With the team’s left-handed-hitting outfielders struggling recently, the Rangers have considered a big league promotion for top outfield prospect Evan Carter, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. General manager Chris Young effectively confirmed as much earlier in the week, telling Grant that the team has “not ruled anything out” as it seeks to put forth its best lineup on a nightly basis.
Notably, that comment from Young and Grant’s initial report predate last night’s potential injury for star outfielder Adolis Garcia. The 30-year-old Garcia is slated to undergo an MRI on his right knee, per Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today, after landing awkwardly following an attempt to rob a Michael Brantley home run that narrowly cleared the right field wall.
Garcia, hitting .244/.322/.494, has been one of the Rangers’ top power threats and top defensive players this season. Any absence for him — even if only for a few games — would presumably increase the temptation to call Carter to the big leagues as Texas hopes to climb out of its recent skid. The Rangers dropped eight games in a row in August and have won just four of their past 19 contests, dropping from a commanding favorite in the AL postseason hunt to a half-game back of the Blue Jays for the top spot in the Wild Card chase. Texas currently sits three games behind the division-leading Astros and two behind the second-place Mariners.
Carter, 21, was a surprise pick by the Rangers at No. 50 overall in the 2020 draft. Carter wasn’t considered anywhere near that caliber of prospect at the time. He didn’t rank inside MLB.com’s top 200 draft prospects and didn’t even land inside Baseball America’s ranking of the top 500 amateurs in the draft. The canceled high school season that year surely contributed to the general lack of awareness regarding Carter, but the Rangers were convinced of his potential based on prior scouting trips — and it hasn’t taken long for their leap of faith to be proven correct.
Currently, Carter ranks as the No. 8 prospect in the sport at MLB.com, No. 10 on Baseball America’s top 100, and No. 32 at FanGraphs. He opened the 2023 season in Double-A, where he was more than four years younger than the average player, and he’s recently been promoted to Triple-A, where he’s more than six years younger than his average competitor.
Carter breezed through Double-A, batting .284/.411/.451 with a dozen homers, 22 steals (albeit in 32 tries) and a massive 16.3% walk rate — against a less-impressive but hardly alarming 22.3% strikeout rate. In eight games since being bumped to the Rangers’ top affiliate in Round Rock, he’s 12-for-34 (11 singles, one double) with three steals, four walks and six strikeouts. Overall, he’s combined for a .288/.415/.450 slash at the top two minor league levels.
At this point in the season, a promotion to the big leagues for Carter would surely leave his rookie status intact for the 2024 season. That’s of increased importance for teams with regard to their late-season promotions of top prospects, as it keeps them eligible to benefit from the “prospect promotion incentives” (PPIs) in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement. Those incentives can award bonus draft picks to teams whose top prospects finish well in awards voting, and Carter will surely enter next year’s season with the requisite prospect rankings to position the Rangers to potentially gain a coveted draft selection.
Because he was selected out of high school in 2020, Carter has not yet been eligible for the Rule 5 Draft and has thus not yet been selected to the Rangers’ 40-man roster. Texas currently has a full 40-man roster, so they’d need to make some type of transaction in that regard if they ultimately decide to bring Carter to the Majors.
I have been following this kid a bit….his approach at the plate is beautiful. This might sound extreme but he seriously reminds me of a skinny Joey Votto. Every single at bat is a grind for the pitcher.
Yes, please take good care of the FL Gator. He’s a gem.
Was talking about Langford, not Carter. Tartar sauce.
Get rid of a bullpen guy like Kennedy/Otto or whoever is still here and add in Carter. Hedges actually has a lower ERA than Kennedy, so maybe he can be the mopup man. It’s not like the guy can hit anyways. In both situations, he is excellent at keeping runs down. Also, making the playoffs and having 6 uears of control after this sure beats 6 years and a draft pick or 6.5 years and no draft pick if those 2 situations involve missing the playoffs. Just think of the revenue…
Otto was DFA and claimed by SD…
I must have forgotten it was him and not Kennedy. Too many relievers have been called up and have been rocked in MLB to keep track of. I guess Carter takes his spot now.
At this point the Rangers might as well try anything.
Langford needs to be Schanuel’d
No. We don’t want him to get hurt.
Best to call him up next year.
Ask Seattle if they would rather have the draft pick, or one more year of Julio at arbitration prices.
Probably the pick since Julio signed a long term contract and thus the arbitration process is no more.
Well, we were able to use it together with two other picks to land 3 high schoolers with upside, and Julio is signed thru 2029/2034/2036 anyway. And it was awesome for Julio too!!
So, yes, we are happy with everything Julio.
Rangers need to inject something into their club. Fading and fading hard.
Texas re-a-Rangers are desperately thrashing in the water trying to grasp a life-jacket. Asterisks exposed the re-a-Rangers as overpaid pretenders. Blue Jays will peck max-size holes in the illusory life raft that the re-a-Rangers seek to crawl upon and cling to – what a wet mess they are!
Just .500 team since June 1. Would love to see them fail to make the playoffs like the other big spenders. SD NY NYM. What a joke they are with their $300m payrolls.
The Rangers are even remotely close to $300MM, if they are in tax payers status it’s by no more than $5-6M
Hey, we didn’t expect to be good this year.
It appears we ran into the wall of reality.
Is this more of the, “Wah! Wah! My team/life sucks, so I hope everyone else is miserable like me” stuff? The Red Sox have wasted quite a bit of money for their failed franchise too.
Carter makes perfect sense as an OF regular if Garcia is down for any period and from everything I have read his plate discipline is likely already better than Smith, Duran, Martinez, Hernandez, and Taveras. Since the likelihood is that he will be in LF or CF next year, they might as well see what he has. DFA Hetges or Miller to make room.
Would also see what Foscue has and DFA Kennedy for Church, or Kelly
How about that Alabama kid, Chase Lee?
That would work as well. Doubt he could be much worse than what is currently happening with Burke.
Give him some time to polish himself in Triple-A before calling him up.
If Texas loses the series against Toronto, they have to call him up.
If Adolis is hurt, they have to call him up.
Really embarrassing stretch for the Rangers players, front office has done everything possible this year. Lucky for them, they have 11 games against Seattle and Toronto so their playoff destiny is in their hands.
I’m not gonna lie and say that I’m not thoroughly enjoying Texas’s collapse. It’s been fun.
But, it’s baseball, Rangers fans. Things can turn around tomorrow. Keep your head up.
While I’m glad we won all 3, REALLY hope Rangers pull it together, and do well in post-season, so long as we do better. They’ve busted their butts this year – Semien is really a heck of a ball player, right up there with Betts & Freeman. Reminds me a bit of Tony Phillips.
I used to be an Astros fan until they moved to the AL West. I’d like to see Texas, Houston, and maybe Boston in the playoffs, with Tornto out.
Can he pitch?
Lost cause this team is in a swirl down the toilet since after the ASG. Let the kid play at AAA and start over next season