As the 2025 MLB Draft quickly approaches, the Prospects Live team wants to make your life as easy as possible. In this series of articles, I'll be providing team-by-team analysis of their recent draft trends, their available draft capital for 2025, any areas of the draft they've heavily targeted, as well as a few names in this year's class that might fit into their historically preferred archetype.
Max Ellingsen
This analysis isn't sourced for the upcoming year, nor is it a guarantee the organization won't pivot from what they've done in the past. Simply put, this article aims to provide an in-depth look at teams and their recent draft classes to try and decipher trends that could help uncover players your favorite team might be targeting. It's far from a perfect science, but I've done my job if it makes things easier to follow on draft day.
Texas Rangers
- 2025 Bonus Pool Value - $10,991,300 (16th)
- Top 100 selections - 12, 52, 84
Texas finds themselves with the standard allotment of picks in the first few rounds, squarely in the middle of the pack league wide in terms of bonus pools. Texas has been able to find some of their young franchise cornerstones via the draft in recent years, with superstar Wyatt Langford and supplementary players like Josh Jung, Kumar Rocker, and Jack Leiter all contributing to the big league club in 2025. The Rangers have an excellent group of scouts in their front office who may not always follow the public boards as closely as their fans would prefer them to, however they’ve been able to find players who pop down the draft board and are ultimately in a comfortable spot organizationally. They’ll have a good shot at securing an excellent talent with a top twelve pick and three top hundred selections this season.
2024 Draft Overview
This was a relatively chalk draft for Texas’ standards, locking down their first four picks all relatively near their original slot values. First rounder Malcolm Moore ($30,000 overslot), second rounder Dylan Dreiling (slot), third rounder Casey Cook ($10,000 underslot), and fourth rounder David Hagaman ($15,000 underslot) essentially left the Rangers exactly on par with their bonus pool early, however a splurge on young prepster Devin Fitz-Gerald ($510,000 overslot) left them playing a bit of catchup for the rest of day two. Seventh rounder Rafe Perich ($65,000 underslot) was a metric darling they were able to lock down late and they ended up taking a shot on high school catcher Josh Springer ($50,000 overslot) in the 12th, however outside of those two there wasn’t a lot of splash down the board. This class hasn’t been blowing things out of the water just yet, but with both Moore and Fitz-Gerald showing plenty of promise and still plenty of time before anyone hits the panic button, it’s an interesting look into their draft process and if they’ll choose to make any modifications to how they attack things in 2025.
2023 Draft Overview
The 2023 draft was a boon for Texas, as they were gift wrapped Wyatt Langford ($300,000 overslot) with the fourth pick, a player who obviously has transformed their franchise and is amongst their best players already. They had to forfeit their second and third rounders after their spending in the offseason prior, however still managed to make do with what they had and landed some really nice talent. Fourth rounder Skylar Hales ($55,000 underslot) hasn’t been a major factor to this point, however fifth rounder Alejandro Rosario (slot) has been a revelation and was on track to be one of the game’s premiere pitching prospects before going under the knife for TJ surgery. Seventh rounder Izack Tiger ($85,000 underslot) has shown some promise as well and was a nice find out of Butler County CC, a JuCo program, and Paul Bonzagni and William Privette in rounds twelve and thirteen could be nice pickups as well. The depth of this draft hasn’t necessarily thoroughly materialized just yet, but with Langford already producing like he is and a handful of other pitchers who could be big leaguers, you have to consider this draft an enormous win, especially with just one pick in the top one hundred.
2022 Draft Overview
One of the more shocking MLB draft developments in recent memory has to be when Texas shocked the world and took Kumar Rocker ($2,390,000 underslot) with the third overall pick of this 2022 draft class, a class he was only in after failing to sign with the Mets a year prior. They turned around their massive savings from round one and locked down Brock Porter ($3,140,000 overslot) in the fourth round, a player many had in the top half of the first round in terms of talent. They took a pair of high schoolers in Chandler Pollard (slot) and Tommy Specht ($115,000 overslot) in the subsequent rounds as well as collegiate starter Luis Ramirez (slot) in the seventh, however with as aggressive as they were with Porter in round four, they combined to spend $7,000 over their final three rounds on day two. It’s tough to say this class has gone exactly how the Rangers would’ve hoped it had when they pulled off their big splash, however with Rocker in the big leagues and Porter back healthy and pitching, all hope is not lost for the 2022 Texas Rangers draft.
Early Round Demographics
Texas has gone college at the top with relative consistency, focusing on that demographic more strongly in round one. They’ve been pretty aggressive with high school talent overall, however taking that college talent has been an important step for them early for the past several years. They’ve been relatively close to slot the past two years, however with as bodacious as their swing was in 2022, I wouldn’t leave anything off the table. This class has a deep class of high school talent in the range Texas has frequently dipped into in past years, so to see a prep player or two in the first handful of rounds wouldn’t come as a surprise at all. The pitcher/positional split has been less consistent year over year than most teams we’ve come across thus far, ultimately leading me to believe they trust “their guys” rather than any sort of calculation over injury risk or positional limitations.
Late Round Demographics
Texas will take a high school player late as well, however they’ve had more success with the college ranks as of late. Texas has had sneaky good pitching development in recent years and their hits on Rosario, Tiger, and Bonzagni have complemented their international signings and top selections nicely, albeit with a much lower hit rate. Most of the talent in this system has come from overseas, but we can’t totally discount what they’ve done via the draft nor what they’ve done developing their players once they’re in their system.
Names to Know
Wehiwa Aloy, Arkansas SS - Aloy is an incredibly toolsy player who should hear his name called early in this year’s draft. An up the middle college performer in the SEC seems like it could be a nice fit here.
Jace LaViolette, Texas A&M OF - Perhaps the highest ranked collegiate entering this season, LaViolette had a tumultuous season that currently features a broken hand/wrist (an injury he is somehow playing through at time of writing). It’s hard to gauge where he’ll end up, but I could see Texas buying his midseason surge and bundle of tools.
Max Belyeu, Texas OF - Another in-state tie, I don’t think Belyeu would break the bank at 12 and features a really professional approach at the plate with plenty of pop. They’ve always coveted the big conference performers, and there aren’t many better than Belyeu.
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