With the 2026 MLB Draft set for July 11 and 12, the Rangers’ recent first-round history offers a pretty clear snapshot of where the organization stands. Some of these picks are already in Arlington.
Others are still climbing. One isn’t even in the system anymore.
And each one tells a different part of the story.
Start with the lone departure: Gavin Fein, the No. 12 overall pick in 2025 out of Great Oak (CA) High School. He’s no longer part of the Rangers’ plans, but his name still matters because he was included in the massive trade that brought MacKenzie Gore to Texas before the 2026 season.
Fein is now in A-ball with the Washington Nationals affiliate in Fredericksburg, where the 19-year-old is hitting .240 with an OPS of .734. That part of the deal can’t really be separated from Gore’s performance, and Gore has not delivered so far in 2026.
He was rocked for 7 earned runs in 5 innings in a 13-1 loss to the LA Angels, pushing his ERA to 4.72 and his WHIP to 1.30. Fein gets a C-.
Malcolm Moore, the No. 30 overall pick in 2024 out of Stanford, has taken a much more encouraging path. The catcher is still only 22, and his first two seasons were rough as he moved through Low A and High A.
A broken finger slowed him down last year, but since coming back he’s looked like the player the Rangers believed in. In 2026, he played well enough at Hi-A Hub City to earn a promotion to Double-AA Frisco.
He’s only had 61 at-bats there so far, so the adjustment is still in progress. Even so, Baseball America’s July update named Moore the biggest riser in the organization, moving him from No. 13 to No. 6 in the team’s top 30.
That’s a strong sign for a player who now looks more like a future big leaguer than a miss. Grade: B.
Wyatt Langford, taken No. 4 overall in 2023 out of Florida, is the kind of player who makes grading tricky. The talent is obvious.
The injuries are, too. After a short minor league stint, he’s already spent most of three seasons in Arlington, and when he’s been on the field, he’s flashed all-star, 30-30 ability with real power and speed.
He’s one of the most gifted players under 25 in MLB. But he has also landed on the injured list four times since his debut in 2023, and that history hangs over the evaluation.
Before his latest IL stint, it looked like the bat was really starting to come around, with his average pushing past the .245 mark he had settled into. The upside is massive.
The durability questions keep him from the top tier. Grade: B+.
Kumar Rocker, the No. 3 overall pick in 2022 out of the Tri-City ValleyCats and Vanderbilt, has shown enough flashes to keep hope alive, but not enough consistency to make the pick feel like a full hit. The 6-foot-5, 250-pound right-hander has the kind of frame and stuff that jump off the page, yet the dominance the Rangers expected hasn’t fully arrived.
He’s hanging onto the fifth spot in the rotation, but that’s a far cry from what the club envisioned when it spent such a high pick on him. Through three big-league seasons, Rocker has bounced between promising stretches and frustrating ones.
He’ll flash that splitter strikeout pitch, then lose the feel for his four-seamer or slider. He hasn’t been able to put it all together deep into games, and the workload has been an issue, with at least one inning per start typically running 25-30 pitches.
His future in Texas feels murkier than any other first-rounder still in the organization. Grade: D.
Jack Leiter, the No. 2 overall pick in 2021 out of Vanderbilt, looked like he was turning the corner late in 2025. If this had been graded before the 2026 season, he probably would have landed in the B+ to A- range.
Instead, this year has pulled him back. Before going on the injured list, Leiter was 3-7 with a 5.29 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP over 80 innings and 15 starts.
That’s enough of a sample to say the results haven’t matched the stuff. The biggest issue has been command of his best pitch, the 98 mph four-seam fastball he uses up in the zone as a strikeout weapon.
When that pitch isn’t landing, everything else gets harder, and he ends up behind in counts and limited in what he can throw. Still, this isn’t a broken pitcher.
The raw material is there, and the fix is there too. He just has to show the mentality to match the electric arm.
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