SI's Bri Amaranthus and Chris Halicke discuss what the Texas Rangers may do in the first round of the MLB Draft on Wednesday night.
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00:00It's MLB draft week and the Texas Rangers currently have five selections
00:05with their earliest pick being at number 14. There are tons of potential prospects
00:10and it's especially hard to narrow down this year because of the COVID-19
00:14shutdown. However, Chris, what are you expecting from the Rangers in this draft?
00:19It's going to be a very interesting draft. However, the Rangers are pretty
00:23steadfast in that they're treating this pretty much the same when it comes to
00:28how they're evaluating their players. Obviously, their evaluation, especially
00:32of the high school players in the northern part of the country, has been
00:36prohibited because of the coronavirus shutting down not just professional
00:40sports but sports all through, you know, all levels including high school. However,
00:46the Rangers are still the mindset that they want the best player available. In
00:49the first round, there's a lot of college players. The Rangers have been tied to
00:55Garrett Mitchell out of UCLA, an outfielder who has a lot of speed. They've
01:01also been tied to Garrett Crochet out of Tennessee, a pitcher, a left-handed
01:05pitcher with a lot of nasty stuff. It's called a plus plus fastball by
01:10Baseball America and a plus breaking ball. There's some concerns about, you
01:16know, shoulder soreness with him and the amount of innings that he's pitched. But
01:21the Rangers could still end up going best player available and if they feel
01:24like it's a high school player in the first round, then they might go that way.
01:27However, given the parameters of this draft, they might be willing more to take
01:32a risk on a high school player in the first five rounds because the likelihood
01:36of those guys signing is way higher even though they'd be taking deferred
01:40bonuses that wouldn't be paid out until 2022. Any players that aren't drafted,
01:45they can pursue an unlimited amount. However, they can only offer a $20,000
01:51signing bonus. Not many high school players are expected to sign for $20,000
01:56when a lot of those players have college scholarships awaiting them. So, it is a
02:02little bit interesting to see which direction the Rangers will go. They
02:05haven't had a lot of success with high school players in recent years and
02:09they went very college-heavy in 2019, especially considering Josh Young, their
02:14first-round pick last year, could possibly be in the big leagues as early
02:17as next year. With the development issues, it could be 2022 before he ends
02:23up making it to the major leagues. So, you do kind of wonder, both sides,
02:27will the Rangers go high school or will the Rangers go college? They do admit
02:32that the college pool is a little deeper. However, they still believe that they're
02:35going to have opportunities with both high school and college players.