Rare Pair! How Unique Are Texas Rangers' Top 2 Prospects For Defending World Series Champion
The Texas Rangers have a top 10-ranked farm system and two of the highest-ranked prospects in baseball. For a defending World Series champion, that’s unusual.
Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford are consensus top-10 prospects in baseball. Carter's inclusion on the list is odd in its own way. He played in the Majors last year and helped the Rangers win the World Series, but he doesn’t have the 45 days of MLB service necessary to graduate from prospect rankings.
Langford is having an excellent spring, and he’s making the Rangers’ decision to promote him for Opening Day or let him start the season in the minors a tough one. Langford, like Carter, is an outfielder, but the Rangers don’t have a starting spot for him. He’s playing so well, however, that it may not matter.
So the Rangers have a World Series title and two of the top five prospects in the game, according to Baseball America. That’s unusual.
The Boston Red Sox were the last World Series champion to have at least one prospect in Baseball America’s Top 100 the following season. After winning it all in 2013, Xander Bogaerts made the list.
The Rangers are the first team since the 1992 Toronto Blue Jays to have multiple top 5 prospects in Baseball America’s rankings the following year. At the start of the 1993 season, Alex Gonzalez and Carlos Delgado were No. 4 and No. 5.
In fact, the Blue Jays’ system was so rich that they had a third player in the Top 10 — Jose Silva.
The Blue Jays went on to win the World Series in 1993. Delgado had one at-bat with that 1993 team. Gonzalez didn’t make the Majors until 1994. Silva broke in during the 1996 season.
In that way, the Rangers are a bit unique. Carter and Langford could make big contributions this season as the Rangers try to become the first team to repeat as World Series champions since the 2000 New York Yankees.
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