Texas Rangers select Thomas Saggese in fifth round

With their fifth, and final, selection of the 2020 MLB Draft, the Texas Rangers selected Thomas Saggese, a shortstop from Carlsbad, California.

As has been the trend of late with the Rangers’ position player draft picks, Saggese has a quality hit tool, hits the ball hard, and has a good approach at the plate. Listed at 6’, 170 lbs., he is a righthanded hitter who is committed to Pepperdine, but presumably is going to forego that for the pros (since I can’t imagine the Rangers would use their fifth round pick on a guy they weren’t going to sign).

There’s some question as to whether he will stick at shortstop, according to Baseball America, who has him ranked #280 on their draft list, and they say Saggese “is often described as a ‘gritty’ or ‘throwback’ player.”

My guess is that Saggese, MacLean and Roby each end up getting above slot deals with money saved by Evan Carter and Justin Foscue going underslot. But we shall see.

UPDATE — Shoutout to Redcaps for finding this link, which is a story from yesterday in the San Diego Union-Tribune which discusses Saggese, and starts thusly:

Two weeks ago, ESPN MLB Draft expert Kiley McDaniel had never heard of Thomas Saggese.

Now the Carlsbad High shortstop is one of the hot names with the draft looming Wednesday and Thursday.

“Scouts know him, but he wasn’t a name being kicked around,” McDaniel said. “Now there is talk he could go as high as the third round. My feeling is that he’ll probably go to school, but scouts say he’s very signable. So he’s a very interesting name.”