Rangers preparing extra for 30th Draft pick

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 -- Rangers director of amateur scouting Kip Fagg is having a bit more fun leading up to the 2024 MLB Draft than he’s had the past few. That’s not to say selecting a guy like Josh Jung or Wyatt Langford isn’t fun in itself.

But for the first time since 2017, the Rangers are not picking in the top half of the first round, leaving a few more questions than usual about who will be available at pick No. 30. For Fagg, it’s fun to have a wider selection of players to look at and consider.

“When you pick high, there's a small group of players obviously that you’re concentrating on,” Fagg said. “Last year, all I watched was like five guys and let the other guys take care of the other things. This year, you can't do that. You don’t know what type of players you're gonna get there. You have a general idea, but there's 29 picks ahead of you. So you have to be prepared for a lot more than you do when you're picking high up.”

More on the Draft:
Draft Tracker | Bonus pools & pick values | Top 250 prospects | Latest mock | Order | Top tools | Predicting the odds | Prospects attending the Draft | Best Draft prospect from each state | Famous family ties | Get to know Top 20 prospects | Complete coverage

Top prospects:
1. Bazzana | 2. Condon | 3. Caglianone | 4. Wetherholt | 5. Smith | 6. Burns | 7. Kurtz | 8. Montgomery | 9. Griffin | 10. Rainer | 11. Yesavage | 12. Tibbs | 13. Moore | 14. Smith | 15. Caminiti

The Rangers have selected college players in the Draft for the past five years: Jung in 2019, Justin Foscue in ‘20, Jack Leiter in ‘21, Kumar Rocker in ‘22 and Langford in ‘23. Coincidently, all five of those players came within the top 15 selections, with all but Foscue coming in the top 10.

“Picking up high is really fun,” Fagg said. “Shoot, Wyatt Langford is in the big leagues right now, I don’t think you get that type of player at 30.

“But [when] you win the world championship, you pick 30. We’re used to being higher, it's a little different mindset than the last few years, which has been kind of cool, going out and doing the process again. Picking the lower end is kind of fun. A little different, but good.”

According to MLB Pipeline, the Rangers have been connected to a handful of college catchers and high school shortstops at No. 30 in this year’s Draft. In the previous mock, Pipeline had Texas selecting Walker Janek, a catcher out of Sam Houston State. He’s No. 24 on Pipeline’s Draft Top 250.

Over the past month, Pipeline has also listed Illinois high school pitcher Ryan Sloan (No. 19), LSU third baseman Tommy White (No. 20), Arkansas high school outfielder Slade Caldwell (No. 27) and Cal-Berkeley catcher Caleb Lomavita (No. 33) as other considerations.

Fagg said the scouting group isn’t leaning one way or another when it comes to high school or college players, and picking so late doesn’t change the risk versus reward of a prep player. They just want to make sure they select the best player available for the Texas Rangers.

“They're all risks,” Fagg said. “There's risk everywhere you pick. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over some guys we’ve taken in the past. As far as risk, it doesn’t matter if you do any of the work and how good you feel about the player. I don’t really think it’s riskier to take certain players. Everybody thought Evan Carter was a risk. I don’t think it was that risky, because of the work we did and knowing how good we felt about the kid and the player.”

Another new aspect of this year’s Draft for Texas is that the club has a second- and third-round pick for the first time since 2021, when Aaron Zavala was selected out of the University of Oregon. The Rangers forfeited those picks in ‘22 due to the signings of Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, and again in ‘23 due to the signings of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi.

“I think it has rejuvenated a lot of people,” Fagg said. “We signed really good players with those picks, but we did lose this. This year, we have them back. That's been kind of cool to know that we're gonna have a second- and third-rounder this year and have a chance to have access to some players we probably haven't had the access to in the past few years.”

Day 1 Draft coverage begins with a preview show at 5 p.m. CT Sunday on MLB Network, MLB.TV, MLB.com and on the MLB App, with the Draft beginning at 6 p.m. CT. The first round will also be carried by ESPN. Day 2 (Rounds 3-10) on Monday and Day 3 (Rounds 11-20) on Tuesday can be seen beginning at 1 p.m. CT each day on MLB.com.