Texas Rangers Prospect Watch: Frisco

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The Texas Rangers minor league system is pretty stacked, as evidenced by the major league team right now. Luke Jackson, Nomar Mazara, Jurickson Profar, Rougned Odor are all guys that have come from that system. Yesterday we looked at some of the top performers at the Rangers AAA affiliate, the Round Rock Express, so today I am going to focus on the AA ball team, the Rough Riders. There have been many times over the past few seasons that a highly touted prospect has never made it to Round Rock but been called up directly from this team, and this team is very talented in 2016.

The Rough Riders are 39-32 overall, which is good enough to be in second place in the Texas League South at the moment.

Batting:

Center fielder Ryan Cordell is having a nice season at the plate, batting .291/.344/.544 with 14 home runs and 51 RBI. Like fellow slugger Joey Gallo, Ryan needs to work on his strike out rate, which is 28% of the time. But patience at the plate is something coaches help you work out in the minors.

First Baseman Ronald Guzman is batting .287/.352/.496 with 10 home runs and 32 RBI. Guzman is a name that Rangers fans have heard before, as he is one of the top prospects in the organization.

Outfielder Preston Beck is batting .280/.351/.451 with 5 home runs and 23 RBI, but he also has 8 doubles, 4 triples and 3 stolen bases.

Pitching:

So the big question for the Texas Rangers club right now is do they have enough pitching or do they need to go out and trade for another starter due to all the injuries? Well while I cannot answer that question, here are some of the standouts at Frisco hurling the ball.

Starter Connor Sadzeck is 6-2 with a 3.18 ERA in 13 games so far in 2016 (79.1 innings). He has 71 strike outs to just 25 walks, and his whip is at 1.05. He has however given up 9 home runs and hit 7 batters, so even though he has a low ERA he may need a little more work on control.

Victor Payano is 5-4 with a 3.57 ERA, also in 13 games (70.2 innings). Victor has struck out 72 while walking 33, and his whip is a very low 1.42.

As far as relievers go, here is a list of a few standouts ( I only used guys with at least 9 innings of work so far in 2016).

Cody Palmquist – 0.69 ERA, 9 strike outs and 1 walk in 13 innings of work.

Joe Filomeno – 1.35 ERA, 11 strike outs and 13 walks in 13.1 innings of work.

Adam Parks – 1.86 ERA, 30 strike outs and 3 walks in 19.1 innings pitched.

This is just a highlight of guys who are doing well at the minor league level, for full coverage of the minors there are a ton of sites that do a really good job covering the Texas Rangers farm system. Thanks for reading!