN)
LHP Kohl Drake (#162 ESPN)
RHP David Hagaman (#171 ESPN)
RHP Alejandro Rosario (#190 ESPN)
Service Time
When I updated by organizational charts, I noticed that Evan Carter had one year and 170 days of service time. 172 days are needed for a full year, so he fell two days short of getting free agency after 2029 instead of 2030 (assuming his career proceeds as hoped). The Rangers didn’t game him, though. Actually, he was recalled to Arlington sooner than I would have preferred, but the dismissal of Leody Taveras and injury to Kevin Pillar pretty much forced Texas’s hand. Carter at least has the consolation of a likely additional season of arbitration (again, assuming a quality career).
Other Camp News
Both RHP Emiliano Teodo (back) and Marc Church (lat) are still recovering from injuries that limited their 2025s and won’t pitch again until March. Bad news, although I wouldn’t have considered them more than the longest of shots to make the active roster in the early going.
I Challenge You
The challenge system is coming to MLB. Finally. For years, I’ve been watching ball-strike calls in AAA that were either fully automated or subject to challenge, then marvelling at these critical decisions being made in MLB with nothing more than someone’s eyes. (And this is not a criticism of the umps, most of whom are great at their jobs.)
The system is quick and unobtrusive, unlike a good number of baserunning challenges. Here’s an example from 2024, an embarrassingly out-of-focus video on my part but it conveys how seamless the system can be.
In the early days in AAA, challenges seemed more random. A pitcher threw, didn’t get the call, said “that’s a strike brah” (or the Spanish equivalent) and impulsively patted his cap. Some of that is the nature of minor league ball; winning doesn’t matter per se, and performers might be thinking more about how an allegedly incorrect call affects them personally and less about how the call affects the game’s outcome. Over time, these decisions have become more strategic. Pitchers hardly ever challenge now and probably have been stripped of that duty by their coaches. (Catchers have a better view.) Challenges have also been saved for more meaningful situations and counts.
Also, I’ve seen games in which plate umps were consistent but had a specific flaw that players were able to dispute. In one game, the plate ump simply wasn’t giving pitchers the bottom-right corner (from the viewpoint of the ump), so righties grabbing that corner with a slider would get a ball call. In the past, they’d just have to live with it, but in this game, pitchers on both teams repeatedly challenged and frequently won. They were able to reorient the strike zone to its proper size on the fly.
In the long run, this should make umps more consistent and uniform. The ump who calls a good plate overall but gives the bottom-right corner to batters is going to have to adjust.
(Warning: allusions to heavy math ahead) You may be familiar with run expectancy matrices, which show the expected runs scored in an inning given any particular number of outs and set of baserunners. With that, one can calculate the cost-benefit of stealing, trying to take an extra base, etc. This can also be done with individual ball-strike counts within all these out and baserunner scenarios, and from there we can calculate the breakeven success rate for issuing a challenge.
Tom Tango, an overlord of sabermetricians, has recently done just that in a series of posts (1, 2, 3). If you’re into this stuff, I’d recommend checking it out. The thumbnail version:
1) Challenging is rarely worth the bother with fewer outs and fewer runners on base, even if you’re pretty sure the ump is wrong;
2) Challenging is always with the bother with the bases loaded or with a runner in scoring position and two out, even if you’re pretty sure the ump is right.
In American football, similar analysis has revealed which teams are optimizing 4th-and-X decisions. Likewise, with Tango’s work and future revisions, we should be able to determine which teams are wise and which are wasteful with their challenges.
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