Heralded prospect Leiter showing ‘real improvement’ 

This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ARLINGTON -- When the Rangers selected Jack Leiter at No. 2 overall in the 2021 MLB Draft, it was with the intention that he would be a future ace for the big league club. That’s still possible, but the timeline has changed.

The Rangers’ No. 5 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, Leiter has not had a smooth transition to professional baseball. Tasked with an aggressive assignment to Double-A Frisco in his debut season in 2022, the right-hander posted a 5.54 ERA in 92 2/3 innings. He struck out 109 but walked 56 as he struggled with his command throughout the year.

This season was meant to be a reset as Leiter returned to Frisco. Instead, it’s been just as much of a roller coaster as the last. There have been highs -- a 1.67 ERA with 33 strikeouts in five May starts -- and more than a few lows, including a July 7 start against the Midland Rockhounds when he recorded just one out and allowed six runs.

He posted a 5.51 ERA in 15 starts before the Rangers made the decision to place him on the Development List. General manager Chris Young said he and the player development staff felt like it wasn’t going to be productive for Leiter to keep going out there once a week with mechanics that didn’t allow him to get consistent positive results.

Leiter spent more than a month on the Development List. He remained in Frisco with the club, but also threw live BP in front of much of the front office at Globe Life Field during the big league club’s last homestand, on Aug. 27. According to a team spokesperson, Leiter was just throwing in Arlington so the Rangers could gather some biomechanical data with the technology that was not available in Frisco.

What they saw, they must have liked because Leiter was activated less than a week later.

In his first start since July 7, Leiter allowed just one hit -- a first-inning home run -- while striking out four over three innings in Frisco’s 8-2 win over Midland. More importantly, he walked none.

“There’s improvement,” Young said. “He is not a finished product. There was real improvement, and I think it was evident in his strike throwing. The one run he gave up had an exit velocity of 85 mph that got up in the jet stream, but he threw very competitive strikes. It was exciting. He's worked so hard and he’s earned the opportunity to be back out there with his work ethic and commitment. But that said, it's going to continue to grow and I think we saw a glimpse of progress in terms of what he can grow into.”

Young said that the time on the Development List was spent mostly working on Leiter’s mechanics and tweaking his delivery so that it would be more consistent pitch after pitch. The good results from his outing are a byproduct of his mechanics being in the right place to drive the ball most effectively and consistently.

"There's a lot of small things that probably a casual baseball fan would see differences in mechanically and not even really notice," Leiter told MiLB.com. "These small tweaks, the Rangers were seeing those as opportunities to improve upon consistency and breaking balls, the shape and all that.

"It was something that the Rangers felt like they've seen for a long time, basically since they drafted me. It wasn't anything new, it was something that they wanted to see play out and it felt like a good time to start working on things."

Young emphasized multiple times that it is a good start for Leiter to get back on track. Results aren’t everything, but in this instance, they surely don’t hurt.

“I think it's very encouraging that and especially for him more importantly, and I told everybody before the outing that we're not going to define the success of the outing based on results,” Young said. “It's going to be more about the consistency of the delivery, the strike throwing quality. And we saw that in the results followed. So the results are a byproduct of doing the things that he's worked on and it’s encouraging but Jack will be the first one to say he's still got work to do.”

Other notable MiLB performances

Sebastian Walcott (Rangers’ No. 3, MLB No. 64)

The Rangers are also promoting No. 3 prospect Sebastian Walcott to High-A Hickory. He joined the Crawdads in Greensboro on Saturday to work out and will be activated for his debut on Sunday.

MLB Pipeline’s No. 64 overall prospect, the shortstop slashed .273/.325/.525/.849 with 7 homers and 19 RBIs over 35 games with the ACL Rangers and jumped Single-A altogether. Walcott is just the fifth player this year to play for a full-season Minor League affiliate at 17 or younger: Nelson Rada (Angels), Ethan Salas (Padres), and Colt Emerson and Tai Peete (Mariners).

Rangers assistant general manager for player development and international scouting Ross Fenstermaker praised Walcott’s makeup and skill set immediately after the club signed him during the international signing period last offseason.

“I didn’t expect it to happen this fast for him, even though I know he deserves every bit of it,” Fenstermaker said. “He’s so talented. Comes from a good family, he’s very grounded as an individual, he’s very confident as an individual. Yes, he has immense raw talent, but he’s so mature and advanced as a person.”