A combined 41 Rangers appear within the top-20 or top-30 rankings of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs (which ranks 38 but I’m using 30 for this exercise), The Athletic, and MLB Pipeline. So far, I’ve only written about 24 of them in the context of actual games played. Two others are assigned to the Dominican Summer League. Another six are hurt (including OF Anthony Gutierrez, who technically did play but was lost for the season early on Opening Night).
The remaining nine are at the complex:
LHP Ben Abeldt (Age 22, 2025 / 5th round)
LHP Enyel Lopez (20, signed Jan. 2025)
LHP Owen Proksch (22, 2025 / 9th)
RHP Jacob Johnson (19, 2025 / 11th)
RHP Mason McConnaughey (22, 2025 / 4th)
RHP/IF Seong-Jun Kim (19, signed May 2025)
RHP/IF Josh Owens (19, 2025 / 3rd)
IF/OF Elorky Rodriguez (18, signed Jan. 2025)
IF Jack Wheeler (19, 2025 / 6th)
RHP Jose Corniell is there as well, but he doesn’t quite fit with the others, so I listed him as part of the injured six.
Rodriguez is a young 18 but has the most pro experience of the nine listed, batting .337/.473/.506 while splitting between 2B and CF last summer in the Dominican Republic. The Korean Kim batted in three games and pitched once in last year’s Dominican Summer League. The 6’4″ Lopez tossed one inning for Hickory in 2025 but spent nearly all of 2025 at the complex, where he posted a 5.88 ERA with plenty of strikeouts (and walks).
Proksch and Owens began their pro careers late last summer at low-A Hickory but were held back to begin 2026. Abeldt, Johnson, McConnaughey and Wheeler will be making their pro debuts. Abeldt is a TCU alum recovering from elbow surgery.
Opening Night starter Johnson was drafted in last year’s 11th round, a more meaningful place than you might expect. Many clubs use portions of rounds 6-10 to save money for earlier rounds but also the 11th and some later ones. Last year, 17 of 30 11th-rounders received bonuses of over $150,000, the excess of which counts against the cap. Conversely, no 10th-round pick received an above-slot bonus, and half signed for no more than $50,000. Texas’s other 11th rounders in the 2020s were RHP Dalton Pence, OF Max Martin, LHP Kohl Drake and OF Jojo Blackmon. All but Blackmon feature on contemporary prospect lists, and Blackmon himself did early on but faded disappointingly quickly in low-A.
I stopped covering the rookie league on a daily basis in the late 2010s. Then, the reasons were a lull in the system that made me question the usefulness of daily coverage plus other time-consuming things going on in my life. Structural changes in pro ball since then have affected roster composition and quality of play such that daily coverage is probably more futile than ever, but given the surfeit of prospects in Arizona, I intend to check in more frequently than I have during most of the 2020s. And now that I’ve told you why I won’t be doing daily game summaries, how about a game summary?
Rookie: Rangers 8, Dodgers 9
Rangers: 7 hits, 9 walks, 13 strikeouts
Dodgers: 9 hits, 2 walks, 14 strikeouts
SP Jacob Johnson: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 BB, HBP, 8 SO
RP Case Matter: 1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 SO
DH Seong-Jun Kim: 1-5, HR
2B Elorky Rodriguez: 1-3, triple, 2 BB
LF Marco Argudin: 1-3, BB
RF Jay McQueen: 1-1, 3 BB, SB
CF Rashawn Pinder: 1-4, 2 SB
Thanks to Jacob Johnson for justifying the paragraph about 11th rounders mostly written before the game started. Signed out of Pearl River Community College in Mississippi, Johnson offers a mid-90s fastball, slider and a hint of a change. He retired eight of 13 batters via strikeout, four swinging and four called. Given the often dismal state of control at the level, I’m honestly more pleased with the zero walks (although he did tally a hit batter and wild pitch).
Rehabbing Case Matter is 24 and closed out last year at high-A Hub City. He instantly caught my eye with some impressive stuff, but he’s averaged a walk per inning as a pro.
19-year-old Jamaurion “Jay” McQueen was Texas’s final pick last summer but received the third-largest bonus of rounds 11-20. Argudin is a 20-year-old Cuban who manhandled the DSL last year (.397/.497/.587).
Transactions
Texas released IF Danyer Cueva and LHP Angel Anazco. Cueva is among a sizable group of hitters in the 2020s (not just Rangers) who crushed at the complex but found the jump to low-A a little too wide.
Elsewhere
Written around 8pm last night: Atlanta designated catcher Jonah Heim for assignment. He’d actually batted well in 45 trips to the plate: .231/.311/.410 with a homer and four doubles. He hadn’t nabbed any of 13 base-stealers, though. The true Heim is probably less bat and more defense, but with a modest $1.2 million left on his deal, he might be worth a claim by someone. This morning’s update: Atlanta traded Heim to the Athletics (Heim’s original team) for cash.
St. Louis optioned IF Thomas Saggese to AAA Memphis. He’d batted .170/.228/.208 in 18 games for the Cards. In his MLB career, he’s made 34 starts at short, which I’ll confess are 34 more than I anticipated while watching him at Frisco, but he hasn’t hit enough to confirm a steady role.
Detroit righty Ricky Vanasco made his first MLB appearance since September 2024 against the Rangers Sunday.
Righty Carl Edwards Jr. took free agency after being purchased by the Mets from AAA and outrighted a few days later.
Washington claimed RHP Zak Kent off waivers from Minnesota and optioned him to AAA Rochester, where he can make an acquaintance of 1B Abi Ortiz (now .250/.380/.430 after a slow start).
Five Years Ago Yesterday
I watched my first “real” minor league game in 619 days, not in Round Rock but Frisco, where the Riders defeated Midland 5-2. Davis Wendzel made his full-season debut in AA nearly two years after being drafted, and at shortstop, a position he barely played in college. Wendzel would prove capable there, if occasionally prone to mishandling routine plays. He walked twice and was hit by a pitch. OF Bubba Thompson tripled and singled. 1B Sherten Apostel homered, but the umps couldn’t see the carom off the Lazy River facade and ruled it a double. At low-A Down East, CF Evan Carter drew three walks in his pro debut
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