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Rangers Place Evan Carter On 10-Day Injured List

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The Rangers placed outfielder Evan Carter on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to May 17) due to a right quad strain.  Fellow outfielder Kevin Pillar has been activated from his own stint on the 10-day IL to take Carter’s place on the active roster.  Texas also made two more roster moves, optioning right-hander Cole Winn to Triple-A and calling up righty Caleb Boushley.

Carter has a Grade 2 quad strain, as manager Bruce Bochy told the Dallas Morning News’ Shawn McFarland and other reporters.  This means that Carter’s absence will stretch well beyond the 10-day minimum and he is likely facing several weeks or even months on the sidelines.  The injury apparently surfaced yesterday, as Carter was a late scratch from the Rangers’ starting lineup for their game with the Astros.

The quad strain continues Carter’s injury-riddled pro career.  Carter missed a good deal of the 2021 minor league season and most of the 2024 MLB season due to back problems, and arm problems also kept him on the minor league IL for about a month in 2023.  Carter did get healthy in time to make his big league debut in September 2023, and he quickly lived up to his top-prospect status by tearing up the league in both the remainder of the regular season and into the postseason, as Texas went on to win the World Series.

Just when it looked like Carter was a breakout star, however, his bad back limited him to 45 games of action in 2024.  He began this season in the minors and was recalled a couple of weeks ago for his 2025 debut, and Carter has hit only .182/.270/.273 in 37 plate appearances before going on the IL.

In part due to concerns over Carter’s health following his lost 2024 campaign, the Rangers added Pillar as a depth option on a minor league contract back in January.  Pillar made the Opening Day roster and hit .237/.237/.289 over 38 PA before going on the injured list due to lower back inflammation earlier this month.  He’ll return to the roster after missing 15 days of action.

Rangers Giving Jack Leiter Rotation Opportunity

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An 11-14 showing in August has slammed the door shut on the Rangers’ playoff chances. The defending World Series winners will spend the season’s final month evaluating their plans for 2025. To that end, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that Texas intends to give former #2 overall pick Jack Leiter regular rotation run for the rest of the year.

Leiter made his first three big league starts between April and the middle of May. The Rangers optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock on May 15 and had kept him in the minors until this week. Texas brought Leiter up as the 27th man for the second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the White Sox. He tossed four innings, allowing three runs on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

In a procedural move, Texas reassigned Leiter back to Round Rock after the game. Pitchers normally need to wait 15 days after being optioned before they can be recalled to the big leagues. That does not apply to players who were temporarily added to the roster for a doubleheader. The Rangers can recall Leiter at any time and Grant reports that they’ll keep him in the big league rotation. His next turn won’t come until early next week, at which point teams will be allowed to carry a 14th pitcher on the active roster with the September expansion.

Leiter’s professional career has not played out as smoothly as the Rangers envisioned when they drafted him in 2021. The Vanderbilt product has struggled to throw strikes consistently. He walked upwards of 13% of opponents at Double-A in each of his first two full seasons. Leiter has scaled back the free passes to some extent this year, issuing walks at a 10.6% clip with Round Rock.

While he’s unlikely to ever have pinpoint command, Leiter still has intriguing stuff. He has punched out a third of opposing hitters over 17 Triple-A starts this year. He owns a 3.51 earned run average across 77 innings with Round Rock, an impressive mark in the Pacific Coast League. The 6’1″ righty hasn’t gotten beyond four innings in any of his first four big league starts. He has allowed 22 runs (19 earned) over 13 1/3 MLB innings.

Leiter clearly isn’t a finished product. It’s nevertheless sensible for the Rangers to give him a few chances to try to find his form against big league hitters. He has logged 254 2/3 minor league frames, all of them at Double-A or above. He’s 24 years old and already occupies a 40-man roster spot. Texas is wrapping up a lost season and will go into the offseason with a lot questions about the rotation.

Max Scherzer and Andrew Heaney will be free agents. It’s likely that Nathan Eovaldi is also headed to the market. Eovaldi needs to pitch 23 more innings to unlock a $20MM player option. Even if he hits the vesting threshold, he could decline the option in search of another multi-year free agent deal.

That’d leave Texas with a rotation core of Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Jon Gray. deGrom and Mahle could be on innings limits after returning from 2023 Tommy John procedures. Gray has been on the injured list twice this year due to groin strains. He has a 4.32 ERA over 98 innings. Dane Dunning has an ERA north of 5.00 and has been in and out of the rotation. Cody Bradford has been limited to nine appearances this year by a rib fracture. Scherzer, Mahle and deGrom are all currently on the injured list.

GM Chris Young and his staff will undoubtedly add to the group over the winter (likely with at least two outside pickups). They’ll need some kind of emergence from their younger starting pitchers to supplement that expensive veteran group. That has not been a strength for the organization.

Former notable prospects Cole Winn and Owen White remain on the 40-man roster. Neither has become a key contributor. Winn posted an ERA above 7.00 in Triple-A last season and has moved fully to relief. As Grant observes, the Rangers also converted the 25-year-old White to the bullpen in Triple-A this month. White has had better results since moving to relief but still carries a 5.51 ERA over 94 2/3 total frames.

It’s not out of the question that Leiter’s command could eventually push him to the ’pen as well. That’s not currently on the table, though, and the Rangers will give him his first real opportunity against MLB opposition next month. That probably won’t be enough runway to guarantee a spot in the Opening Day starting five, but a strong showing could give him a chance to battle for a rotation job in Spring Training.

Leiter’s college teammate Kumar Rocker has returned from Tommy John surgery and has begun mowing down upper minors hitters. The #3 overall pick of the 2022 draft fired 19 2/3 innings of one-run ball in five Double-A appearances. He tossed five scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts in his Triple-A debut last night. Rocker presumably won’t be in line for a big league call this year, as doing so would require carrying him on the 40-man roster all offseason. He could put himself on the radar for a promotion early in the ’25 campaign if he keeps on anything close to his current trajectory.

Rangers Option Ezequiel Duran Amid Series of Roster Moves

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The Rangers announced a series of roster moves today, most notably optioning utility player Ezequiel Duran to Triple-A Round Rock. The team selected outfielder Derek Hill to take Duran’s place on the active roster, while designating right-hander Yerry Rodríguez for assignment to open a space on the 40-man. The team also activated Justin Foscue from the 60-day IL and optioned the 25-year-old infielder to Triple-A. To free up another spot on the 40-man roster, right-handed pitcher Cole Winn was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL.

Duran, 25, was a productive hitter for last year’s World Series-winning squad, hitting .276/.324/.443 (107 wRC+) with 14 homers and eight steals while logging defensive time at all four infield positions and both outfield corners. He’s continued to bounce all over the diamond in 2024, but his offensive contributions have withered considerably. In 187 plate appearances, Duran is hitting .256/.294/.324 (74 wRC+) with just two homers.

Things have gone particularly poorly for Duran as of late. Since the calendar flipped to June, he’s turned in a miserable .211/.219/.296 batting line with just one walk in 73 plate appearances. While he’s actually cut his strikeout rate a bit from last season, the overall quality of Duran’s contact this season has plummeted. His ground-ball and infield-fly rates have both spiked, while his average exit velocity has dropped by nearly three miles per hour and his hard-hit rate has cratered (43.9% in 2023, 36.6% in 2024). The Rangers surely still view him as a potential long-term contributor — he’ll be controllable for four seasons beyond the current year (or five if he doesn’t return to the majors for at least 10 days) — but are taking the opportunity to give him a reset and get him back on track in the minors.

Hill will start this afternoon in center field against the Brewers. The former first-round pick (Tigers, 2014) signed a minor league deal over the winter and had a brief stint with Texas earlier this season, going 2-for-9 in limited action before being designated for assignment and outrighted to Round Rock. He’s putting up monster numbers in Triple-A, slashing .350/.415/.631 with eight homers, a dozen doubles, four triples and seven steals (in eight attempts).

The Rangers’ lineup has been reeling of late, with center fielder Leody Taveras (who’s out of minor league options and can’t be sent down without being designated for assignment himself) struggling in particular. After a very productive month in May, he’s hitting just .121/.194/.167 in June. Hill will start in his place today and could see further opportunities as Texas looks to inject some life into a struggling offense.

Rodriguez, 26, pitched 17 innings out of the Rangers’ bullpen  this season but has been rocked for a 6.88 ERA, due in no small part to a bloated 14.1% walk rate and massive 2.65 HR/9 mark. The 96.6 mph average on his heater this season is an impressive mark but nonetheless down from last year’s 97.2 mph mark in a season that also saw the righty struggle in a limited sample of innings.

In all, Rodriguez has totaled 31 2/3 innings for the Rangers over the past three seasons but been touched for a 7.11 earned run average. His lack of command has undercut the power of his arsenal, evidenced by the fact that he hasn’t missed nearly as many bats as one would think for a pitcher whose fastball lives in the upper 90s. Rodriguez has fanned only 18.9% of his big league opponents against a rough 11.5% walk rate. He’s regularly missed bats and racked up strikeouts in the upper minors, but skill hasn’t carried over to the big league level.

The Rangers will now either trade Rodriguez or place him on waivers within the next five days. Waivers would be an additional two-day process. Within a week’s time, he’ll know the outcome of his DFA. He’s in his final minor league option year, so a new club that acquires him could send Rodriguez to Triple-A without needing to first pass him through waivers themselves.

Foscue, the No. 14 overall pick in 2020, went 1-for-2 earlier this season in his MLB debut but has been out more than two months with an oblique strain. He’s a bat-first infield prospect who could eventually be called upon to help the lineup himself, but he’s still played in only four Triple-A contests during his rehab stint. He went 1-for-8 in that time and drew a hearty eight walks as well. He’s batted .263/.398/.462 in 595 Triple-A plate appearances dating back to 2023.

Winn, another former first-round pick, landed on the IL with shoulder discomfort last week and will now be out through at least mid-August. His prospect stock has faded as he’s struggled in the upper minors. Texas used him in a bullpen role earlier this season but saw the 24-year-old struggle with an ERA north of 7.00 in 17 1/3 innings.

Rangers Designate Jesus Tinoco For Assignment

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The Rangers announced this afternoon that they’ve designated right-hander Jesus Tinoco for assignment. Right-hander Cole Winn was recalled to take Tinoco’s spot on the active roster.

This has been Tinoco’s second stint with Texas, as he had previously pitched to a strong 2.18 ERA with a 4.22 FIP in 20 2/3 innings of work with the club back in 2022. That said, he walked a worrisome 11.9% of batters faced that year and ultimately found himself outrighted off the club’s roster that November. Tinoco spent the 2023 campaign pitching overseas for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Seibu Lions, and the righty performed well with a 2.83 ERA in 35 innings of work in Pacific League play.

A 12.5% walk rate during that time suggested that Tinoco had not yet resolved his struggles with control, but the Rangers nonetheless offered him a minor league deal back in December. He eventually made his way back onto the active roster in Texas last month, but his second stint with the club has not gone well. In 10 innings of work across nine appearances with the Rangers this year, Tinoco has walked a hefty 14% of batters faced while surrendering an 8.10 ERA with a 6.64 FIP. That performance proved to be untenable for the Rangers, and after the righty allowed two runs in an inning of relief during last night’s game against the Mariners, the club decided to part ways with Tinoco once again. They’ll now have one week to either trade Tinoco or attempt to pass him through waivers. Since Tinoco has been outrighted previously in his career, the righty will have the opportunity to reject an outright assignment if he so chooses.

Replacing Tinoco on the club’s 40-man roster is Winn, 24. The youngster was selected in the first round of the 2018 draft by the Rangers and was once a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport but struggled badly during the 2022 and 2023 seasons at the Triple-A level, substantially lowering his prospect stock. That led the Rangers to convert Winn to a full-time relief role in 2024, and he’s generally taken to the job well with a 3.45 ERA and a 30.3% strikeout rate at the Triple-A level this year.

Unfortunately, Winn’s first taste of big league action did not go over well. While he fired off a streak of seven scoreless innings across his first five outings, he surrendered a whopping 11 runs in the month of May across just 7 1/3 innings of work while striking out only 13.1% of batters faced. Those brutal numbers left the Rangers to send Winn back to the minor leagues in late May, although he’s now back in the majors just under a month after his demotion. If Winn can harness the high-octane stuff that allowed him to dominate back in April, it’s not hard to imagine him providing valuable middle relief innings to a beleaguered Rangers bullpen that ranks 25th in baseball by ERA.

Rangers Recall Cole Winn For MLB Debut, Place Cody Bradford On IL

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The Rangers announced a pair of roster moves this afternoon, placing left-hander Cody Bradford on the 15-day IL with a low-back strain and recalling right-hander Cole Winn to take his place on the active roster.

It’ll be Winn’s major league debut the first time he gets into a game. The 24-year-old righty was selected fifteenth overall by the Rangers in the first round of the 2018 draft and made some noise as a top-100 prospect following a dominant 2021 season that saw him pitch to a 2.41 ERA with a 32.2% strikeout rate in 21 starts split between the Double- and Triple-A levels of the minors. Unfortunately, Winn has struggled badly in the years since then. 2022 saw the right-hander post a whopping 6.51 ERA in 28 starts with the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate spiked to an unwieldy 15.2%, prompting the club to move Winn to the bullpen during the 2023 season.

The move to multi-inning relief work did not bring an end to Winn’s struggles, as he posted a staggering 7.22 ERA in 101 innings of work last year. His peripheral numbers also got even worse, as his walk rate crept up to 16% while his strikeout rate plummeted to just 19.7%. Things haven’t looked much better for Winn so far this year, as he posted a 9.82 ERA in 7 2/3 innings during camp this spring and has allowed five runs (four earned) across his first four appearances at Triple-A this season. Despite the shaky results, Winn will nonetheless get the opportunity to pitch at the big league level, helping to provide depth to a bullpen that’s been leaned on for 40% of the club’s innings in recent days.

Making room for Winn on the active roster is Bradford, who heads to the injured list with a back strain following an excellent start to the 2024 season. The 26-year-old southpaw has pitched to a 1.40 ERA and a 2.47 FIP with 17 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings of work across three starts so far this year, forming a formidable duo with veteran righty Nathan Eovaldi at the front of the club’s rotation to this point in the season. The Rangers will surely miss Bradford’s production while he’s on the IL, but Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News indicates that his absence could be a relatively short one, with Bradford potentially only needing the minimum amount of time off. If that ends up being the case, Bradford would first be eligible to return on April 25, as today’s IL move was backdated to April 11.

In the meantime, however, Texas will need to look elsewhere to fill Bradford’s spot in the club’s starting rotation. Per MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry, that help will come in the form of right-hander Michael Lorenzen, who signed a one-year deal with the club last month and has been building up in the minors since then. Landry reports that Lorenzen is set to make his Rangers debut in a start tomorrow against the Tigers, for whom he pitched the first half of the 2023 season. Lorenzen’s time with Detroit wound up being something of a breakout for the right-hander, as he pitched to a 3.58 ERA (125 ERA+) with a 3.86 FIP in 18 starts with the club before being shipped to the Phillies ahead of last summer’s trade deadline.

Rangers Notes: Jung, Duffy, Rotation

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TODAY: The MRI revealed a minor strain for Jung, according to RangersToday.com’s Jeff Wilson and other reporters.  Both Jung and manager Bruce Bochy feel Jung will be recovered for Opening Day, with some slight disagreement on the timeline — Jung said he’ll miss two weeks, while Bochy feels Jung will be sidelined for three weeks.

FEB. 16: Camp only just opened this week, but the Rangers are already facing one potentially worrisome injury situation. Third baseman Josh Jung experienced discomfort in his calf while fielding grounders today and is headed for an MRI, tweets Jeff Wilson of RangersToday.com. The club will provide further details once the imaging has been performed and evaluated by medical personnel.

Jung just turned 26 years old this week and was the fourth-place finisher in American League Rookie of the Year voting this past season. The former No. 8 overall draft pick belted 23 home runs and slashed .266/.315/.467 with sharp defense at the hot corner. Were it not for a fractured left thumb that kept him out of action for six weeks, he’d very likely have been a top-three finisher and could’ve potentially even given eventual winner Gunnar Henderson a run for his money.

At this point, there’s no indication the team believes the injury to be serious, though the pending MRI exam suggests there’s at least some degree of concern. The Rangers are relatively deep in infield talent, so in the event that Jung needs to miss any time, they’ll have options. Ezequiel Duran stepped up in Duran’s absence last season, and Josh H. Smith has ample experience at the corner as well. Veteran Matt Duffy is in camp as a non-roster player this spring and would give the Rangers a solid glove and contact-oriented bat at the position if he makes the team.

On the topic of non-roster Duffys, Matt isn’t the only one in camp. Veteran left-hander Danny Duffy also inked a minor league pact with Texas this season and could be an important depth piece for a club that will open the season with Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle on the injured list and all likely out into the summer. The 35-year-old southpaw hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since the 2021 season due to injuries but has been with the Dodgers (2022) and Rangers (2023) for the past two seasons while working toward a return. Texas used him as a reliever in the minors in ’23, but Kennedi Landry of MLB.com tweets that Duffy is building up as a starter in camp this time around.

It’s a familiar role for Duffy, the longtime Royals hurler who’s made 204 of his 234 career appearances out of the rotation. Aside from a brief dalliance in the bullpen in 2015-16, Duffy was a fixture on Kansas City’s starting staff from 2014-21, during which time he logged a 3.82 ERA in 1015 innings while punching out 21.3% of his opponents against an 8.2% walk rate. Duffy is now 35 years old and hasn’t pitched in the bigs since undergoing surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon in Dec. 2021. He’s pitched a total of 42 1/3 innings in the minors across the past two seasons. Expecting a full bounceback to his peak Royals form isn’t realistic, but if he’s healthy he should be a legitimate option to help the staff.

Getting any contributions from Duffy or fellow non-roster invitees José Ureña and Adrian Sampson would be a boon for the Rangers. Texas is set to enter the season with a rotation including Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Dane Dunning and likely Cody Bradford. It’s a much weaker group than the World Series-winning outfit that finished out the 2023 season with Scherzer and current free agent Jordan Montgomery atop the staff. But general manager Chris Young has indicated he doesn’t anticipate any more additions to the big league roster at this point, strongly suggesting that the current group is the one the Rangers will carry into the season.

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News takes a look at the in-house depth options that stalled out last season. Former top prospects Jack Leiter, Cole Winn, Owen White and Zak Kent all struggled in various ways in ’23. Righty Kumar Rocker, the No. 3 pick back in 2022, underwent Tommy John surgery last May.

That group was expected to produce some pivotal long-term rotation pieces, but each prospect has seen his stock drop amid poor performance and/or injury. Grant notes that Leiter, who was shut down for nearly two months last year to work on his mechanics, spent the offseason working out with American League Cy Young runner-up Sonny Gray and veteran catcher Curt Casali. The trio all attended Vanderbilt (at different times, obviously). Gray worked with Leiter on simplifying his approach and his plan on the mound. Grant chatted not only with Leiter but also White and Kent about some of the changes they’ve made as they look to get back on track and contribute at a time when the Rangers will be leaning more heavily on internal pitching depth than at any point in 2023.

Rangers Select Six Players

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The Rangers have selected the contracts of six players who’d otherwise have been eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Infielders Luisangel Acuña and Jonathan Ornelas, outfielder Dustin Harris and pitchers Cole Winn, Owen White and Zak Kent have all gotten added to the 40-man roster, which is now at capacity.

Acuña, the younger brother of Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr., is a solid prospect in his own right. A right-handed hitter, Luisangel Acuña plays the middle infield. Baseball America credits him with plus defense at shortstop and considers him the #6 prospect in the Texas organization. Despite not turning 21 years old until March, he’s already played his way to Double-A. Acuña split the season between High-A Hickory and Double-A Frisco, combining for a .277/.369/.426 line through 409 plate appearances. He struggled in Double-A after an excellent showing in High-A and looks likely to start next year in Frisco.

Texas drafted Ornelas in the third round out of an Arizona high school in 2018. A righty-swinging infielder who’s played each of shortstop, second base and third base, he spent the whole season in Frisco. Ornelas had a solid .299/.360/.425 mark through 580 plate appearances, collecting 14 home runs and stolen bases apiece. He’s not among Texas’ top 30 prospects at BA but has shown decent contact skills and an ability to play the infield.

Harris was an 11th-round pick of the A’s in the 2019 draft out of a Florida junior college. Oakland dealt him to Texas in the Mike Minor trade in 2020. A left-handed hitter, he’s played mostly first base and left field in the minors. Harris is a bat-first prospect who’s coming off a .257/.346/.471, 17-homer showing in 85 games with Frisco. BA slots him 10th in the organization, praising his contact and power combination.

Winn was the 15th overall pick in the 2018 draft out of a California high school. The right-hander was regarded as a possible big league rotation piece heading into this year after a strong Double-A performance. He scuffled during his first extended crack with Triple-A Round Rock, allowing a 6.51 ERA with a massive 15.2% walk rate over 28 starts. He’ll try to right the ship next season and get back into the MLB rotation picture, but there was never much doubt he’d secure a 40-man roster spot this winter.

White, a 2nd-round pick in the 2018 draft out of a North Carolina high school, has surpassed Winn on the prospect radar. The 23-year-old righty didn’t throw a professional pitch until 2021 because of Tommy John surgery and the cancelation of the 2020 minor league season, but he’s performed well to make up for lost time. He put up a 3.59 ERA in 80 1/3 frames between Hickory and Frisco, striking out 31.7% of opponents. He placed fifth in the system on BA’s midseason update and could factor into the MLB rotation at some point next year.

Kent was a ninth-rounder in 2019 out of VMI. He started all 24 of his appearances in the upper minors last season, working to a 3.94 ERA through 109 2/3 innings. He punched out a decent 23.8% of batters faced against a 9.3% walk rate. He’s 25th in the system at Baseball America and could be a back-of-the-rotation option in the near future.

Jeff Wilson was first to report the moves.

Rangers Add Ricky Vanasco & Cole Winn To 60-Man Pool

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The Rangers announced today that Ricky Vanasco and Cole Winn have each been added to the club’s 60-man player pool. Both are right-handed hurlers; neither has a 40-man roster spot.

It’s unlikely that either of these two young pitchers will have a real shot at earning a 2020 call-up. The move is probably intended to get them some work in the absence of a minor-league season.

Winn is a well-known prospect already, having landed with the Rangers with the 15th overall pick in the 2018 draft. The 20-year-old ran into some struggles at the Class A level in 2019, pitching to a 4.46 ERA with 8.5 K/9, 5.1 BB/9, and a 46.5% groundball rate in 68 2/3 innings. But those numbers reflected a rough early showing as well as a much more promising run in his final dozen starts of the year.

Vanasco, a former 15th-round pick, has drawn more attention for his work in the Texas organization than his promise upon entry. He showed intriguing arm strength and strikeout ability in low-A and Class A play last year, running up better than 13 strikeouts per nine while allowing less than two earned per nine at both levels.

Rangers Agree To Terms With First-Rounder Cole Winn

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June 12: Sullivan tweets that Winn has agreed to a $3.15MM value that comes in below the recommended slot value.

June 10: The Rangers are in the final stages of an agreement with first-round pick Cole Winn, according to MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan and Wesley Dodson.  Winn was on hand to watch the Astros/Rangers game today at Globe Life Park, and is scheduled to undergo a physical on Monday.  Assuming no complications, he’ll be officially introduced at a Tuesday press conference, with Sullivan/Dodson noting that Winn is expected to sign for close to the $3,738,500 slot value attached to the 15th overall pick.

The 18-year-old Winn was one of the draft’s most highly-touted high schoolers and pitchers, coming off a very strong season for Orange Lutheran High School in Southern California.  He was a consensus top-11 pick in pre-draft rankings from ESPN’s Keith Law, MLB.com, Fangraphs, and Baseball America, with Law placing Winn highest as the seventh-best overall prospect in this year’s draft class.  Winn has three-plus pitches to his name — a fastball that has touched 96mph and a strong curveball and changeup — as well as a gradually-improving slider.

Law described Winn as “the best command guy in the high school class this year,” and wrote that “his delivery is one of the simplest in the draft as well, giving hope that his command will hold up in pro ball and that he’ll stay healthy.”  His easy delivery adds to the common consensus among evaluators that Winn is a very safe pick for a high school pitcher.  As Fangraphs’ scouting report puts it, “Winn is the only prep pitcher in a deep class with no yellow or red flags on his resume. He’s a near finished product with mid-rotation stuff, feel and consistency.”

That Fangraphs report also cited some rumors during the lead-up to the draft about Winn potentially being one of the first picks off the board, as his stock was high enough that the Giants reportedly gave some consideration to Winn as the second overall selection.  Given this projection, the Rangers should feel quite pleased at Winn falling to the 15th spot.

Winn could be the first of several forthcoming draft signings for the Rangers, as Sullivan/Dodson write that most of all of the club’s top 10 draft picks are expected to finalize deals this week, pending physicals.  The Rangers have an overall draft bonus pool of $7.356MM to spend on this year’s picks.

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