Texas Rangers: 2018 minor league awards
The Texas Rangers found themselves at the bottom of a suddenly very competitive division in 2018. A number of young players began to emerge in 2018, and more could be on the way soon!
As part of our continuing coverage at Call to the Pen of the minor leagues, we will be covering each organization’s top players for 2018. The coverage will go in reverse order of record. Today, we will look at the Texas Rangers.
We are going to review the system’s leaders for each organization statistically, then choose one hitter and one pitcher to honor for every team. This will be primarily based on statistical performance, though some “age relative to level” could come into play, so a very impressive season from a 28-year-old in AA will rank below a nearly as impressive season from a 20-year-old at the same level.
After we review each organization’s hitter and pitcher of the year, we will close out October with Call To The Pen’s Minor League team of the year. That will lead into November starting our team top 10 prospect lists. In other words, there will be plenty of minor league content on the way at CTTP, so keep coming back for more each day this offseason!!
Texas Rangers minor leagues
Long known for their proficiency to take high-ceiling players in the draft and their established presence in Latin America, the Texas Rangers farm system tends to behave the way a system full of high-ceiling players would – ebbing and flowing based on the failure rate of those high-ceiling players, but when they do hit on a player, he hits big!
The Rangers attempted to patch pitching together this year, but they found that did not work, and they’re likely going to see a number of young arms filter into the rotation and bullpen in 2019 as they begin to work into at least a re-tooling time, if not a full-on rebuild.
Before we offer up awards on the season, let’s take a look at the system’s statistical leaders:
Organization Leaders (min. 150 PA, 50 IP)
BA: Diosbel Arias .366
OBP: Heriberto Hernandez .464
SLG: Heriberto Hernandez .635
OPS: Heriberto Hernandez 1.099
R: Anderson Tejeda 76
H: Scott Heineman 137
2B: Willie Calhoun 32
3B: Leody Taveras and Eric Jenkins 7
HR: Tommy Joseph 21
RBI: Anderson Tejeda 74
SB: Yonny Hernandez 46
TB: Anderson Tejeda 205
W: Tyler Phillips 12
G: Reed Garrett 51
GS: Emerson Martinez 24
IP: Emerson Martinez 137
SV: R.J. Alvarez 24
K: A.J. Alexy 138
ERA: Martin Buitimea 1.06
WHIP: Ronny Henriquez 0.78
K/9: Demarcus Evans 16.6
K/BB: Yerry Rodriguez 10.25
Texas Rangers Minor League Hitter of the Year: Scott Heineman
Level(s): AA Frisco, AAA Round Rock
Stats: .306/.371/.445/.816, 114 G, 500 PA, 22 2B, 12 HR, 18 SB, 39/98 BB/K
The Rangers grabbed Scott Heineman out of the University of Oregon in 2015 in the 11th round, seeing an advanced hitter that should move quickly. He’s done exactly that, opening his pro career with high-A in 2016 and moving up from there.
In 2018, Heineman opened his year with AA Frisco, but after just a week, he was bumped up to AAA, and he hit well all season there. Heineman isn’t a big power hitter or a big time runner. What he is at the plate is a guy who takes a professional at bat every single time with tremendous feel for contact and gap power that should have no problem hitting for a good average, hitting 30 doubles, and putting up 10 HR/10 SB as a major leaguer.
With the organization he’s a part of, comparisons to Rusty Greer have been made fairly frequent. The Rangers would be overjoyed with another Greer.
Runners-up
One of the Rangers top overall prospects, Anderson Tejeda showed very well in the Carolina League in 2018, putting together his lightning-quick bat into real power, smacking 19 home runs on the year. His strikeout tendencies were still there, but they did improve from 2017 to 2018 (29.6% to 27.2%).
A mammoth-sized first baseman coming out of high school, Curtis Terry has not put together a power season commensurate with his size until this year, when he repeated the Northwest League as a 21-year-old. Terry slashed .337/.434/.606 with 17 doubles and 15 home runs over 290 plate appearances, also seeing his walk rate spike significantly, with a 32/64 BB/K ratio. He’ll get his first taste of full-season ball in 2019.
Brought in via trade with the San Francisco Giants, Hunter Cole was on his way to a likely September call-up before an intercostal injury ended his season in early August. Between AA and AAA, Cole put together a .299/.364/.479 line with 16 doubles and 16 home runs.
A catcher and first baseman out of the Dominican Republic, Heriberto Hernandez made his debut in the Texas Rangers system a memorable one this year, hitting .292/.464/.635 with a dozen home runs and a 53/41 BB/K ratio over 60 games. He should get a chance to show himself stateside in 2019.