As the Texas Rangers get ready to make the 16th overall pick in Saturday’s MLB Draft, there’s a pretty clear reason the front office can feel good about its recent work in the first round.
President Chris Young, GM Ross Fenstermaker and the rest of the group have spent the last several drafts building around premium picks, and that stretch has already started to shape the current roster. The Rangers still have to see how catching prospect Malcolm Moore and shortstop Gavin Fien develop, but the bigger picture is already pretty encouraging.
From 2019 through 2023, not counting the competitive balance round, Texas used first-round picks on Josh Jung at No. 8 overall, Justin Foscue at No. 14, Jack Leiter at No.
2, Kumar Rocker at No. 3 and Wyatt Langford at No. 4.
That five-player run has given the Rangers their top three hitters in OPS - Foscue, Langford and Jung - along with two of the club’s five pitchers who have reached at least 15 starts this season.
The draft capital was real. Texas had four top-10 picks in that span, including three selections inside the top five. But other clubs with similarly high picks - the Detroit Tigers, Baltimore Orioles and Miami Marlins among them - haven’t gotten the same kind of payoff so far.
And for all the talk about players still being young or not yet fully formed, the Rangers have already gotten meaningful production out of the group.
Jung was an All-Star as a rookie in 2023 and then became a key piece of the World Series title that fall. This season, the 28-year-old has taken another step, hitting .297/.361/.811 with nine home runs and an AL-best 23 doubles, even though he didn’t land a second All-Star selection.
Foscue, who was seen as a major reach when Texas took him in 2020, has turned into a steady on-base threat. The 27-year-old second baseman owns a .363 OBP and is now batting leadoff, setting the table for the Rangers’ bigger bats.
Leiter and Rocker, forever linked by their Vanderbilt days, still haven’t become true front-of-the-rotation anchors. Even so, both remain in the starting mix, and at 26 apiece they’re young enough to take on bigger responsibilities as Jacob DeGrom and Nathan Eovaldi move into the age-related decline the Rangers are expecting.
Langford has moved even faster. While many players from the 2023 draft class, including No.
3 Max Clark and No. 5 Walker Jenkins, are still working toward the majors, Langford is already in his third season of regular MLB duty.
The 24-year-old is carrying a career-best .811 OPS while trying to return from a hamstring injury and build on last year’s 22-homer season.
Cole Winn, a first-round pick in 2018, also deserves a mention. He’s become a bullpen regular after a strong 2025 season in which he went 0-1 with a 1.51 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 33 appearances.
Put it all together, and the Rangers’ recent first-round work has done more than add names to a draft ledger. It has helped form the core of the roster they’re relying on now. Whatever Texas does this season, Jung, Foscue, Leiter, Rocker and Langford are likely to be right in the middle of it.
In Other News...
Rangers Fans Are Suddenly Rethinking A First Round Pick
Justin Foscue has gone from a name attached to frustration to one that is starting to look a lot more interesting for the Rangers. The 2020 first-round pick has taken a real step forward in 2026, hitting .290/.363/.570 with seven home runs over 43 games, a stretch that has forced a fresh look at a player who once seemed stuck after a rough start in the majors.
The turnaround matters because it changes how Texas can think about a former top pick whose early big-league numbers had left plenty of doubt. Foscue is no longer just a prospect story or a reminder of past struggles, and his work against left-handed pitching has made him more than a feel-good rebound candidate. The bigger question now is how much of this surge the Rangers can count on going forward. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers May Have Landed The Draft Bat They Couldn't Pass Up
The Rangers added a familiar name to their draft haul in the second round, taking Anderson High School shortstop and third baseman Connor Comeau out of Austin. Texas had already shown plenty of interest in the local bat, and the appeal is easy to see: Comeau is viewed as a high-end hitter with a polished offensive profile, the kind of player clubs are willing to wait on because the bat gives him a real chance to move quickly.
Comeau is listed as a shortstop, but the long-term fit in Texas is more likely to be at third base, where the Rangers can keep his bat in the lineup and let the defense settle in behind it. He also arrives with the kind of reputation that made him hard for the front office to ignore, even with the uncertainty that comes with a high school hitter, and now the organization gets to see how that profile plays out once the real development work begins. [Read more 🡒]