Last July, the Rangers netted quite a package from the Braves in exchange for Mark Teixeira and Ron Mahay.  By some accounts, they swiped 4 of the Braves top 5 prospects.

Today, Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus are doing well for themselves at AA Frisco at the ages of 20 and 19, respectively.  Feliz has catapulted up prospect rankings all over the place and is consistently being mentioned among the top pitching prospects in all of baseball.  Andrus is still regarded as a major league ready SS defensively.  He has started hitting the ball a little more and is still displaying his tremendous speed and base running ability with his 34 steals.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Matt Harrison are currently playing for the Texas Rangers.  Salty has definitely struggled this year, but is still considered a young player with a bright future whether that is as a Texas Ranger or somewhere else via a trade.  Regardless, Salty still has plenty of value for the Rangers as a catcher of the future or big time trade chip.  Matt Harrison has progressed through AA and AAA and made two major league starts, with mixed results.  At 22, he is a key piece to the Rangers future.

Those four guys were the talk of the town following that trade.  They were the pieces the Rangers went after hard.  Then, there is that 5th guy the Rangers got from the Braves.  The guy who was the brief holdup in the final hours of the proposed deal.  The Rangers insisted on getting a 5th player, and worked hard to get a 21 year old lefty pitching in A-ball for the Braves.  The Rangers worked hard to get Beau Jones.

Jones pitched in 7 games for the Clinton Lumberkings following the deal.  In 26.2 IP, he posted a 2.70 ERA and a 29/12 K/BB ratio.  The Rangers spent the next few months tinkering with whether Jones was a starter or a reliever.  In the end, they assigned him to High-A Bakersfield and ticketed him for the rotation.  Jones responded with some rough numbers.

As a starting pitcher in 2008, Jones went 1-3 in 4 starts.  He posted a 5.30 ERA over 18.2 IP.  He posted a 16/9 K/BB ratio and allowed opposing batters to hit .286.

Then, the Rangers decided Jones may be a relief pitcher after all.  And apparently, Jones may agree.  Since being moved to the pen, Jones has pitched very well.  In 11 games, he has worked 21.1 innings.  Over that span, he has posted a 1.27 ERA, a 26/7 K/BB ratio and has given up just 15 hits.  For the entire month of June, Jones pitched 14.1 innings and had staggering numbers.  He threw up a 0.63 ERA and a 15/2 K/BB ratio.

He started July by giving up a run in each of his first two appearances, spanning 2.1 innings.  However, he has responded by going 4.1 innings over his other 2 July outings without giving up a run and striking out 7.

Jones is said to work in the low to mid 90s with his fastball and has a fast improving changeup as evidenced by his numbers against right handed hitters this year.  Jones could very well see Frisco in short order, which would put 3 of the prospects from the Teixeira trade at Frisco with the other two suiting up in Arlington.  And suiting up in Arlington has suddenly become a much more likely proposition for "the other guy" from the Mark Teixeira trade.

When MJH was counting down the prospects before the season began, he said the following about Beau Jones:

As often as not, some relatively anonymous name from the low minors gets tagged on to a bigger trade.   At the time, they don't seem to be terribly significant.  Years later, however, the once anonymous name might turn into Aaron Harang or Edwin Encarnacion (both of whom previous Rangers regimes tacked on to the back end of bigger deals).   

A few years from now, any mention of the name Beau Jones, who was a last-minute addition to the Mark Teixeira deal, might very well  haunt Braves fans the way that any mention of  the name Aaron Harang contines to make me verklempt.

Well, Beau is looking more and more like a guy who could make a lot of Braves fans "verklempt" down the road.  Not to mention a potential big time lefty out of the Rangers' pen for a long time.  Not bad for a throw-in.

Beau's Minor League Baseball Page

Beau's First Inning Page

MJH's Prospect Preview on Beau Jones