Inside The Rangers' Prospect Watch: No. 6 Cole Winn

Inside The Rangers on SI continues our Prospect Watch preseason rankings with our #6 prospect Cole Winn.

6. Cole Winn | RHP

Born: November 25, 1999
Bats: R Throws: R
Height: 6'2" Weight: 190
Drafted: 2018, 1st round (15th overall). Orange Lutheran HS (Orange, CA)
Team: Hickory Crawdads (A)
Other Team Rankings: Baseball America (N/A), MLB Pipeline (4)

Career Statistics

Player Bio

After transferring from Longmont (Co.) High School to Orange (Calif.) Lutheran High for his senior year in 2018, Winn burst onto the scene, putting up eye-popping numbers for a prep arm at a prestigious program. His terrific senior year shot him up the charts, resulting in a top 15 selection by the Rangers, leading to a $3.15 million signing bonus for the right-hander. In his first professional season, Winn struggled with control, didn't miss many bats, but finished the year strong at Single-A Hickory.

Strengths

For a 20-year-old, Winn is a very polished pitcher with two high-level pitches in his arsenal.

Possessing a 92-95 mph fastball, Winn is able to repeatedly dip into the reserve to run that thing up to the plate. His delivery is clean, compact, and appears effortless on film. A loose, live arm allows him to whip the ball towards the plate, generating serious velocity. Winn was once clocked at 97 mph on the gun.

Along with his impressive fastball, Winn has a curveball that has become his true "out" pitch. Winn goes to his curveball a lot, and while he did have consistency issues landing it for strikes at the instructional level, it's a plus pitch with sharp 12-to-6 break that can change eye levels and miss bats as he matures.

Weaknesses

At this point in his career, consistency from start-to-start is Winn's biggest issue. All the tools are there, but the adjustment to the professional workload took a toll on him, especially early on in 2019. He did figure some things out to close the year at Single-A Hickory, but his professional debut left a lot to be desired.

Winn did try and add a slider and a changeup to his pitch mix, but the slider was unrefined and struggled to miss bats. While the changeup did show sink, he just didn't throw it enough. The slider appears to be average at best, and is at least a pitch he can pull out of his pitch bag to use against hitters.

Overall, he simply hasn't looked like the kid who was supposed to be more advanced than most pitchers his age in the 2018 draft class.

Future

He's still advanced for his age, but the Rangers have been mostly conservative with him, taking their time and limiting his innings. For Texas to really know what Winn has as a professional, 2020 is going to be a big developmental year for him. 

If he can continue to perfect his fastball and curveball, and start to throw his curveball more, he could still project as the first high school arm from his class to reach the Majors in the near future.

He has all the makings of a good No. 2 starter in an above-average rotation.

Inside The Rangers Top 10 Preseason Prospect Rankings

10. 3B Sherten Apostel
9. SS Maximo Acosta
8. RF Bayron Lora
7. LHP Joe Palumbo
6. RHP Cole Winn

Each spot will be released daily.

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