2019 Texas Rangers farm review: Down East Wood Ducks hitters

2019 Texas Rangers minor league review: The Down East Wood Ducks hitters.

With the regular season and playoffs now over for the Texas Rangers’ minor league clubs, we are taking a look at the performance of each of the U.S.-based minor league teams. Today we are looking at the hitters for the high-A Down East Wood Ducks, who went a Carolina League-best 87-52 this season before being knocked out in the Carolina League Semi-Finals.

Down East was middle-of-the-pack for the Carolina League in runs scored and OPS this year. Curtis Terry was clearly the best hitter on the team, putting up a .322/.395/.515 slash line after a mid-season promotion from Hickory. Sherten Apostel and Sam Huff also acquitted themselves well after mid-season promotions from Hickory, though Apostel’s numbers looked much better before a late season slump. Apostel and Huff are both among the team’s top position prospects, and should be at Frisco at some point in 2020 — possibly even to start the year.

J.P. Martinez spent a couple of weeks at Hickory before moving up to Down East, and was awful for the first couple of months of the year. He found his stride once the weather warmed up, though, and slashed .290/.367/.474 with 22 steals in 31 attempts from June 1 on. Leody Taveras had a solid couple of months at Down East before moving up to Frisco mid-season, while Bubba Thompson basically had a lost year, as he battled injuries and never could get the bat going.

Anderson Tejeda also had what was essentially a lost 2019 season, as he struggled in his attempt to convert to switch hitting, then missed the final half of the year with a shoulder injjury. Ryan Dorow and Yonny Hernandez showed enough to move up to Frisco for the final couple of months, though each will have to prove they can hit at each level.