The Rangers this morning will formally announce the signing of their top two picks, Mississippi State second baseman Justin Foscue and Elizabethton High School (Tenn.) outfielder Evan Carter, according to executive vice president of communications John Blake. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that Foscue signed for a $3.25MM bonus, which checks in south of the No. 14 overall selection’s $4.037MM slot value. Carter will get a $1.25MM bonus, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets. His No. 50 slot carried a $1.47MM value.
Foscue, 21, batted .331/.395/.564 as a sophomore and was out to a .321/.464/.509 start as a junior prior to the college season’s shutdown. Dating back to the beginning of his sophomore season, Foscue has drawn 45 walks against 35 strikeouts through a combined 378 plate appearances. Scouting reports on Foscue paint him as a bat-first second baseman with particularly intriguing exit velocities at the plate, but he’s not regarded as a strong defensive prospect or a plus runner.
Foscue ranked as high as 19th on the draft rankings from Kiley McDaniel at ESPN. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen pegged him 26th in this year’s class, and Foscue also checked in at No. 32 at MLB.com, No. 36 at Baseball America and No. 63 at The Athletic.
As for Carter, his selection was somewhat of a surprise. The Duke commit didn’t appear on any pre-draft rankings — even BA’s Top 500 — although that hardly means he’s not a prospect of note or that another club wasn’t similarly intrigued in his abilities. Texas scouting director Kip Fagg told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News after the draft that Carter and other lesser-heralded Rangers pick “would have really popped” had they been able to play out the 2020 season. It’s commonplace for a breakout senior season to send a prospect skyrocketing up rankings, and the Rangers believe they “beat teams to these guys,” Fagg tells Grant. In the aforementioned tweet from Grant, he reports that the Royals were eyeing Carter in the third round.
