Despite snappy analysis, final judgment of Texas Rangers’ draft class is years away
The first Rangers Reaction of the season was scheduled for March 26, when the Texas Rangers’ first game of the 2020 MLB season was scheduled.
Now 11 weeks later, with the number of coronavirus infections and deaths still of the rise, we’re all still waiting for the season to begin.
Something is going to happen. The commissioner even said so.
Movement should come again, now that the MLB draft is over.
And what a draft it was. Or wasn’t, if you were one of the TV analyst who were blind-sided by some of the Rangers’ picks.
Here, for the first time in 2020, is some Rangers Reaction.
Daft draft?
MLB Network host Greg Amsinger had the following to say about the Rangers’ draft, based on reactions he must have seen and heard from in-studio analysts:
“This is a draft class we’re trying to understand for the Texas Rangers,” he said. “It’s really interesting.”
Dan O’Dowd, a former big-league general manager, didn’t mince his words quite as much.
“We’ve got to let it play out, but it is puzzling,” he said.
Over at ESPN, draft specialist Kiley McDaniel said he had never heard of the Rangers’ second-round pick.
Indeed, none of them were doing the Rangers any favors. Perhaps justifiably so.
Kip Fagg, the director of amateur scouting, had to answer the burning questions from the beat writers.
He didn’t hedge on any of the picks. If anything, he doubled-down on them, and believes the Rangers’ deeper look at players who didn’t have a chance to shoot up draft rankings will pay dividends.
“We were on an eight-week journey without seeing baseball, but I think it’s a tribute to what our scouts did and the work they did,” Fagg said.
“A lot of these kids we took today that you saw weren’t like the top prospects on all the lists, so to speak,” he said. “We feel like we got a good group of kids that would have popped if the spring played out like a normal spring, and identified them early. We did a lot of work on these guys. Every one of these guys we had targeted we got, and we’re very excited we got all of these dudes.”
Evan Carter stumped the ESPN expert. The 50th overall pick wasn’t in the Baseball America Top 500, in large part because he didn’t participate in the summer showcase circuit last year.
The Rangers first saw him playing in Tennessee last summer and again in the fall. They believe they signed a five-tool player who would have been much more highly regarded had the coronavirus pandemic not canceled prep seasons across the country.
The others, all prep picks, fall into the same underscouted realm. The Rangers feel like they scored two solid pitchers in third-rounder TK Roby (86th overall), a right-hander from the Florida panhandle, and fourth-rounder Dylan MacLean (115th overall), a left-hander from Oregon.
Their fifth-round pick (145th overall) was California prep shortstop Thomas Saggese, who didn’t receive much exposure last summer as his mother fought breast cancer and, sadly, passed away.
In the first round Wednesday night, the Rangers selected Mississippi State second baseman Justin Foscue with the 14th overall pick. The Rangers expect the other four players to sign with them, forgoing commitments to college programs. Good programs, too.
But the draft class had many wondering what the Rangers were thinking.
“That’s fine,” Fagg said. “Obviously, a baseball draft is different than any other sport’s draft. We feel good about the work that was put in. We have a great player-development set up where we can let these guys grow as human beings and as players. We feel like we beat a lot of teams on these guys. Time will tell.”
Time will tell
That’s the case with every draft for every team, and perhaps more so this year because of the pandemic.
Take MacLean, the fourth-round pick. He didn’t have a single high school game in 2020 because his season was canceled.
The Rangers saw him last summer, when they thought his build was a little slight. Fagg saw him again in January when scouting another player, and was blown away by the changes MacLean had made to his body.
The radar gun readings Fagg saw then were higher than those reported Thursday on TV. And the Rangers project they will go even higher with development, which is how baseball draftees differ from those in other sports.
Only on the rarest occasions do drafted players make their MLB debuts in the same season. Some might reach Double A, depending on how advanced they are, but in an ordinary year most will start in the Arizona League or in short-season ball.
But the minor-league season isn’t going to happen. That’s not official yet, but the writing has long been on the wall. So, the players who were selected this week are not going to play a game this summer.
There might be some form of an extended instruction league or a broader Arizona Fall League, but players will essentially remain in offseason mode until MLB clubs are given the green light to resume organized team workouts for their minor-leaguers.
Foscue, the first-rounder, is far more advanced than the other four Rangers’ selections, and he has a chance to move quickly through the farm system. But he still might not debut until 2022.
The prep players need time to develop their bodies and to learn things like how to live on their own in addition to learning more about baseball than has ever been presented to them.
As Fagg said, the Rangers did their homework on these prep players. They watched them in person. They talked to family members and coaches. They made sure the players had support systems in place and smarts between their ears for when times get tough.
So, check back in three or four years to see if the 2020 draft class is going to pan out or be a dud.
Spouting off
Some Rangers fans who follow the draft were pretty much disgusted with what they saw unfold. Better players were available, they were told by the experts, and, by gum, they must know better than the Rangers.
Maybe those fans should make the Rangers aware of their scouting prowess.
To those who made the trek to eastern Tennessee to watch Carter play, or to the Florida panhandle to watch Roby pitch, I apologize for doubting you. To those who didn’t, what do you know that the Rangers don’t?
What makes Carter a bad pick? Because some analyst said so?
(The analysts at Baseball America, mlb.com and The Athletic are very good at their jobs, by the way.)
Why is Roby a bad pick? Because Flower Mound High righty Cam Brown, a strong TCU commit and potentially a tough sign, was still available?
Based on the Rangers’ history at the top of the draft, there’s evidence to suggest these guys might never make it. But for the vast majority, if not all, upset with the Rangers’ selections, that’s the only bullet you have.
Maybe you’ll end up being right. Even Fagg conceded he has to wait and see.
At least he and other Rangers scouts have seen something to evaluate these players.
Risky business
Consider this: The entire Rangers scouting department put their reputations on the line this week. Their picks were largely panned by analysts and will be in the days to come. Their colleagues might have been scratching their heads, or scrambling to double-check their reports to see what they might have missed.
It seems like too big of a gamble for them to take if they weren’t convinced they selected players who have a good chance to be quality major-leaguers some day.
But the Rangers have almost always had a high-risk, high-reward draft philosophy since Jon Daniels became general manager. There have been exceptions, starting with how they used their top four picks last year on college players.
There have been busts along the way, for sure. There have been draftees who were used as trade bait, which contributed to the decline of the Rangers’ farm system as much, if not more so, than empty drafts.
Justin Smoak went from Rangers first-round pick to trade piece to, eventually, an All-Star team. Kyle Hendricks, an eighth-round pick, took the similar post-draft route, trading an All-Star selection for an ERA title and World Series ring.
Injuries to draft picks, something all teams endure, have also derailed the Rangers’ farm system. Cole Ragans, the 2016 first-rounder, has undergone two Tommy John surgeries. Their second-rounder from that year, Alex Speas, underwent Tommy John surgery but is throwing 102 mph now.
Don’t be surprised if Speas is part of the Rangers’ player pool once the season starts.
There are other injuries, including more Tommy John procedures to two members from the top of the 2018 draft class.
Might Roby lose a season to injury? It’s entirely possible.
He could also join the Peace Corps.
There’s risk with any player acquisition, but more so in the draft.
It’s hardly an exact science. If it was, 24 teams, including the Rangers, wouldn’t have passed on Mike Trout.
I’m no scout
My evaluation of what the Rangers did in the draft is pretty simple:
I didn’t see any of the players selected, or any of those not selected, throw a single ball, take a single swing or play a single game. I don’t know one thing about their spin rates or launch angles or speed out of the batter’s box, or what it would take financially to convince a player to sign.
I’m not a scout.
Did it make me pause when the draft experts were mystified by the Carter pick? Sure. Or when a longtime baseball man like O’Dowd calls the Rangers’ draft “puzzling? Yep.
But, like O’Dowd said, I’ll wait to see what happens before passing judgment on this unprecedented draft, which was judged on incomplete information and in ways never before used.
It’s possible Fagg had used Zoom prior to the draft, but I have my doubts that he had ever used it to get to know a potential draftee. I can guarantee that scouts have never gone this long leading up to a draft without seeing a single game.
Fagg is a scout, along all the others who dug in on the Rangers’ five choices. As he said, they had to trust their scouting instincts more this year.
They know what a ballplayer looks like, through past draft hits and past draft misses. They know the feeling when a player busts out, and question why it happened and what they might have missed.
They’re scouts. I’m not.
