The Rangers will place outfielder Wyatt Langford on the 10-day injured list, manager Bruce Bochy told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (X link) and other media. Langford left yesterday’s game due to what was described as hamstring tightness, and Bochy reports that the injury is a strain, slightly beyond a Grade 1-level injury. The expected recovery timeline for Langford is three or four weeks.
It has still been less than a year since Langford was selected fourth overall by the Rangers in the 2023 draft, and the star prospect’s quickly moved up the minor league ladder all the way to Triple-A before the end of his first pro season. Langford posted a 1.157 OPS over 200 plate appearances across four different minor league levels last year, and another huge performance in Spring Training led Texas to make the aggressive decision to include Langford on the Opening Day roster.
Despite all the fanfare, it perhaps isn’t surprising that Langford has thus far been overmatched by big league pitching. The 22-year-old has hit only .224/.295/.293 in his first 129 plate appearances in the Show, and he ranks slightly below average in most Statcast categories (though his chase and whiff rates are strong, and his elite speed has lived up to expectations). While Langford’s barrels and barrel rate are around average, that hasn’t translated into much pop, as he has just one home run and an .069 Isolated Power score.
This isn’t exactly ideal for a designated hitter, which has been Langford’s regular role when he isn’t spelling Evan Carter in left field when a southpaw in on the mound. Utilityman Ezequiel Duran seems likeliest to slide into this role in Langford’s absence, or Duran could play third base and Josh Smith could get some time in left field. Depending on how the Rangers approach the situation, Jonathan Ornelas could be called up from Triple-A for further depth, or Texas could go beyond the 40-man roster to select someone with more MLB experience (Matt Duffy, Derek Hill, Jose Barrero, etc.) from Triple-A.
If you watch the games, you’d notice that Langford hasn’t been “overmatched” in as much as he’s struggling to make adjustments. As you indicated, his chase and whiff rates are just fine, as is his plate discipline. He’s not being fooled. He’s just missing a large number of pitches that he hadn’t missed before, mostly because he’s swinging at the wrong strikes. This is because he’s trying to read pitches and reacting rather than being aggressive on counts when he should to be aggressive. The injury is unfortunate, but it might be well timed so that he can better evaluate his approach.
So, in other words, he’s been overmatched.
I think his pitch selection is fine (it could still get better of course but it’snot a huge issue). His chase rate at 29% is better than league average. His zone contact is around league average.
Imo His timing is in between the fastball and breaking ball. He makes contact with the fastball but is often late.
For reference he had 88 balls in play and 46 of them on fastballs. Out of those 46 fastballs he pulled just 16 (34%) and 14 out of those 16 where on the ground.that means only 4% of his fastballs in play where pulled into the air
This shows me that he doesn’t want to sell out for the fastball and get fooled on offspeed. That isn’t a bad goal but if it means he is late on the fastball and doesn’t do damage on it it isn’t good.
He doesn’t need to sell out for pull like Isaac paredes as there is enough power oppo and up the middle but he can’t do zero damage on fastballs to the pull side.
Duffman to the rescue. I kid but I love that dude. Such a nice guy that plays hard.
The Wyatt Langford (Over) Hype Train is hitting the skids. We’ll have to wait now to see if he turns into the next Mike Trout/Ted Williams/Vlad Guerrero Sr. hybrid.
He’s 22… he’s played 24 games. I think we’ll let him live
Usually takes about 2,000 MLB AB’s before you can fully grasp what you can expect from a hitter. Look at the kid the Angels have playing 1B. Orioles have gone through growing pains with their core of young players. Have to be careful rushing players to the majors. More of a mental call than physical because they all possess above average skill sets.
Here’s a list of bad rookies whose careers turned out to be pretty OK:
fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&st…
He’s too much in hisbown head right now. Swinging at anything they throw him with 2 strikes on him. He’s super fast, and he easily has a 15-15 FLOOR but he needs to just relax and play ball.
No worries, guy wasn’t provided much value to the team.
-0.4 fWAR and wRC+ of 68.
I notice the Rangers have been using Latz in short relief. Though they’d want to stretch Latz out a bit more. Oh well
It’s nice to see Duran and Josh Smith still thriving. The Cashman Trade for Gallo goes down as one as his worst, along with Montas.
Not even close to the worst.
Fantastic trade for the rangers. Smith of course will regress and I think both are more above average bench players rather than starters (could start at a bad team but on a contender they are best as bench/utility guys), but getting two above average bench hitters who can give you about league average offense and solid defense at several positions for Gallo was a big win for the rangers.
It makes a big difference whether your bench guy is a 95 wrc+, 1 war guy or a 75 wrc+, -1 war guy, especially in case of injury, just ask the Yankees who in recent years had injuries and then had to run out sub replacement level guys (fortunately their depth seems improved now).
I suspect they would give Leiter another start instead, he’s been pretty good lately and his one start wasn’t as bad as his line looked. Latz is probably a bullpen guy long term.
Stats show that Wyatt has been more than screwed on pitches WAY out of the zone being called strikes. Of course, Angel Hernandez got the most publicity because his Langford strike zone was incredibly awful. But several other umps have been almost as bad. I get it that a kid has to earn respect. But jeez….don’t abuse him! Big difference on a plate appearance at 1 and 0 instead of 0 and 1.
Should have stretched
So, how would the 2023 draft go if it were redrafted now
The exact same way that it did? Langford is still a great prospect. Clark is still 2 years away and the Tigers are still a year or two from contending. I don’t think anything would change
Duffy has been injured all season.