Sunny days.
“Few teams have a better 1-2-3 prospect trio than the Rangers,” wrote Baseball America’s Ben Badler on Tuesday, in conjunction with his publication’s ranking of Texas minor leaguers.
He was referring to Joey Gallo, Lewis Brinson, and Nomar Mazara, the same three that front any assessment of the Rangers’ system — though not always in that order, as Baseball Prospectus, for instance, goes Mazara-Gallo-Brinson, the same sequence I went with in the Bound Edition.
As a matter of fact, BP has those three ranked number 5, number 8, and number 15 in all of baseball — and has them as three of the top five prospects in the American League, along with Minnesota outfielder Byron Buxton and Boston infielder Yoan Moncada.
Yes, this is the Beltre/Darvish Window, but that’s not anything like the Pujols Window, given that the Angels are committed not only financially but also by virtue of an empty farm system to throw pretty much everything they can at winning now, at the expense of all else, as evidenced by their decision to trade their top two prospects (per BA) to Atlanta for Andrelton Simmons.
Texas is (and should be) in a mode to win now, because the club has control of one of the best starting pitchers in the game for two more seasons and a third baseman whose game, at some point, will reportedly recede.
But there are plenty of key veterans who should be here and in their primes longer than those two — the rotation and bullpen are full of them, for instance — and the farm system is poised to continue paying off, as it has here for years.
BA has Gallo, Brinson, Mazara, righthander Luis Ortiz, righthander Dillon Tate, outfielder Eric Jenkins, infielder Josh Morgan, infielder Andy Ibanez, outfielder Leody Taveras, and righthander Michael Matuella as its Top 10, while mine goes Mazara-Gallo-Brinson-Tate-Ortiz-lefthander Andrew Faulkner-lefthander Brett Martin-righthander Luke Jackson-Jenkins-outfielder Ryan Cordell (Taveras 11, Matuella 12, Morgan 14, Ibanez 19), and if you want to take a shot at slotting where BA’s number one Angel (catcher Taylor Ward) or number one Mariner (outfielder Alex Jackson) would fit on a Rangers list, be my guest.
Certainly not in the top five. You could start debating after that.
Would it be nice if Texas had a guy like Ward standing out behind the plate and figuring squarely into the long-term plans? You bet. The last time Texas went with the same two primary catchers in consecutive seasons was in 2000-02, when Pudge Rodriguez and Bill Haselman held things down, and Jorge Alfaro’s potential now belongs to someone else. The system’s best bet at catcher, according to Badler, is Jose Trevino (the organization’s number 22 prospect, on my list), but he’s years away and there are questions about how his offensive game will translate as he moves up.
Don’t be shocked if a year from now, Morgan is ranked higher than number 7 on every Rangers prospect list.
As a catcher.
Just don’t be shocked.
Robinson Chirinos was a second baseman-third baseman-shortstop when his pro career began, too.
Baseball America made no mention of the idea of Morgan at catcher, but Texas launched the experiment at Fall Instructs (see page 14 of your Bound Edition) and wasn’t discouraged.
Of course, even if that were to come together, Morgan would be years away himself — he and Trevino were teammates with Low A Hickory in 2015 — and catcher will still be an open question going forward.
Chirinos and Chris Gimenez were good enough last year (once Carlos Corporan fell out of the mix) and stand to be the tandem in 2016, in spite of persistent rumors that the Rangers and Brewers could match up on Jonathan Lucroy (Phil Rogers of MLB.com proposes Brinson, Chi Chi Gonzalez, and Tanner Scheppers for Lucroy, though he acknowledges that “[m]aybe [it’s] too much to give up”; David Schoenfield of ESPN wonders whether Texas would move Gallo for him [no]; Jeff Sullivan of FanGraph spitballs Brinson or Tate, plus Gonzalez or Matuella or Faulkner or Patrick Kivlehan), as well as Ken Rosenthal’s (Fox Sports) suggestion that San Diego’s Derek Norris — arguably a poor man’s Mike Napoli with his ability to produce from the right side while playing catcher and an occasional first base — is also available in trade.
There will probably be two or three more frontline catchers here before Trevino or Morgan gets to the big leagues in a best-case scenario, and that’s OK. Texas won a pennant with Matt Treanor and Bengie Molina one year, and Napoli and Yorvit Torrealba the next, and has played 162+ with a Napoli-Geovany Soto duo, an A.J. Pierzynski-Soto tandem, and a Chirinos-Corporan pairing last year, at least early on, before Gimenez and Bobby Wilson came to an unexpected rescue.
Once upon a time this was a franchise that transitioned at catcher, more or less, from Jim Sundberg to Pudge. Roger to Troy, Montana to Young, Magic to Kobe. Modano to Benn.
The days of Sunny to Pudge are long gone, and missed. This team, of course, has won at unprecedented franchise levels without long-term stability at catcher, but man, I can’t wait until there’s a Yadi or Buster or Salvy, or a Sunny or Pudge, holding things down again in Texas for the better part of a decade.
Short of an unlikely pickup of Lucroy or Norris, Gimenez goes into Rangers camp with (for him) a rare spot on the 40-man roster, giving him the edge on the second catcher spot alongside Chirinos. Wilson gets a non-roster invite to big league camp along with fellow catchers Michael McKenry, Brett Nicholas, and Kellin Deglan. (No Pat Cantwell, which is interesting.) Teams regularly bring added catchers to camp, as a large group of pitching hopefuls need someone to throw to early in camp, but of that group Wilson and McKenry are probably the only ones with a real chance to earn the confidence of the staff as in-season reinforcements.
Quick aside about another catcher that Texas gave a big league invite to, only he’s no longer a catcher. You’re probably a whole lot less familiar with right-handed pitcher Scott Williams than a number of other non-roster minor league arms in the Rangers system, but the college catcher is on a bullet train toward becoming a Major League pitcher.
Williams caught for the State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, 1,000 miles from his Berwyn, Pennsylvania hometown, after missing his high school senior season and redshirt freshman year at the University of Virginia due to injury. In his one season with the Manatees, Williams mixed 10 innings in on the mound, catching the eye of Rangers area scout Cliff Terracuso. Texas used its 11th-round pick on Williams in the 2014 draft, and made him a full-time pitcher right away.
Assigned to Hickory his first summer, Williams struggled, walking 16 hitters and uncorking seven wild pitches in a mere 17 innings, permitting 17 earned runs (9.00 ERA) on 21 hits (.300/.425/.414) as a middle reliever for the Crawdads.
Williams was sent right back to Hickory in 2015, and he took off. As the Crawdads’ closer, he held the South Atlantic League to 27 hits (just seven for extra bases) and 12 unintentional walks (.188/.267/.285) in 43.1 innings, fanning 49 while saving 10 games in a two-month stretch. His fastball touched 97, and his slider kept improving.
When I started putting my Top 72 Prospects list together for the book this winter, I had Williams on it but near the bottom. I talk to a lot of folks in the game when I’m working that list up, and just about every time I visited with someone about the Rangers system this off-season, I found myself moving Williams up a bit. He shows up at number 27 for me right now, and not long from now even that may seem low. (He’d probably show up on a BA Top Ten for the Angels or Mariners today. Not joking.)
The 2014 draft was the Ortiz/Martin/Morgan/Trevino draft for the Rangers, but from that class (and the 2015 Crawdads roster) it’s the Day 3 selection Williams who makes it to big league camp first.
Yes, this is the Beltre/Darvish Window, but the difference between that and the Pujols Window is not just that the Rangers are in better shape to win right now, but also that Texas has Mazara, Gallo, and Brinson on the verge of arriving — providing potential impact both between the lines and in payroll relief — not to mention Ortiz and Tate and Jenkins and Morgan, at one position or another, and Jurickson Profar and Ibanez and Taveras and Matuella, and Faulkner and Martin and Jackson and Cordell, and Ariel Jurado and Connor Sadzeck and Jairo Beras and Yohander Mendez, and Trevino and Williams, and plenty more behind them.
Helping in Arlington or, as we saw in July, enabling the Rangers to bring in game-changing pennant race impact via trade.
Last week, Buster Olney (ESPN) ranked the Rangers as the number five team in baseball (owning the number two lineup).
At the same time, Baseball America will soon judge Texas as having a top 10 farm system — even having divested itself of three players who will show up this winter on top 100/101 lists as Phillies, and two others who have already taken regular turns in the Philadelphia rotation.
It’s not the case everywhere, pretty clearly, but in Texas it’s a matter of keeping the picture window wide open while, if you take a look, the sun is peeking through another window over there, and a couple more around each corner.