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Texas Rangers prospects make All Star Team and Hot Sheet

Six Rangers prospects are named to the Carolina League All Star Team, and two other prospects make the BA Hot Sheet

By Adam J. Morris
88th MLB All-Star Game - Batting Practice Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images

Texas Rangers prospects are in the news today, with six members of the Down East Wood Ducks being named to the Carolina League All Star Team, and two other Rangers minor leaguers making the Baseball America Hot Sheet list this week.

The 2018 Carolina League All Star Classic will be next week in Zebulon, North Carolina, on June 19. Making the team from the Wood Ducks were outfielder Leody Taveras, first baseman Andretty Cordero, shortstop Anderson Tejeda, third baseman Charles Leblanc, starting pitcher Edgar Arredondo and closer C.D. Pelham. All six players are having solid seasons, and Taveras is generally considered to be one of the top two prospects in the Rangers system.

The Rangers likely would have had Jonathan Hernandez on the All Star squad as well, had he not been promoted to AA Frisco — he makes his first start for the Roughriders tonight.

Meanwhile, Baseball America’s Hot Sheet list for this week has outfielders Pedro Gonzalez and Hunter Cole on the list at #17 and #18, respectively.

Gonzalez, the player to be named later in the Jonathan Lucroy trade, has spent the entire season with the low-A Hickory Crawdads. He got off to a slow start to the year, slashing .230/.289/.402 in 97 plate appearances before going back to extended spring in early May. Since his return to Hickory on May 27, he’s been on fire, putting up a .292/.333/.604 slash line in 51 plate appearances, with 3 walks and 15 Ks. There’s more swing-and-miss from the 20 year old than you’d like, but he appears to be beginning to tap into his significant offensive tools.

Cole was also a player to be named later in a trade from 2017 — he came over from the Giants as the return in the Sam Dyson trade. Unlike Gonzalez, who was a highly regarded J-2 signee who has been on the prospect map for a while, the 25 year old Cole was a 26th round pick of the Giants out of the University of Georgia in 2014, and hadn’t drawn a lot of attention. Cole started 2018 with Frisco and put up a .339/.415/.567 slash line in 233 plate appearances, earning him a promotion to Round Rock, where he’s slashed .417/.440/1.000 with 4 home runs in 25 plate appearances. Coylio wrote Cole up last Friday, which you can check out here.