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2021 Texas Rangers

CowtownHorn

By CowtownHorn
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mdmost
mdmost

Holy shit. We're done with him.  

shadow_operative2.0
shadow_operative2.0

Fuck yeah!!!! 

mdmost
mdmost

Happy for Wash. 

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DougO

DougO 5,257

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On 8/3/2021 at 6:01 PM, DougO said:

Spencer Howard will indeed make his Rangers debut in a start Thursday against the Angels.

Howard was acquired from the Phillies last Friday as part of the Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy trade. He holds a rough 5.81 ERA through his first 52 2/3 innings at the major league level, but the 25-year-old former top prospect could maybe find a little more success with the change of scenery.

I missed the game, but it sounds like it didn't go quite as well as we would hope.

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futureman

futureman 22,565

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New Evan Grant article. it’s good. 
 

Spoiler

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Up here on the Piedmont plateau, you can see a little more clearly. The air is a little crisper. The future is a lot brighter. And if you squint hard enough, out there on the horizon, you just might be able to spy what looks like a finish line for the Rangers’ rebuild.

 

It’s still a long way from completion. But here, with the Class A Hickory Crawdads, it’s a lot easier to envision it than at the major league level. At least this week.

 

“We’ve infused a lot of talent into the player development system that will serves us well in the next few years,” general manager Chris Young said in summing up the trade deadline. “It will set us up for sustained success.”

 

It sounds nice. It’s a lot harder to bring those words from mission statement to real life, especially when the big-league team is on pace for a 100-loss season and the roster is currently “the land of opportunity,” as Young put it. It’s currently a patchwork of test runs and fill-ins.

 

At Hickory, though, it becomes more tangible. Even on a night like Friday. Even when the Crawdads saw a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning somehow become a 15-14 walkoff loss on a two-out, two-strike, 12th-inning grand slam by a position player who had entered the game to pitch. It’s the minors, man. Don’t ask about the outcomes. They can be strange.

 

But it’s about development. And at Hickory, that’s been evident. Just consider the last week. On Friday, you could have seen eight of the Rangers’ top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline, in the same lineup against Pittsburgh’s advanced Class A team and its top pitching prospect, Quinn Priester. You could see six players acquired by draft or trade in the last 14 months. Come back on Saturday and you will see another.

 

You could see Josh Smith, one of the three hitters the Rangers acquired from the New York Yankees in the Joey Gallo trade, hit the first pitch of the game out of the park. Trevor Hauver, the other hitter acquired from the Yankees, has homered twice in the week since he joined the team from New York’s low Class A team in Tampa.

 

If you had been here earlier in the week, you might have seen Ezequiel Duran, the centerpiece of the Yankees trade, hit a grand slam. He hit another on Friday in extra innings, too. Should have been the game winner. There were a lot of should-have-been-game-winners Friday.

 

“There is confidence,” said manager Josh Johnson, but then again that was before the game. “They all have an idea and a plan. There is intent at the plate. Yes, it’s easier to see [the rebuild].”

 

And that’s just on the hitting side. On the pitching side, lefty Avery Weems, acquired from the White Sox in the Lance Lynn deal, may have put together the second-best start of the year for Hickory on Friday, allowing two hits and a run (on a seventh-inning homer) while striking out eight. He threw 65 percent of his pitches for strikes.

 

Second-best. Because on Thursday, Zak Kent went seven shutout innings, allowing a pair of hits, walking one and striking out 13. In the series with Greensboro, Hickory’s starters had a streak of 13 consecutive scoreless innings and struck out 34 while walking just four. Hickory pitchers had the second-best strikeout-to-walk rate (3.34 to 1) in the High A East.

 

“When you are on the ground floor, it’s a little easier to see things,” said pitching coaching Jordan Tiegs. “It’s not far-fetched to see a lot of these guys and think they will be big leaguers. And it’s on both sides of the ball.”

 

The thing is: It’s not just the Rangers saying this. The prospect-ranking complex is starting to agree. The Rangers may not have a Wander Franco to make scouts drool, but the talent floor has been significantly raised. According to Fangraphs, the Rangers now have 69 legitimate prospects in their system, the most of any organization.

 

“They are a radically different organization that five years ago,” said Fangraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. “There is a higher floor. They were once completely tool-driven; they’ve mitigated some risks in their strategy. Is it the best farm system? No. They don’t have that one elite guy. But, in terms of sheer numbers, they have the most guys you could see playing in the majors. The core of the next competitive team is there.”

 

Only a handful of the players may really eventually stand out as major leaguers, but that’s all you need to develop a core. The rest can be used as currency to further consolidate and concentrate talent or to address supplemental needs.

 

Sure, it sounds ideal. But from the sky-high seats at Globe Life Field, it can still seem as nebulous as the clouds you can almost touch on those rare days the roof is open. But it is inching closer. In the next week, it may become a bit easier to see things closer to Arlington. Not in Arlington, but closer.

 

A wave of promotions has already started to ripple through the system. Hickory sent its two most productive hitters from the first three months of the season, Blaine Crim and Miguel Aparicio, to Double-A Frisco in the last week. More are forthcoming. It may only be a matter of days before Justin Foscue, the Rangers’ first pick in 2020, joins them. He’d hit 10 homers and had a .354/.432/.969/1.402 slash line entering Friday in the month since returning from a rib injury. It’s liable to trigger more promotions, such as top hitting prospect Josh Jung moving to Triple-A Round Rock.

 

“I look around and I see guys who can hit,” Foscue said. “We’ve got elite hitters.”

 

They proved that over and over Friday night. They had a bunch of what should have been game-winning hitters. The night may have become a blur, but the vision is still pretty clear. You can almost see the rebuild from up here.

 

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futureman

futureman 22,565

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the farm is looking solid.

https://www.lonestarball.com/platform/amp/2021/8/8/22614929/minor-league-update-for-8-7-21?utm_campaign=lonestarball&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

 

also sam huff, 114mph off the bat, 502 feet. mammoth bomb. 

this team is gonna look pretty good by 2023. 

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Jameslaw121

Jameslaw121 4,455

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4 hours ago, futureman said:

the farm is looking solid.

https://www.lonestarball.com/platform/amp/2021/8/8/22614929/minor-league-update-for-8-7-21?utm_campaign=lonestarball&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

 

also sam huff, 114mph off the bat, 502 feet. mammoth bomb. 

this team is gonna look pretty good by 2023. 

Like 2015 prospect good. Or actually good?

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ztejas

ztejas 43,744

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5 hours ago, futureman said:

the farm is looking solid.

https://www.lonestarball.com/platform/amp/2021/8/8/22614929/minor-league-update-for-8-7-21?utm_campaign=lonestarball&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

 

also sam huff, 114mph off the bat, 502 feet. mammoth bomb. 

this team is gonna look pretty good by 2023. 

Hasn't this guy been doing nothing but hitting dingers? Granted I don't completely understand how the minor leagues and farm system work but shouldn't he have been, idk, called up right now?

At least if we were actually trying to win games this season. Pretty sure we aren't. 

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ztejas

ztejas 43,744

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3 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

He can’t catch at all this season due to a knee issue. Let him keep raking against the shitty pitching, then get back behind the dish later. 

Ah okay thanks. 

7 minutes ago, futureman said:

bingo was his name. 

Well I know that's part of it. I guess I was more asking the question, this dude is clearly ready for the show, right? Given our horrible roster. 

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Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron 1,798

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On 8/5/2021 at 10:46 PM, bluto said:

Went to the game today, this team sucks so hard. All I got.

I went to every game this series. Great seeing Othani. Thursday was the nadir of Rangers baseball ... the muffed easy bunt play at 3B, the dropped single in RF, the missed ball to 2nd, and whatever that was on the bunt to first when the pitcher was not looking for the pall the 1B put it in the dugout. I was looking for Chico's Bail Bond's on the back of the jerseys.

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DougO

DougO 5,257

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On 8/10/2021 at 8:02 PM, Harrison Bergeron said:

I went to every game this series. Great seeing Othani. Thursday was the nadir of Rangers baseball ... the muffed easy bunt play at 3B, the dropped single in RF, the missed ball to 2nd, and whatever that was on the bunt to first when the pitcher was not looking for the pall the 1B put it in the dugout. I was looking for Chico's Bail Bond's on the back of the jerseys.

That kinda stuff makes you miss Ron Washington.

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