The Texas Rangers farm system is stacked with depth. We recently released our top 20 Rangers prospects and it was a challenge because there are good players that we had to keep of the list. That’s the reason for this list.
Just missing the cut this year were players like Ricky Vanasco, Antoine Kelly and Blaine Crim, just to name a few. Since we like lists, here is another showing 5 prospects to watch beyond the top 20.
Blaine Crim
Crim, 25, is a destroyer of baseballs to put it kindly but you won’t find him listed on the top 20 prospects on most publications, but he has hit at every level he’s played. The numbers really aren’t the problem.
Last season in Frisco he blasted 24 home runs in 119 games until he was promoted to Triple-A Round Rock. He didn’t send any balls out of the park in Round Rock but he only played in 13 games.
I have been a fan of Blain Crim’s for a few years now and I’d love to see him get a shot in the majors whether with the Rangers or another team.
He’ll start in Round Rock this season and you’ll see us talking about him in no time at all.
Ricky Vanasco
Vanasco is another of our favorites here at The Prospect Times. Ricky’s numbers weren’t the best last season but he came back from the dreaded Tommy John surgery. This season will be much more important.
The Rangers assigned Vanasco to High-A Hickory to start 2022 and that is where he spent the majority of the season. He had a 3-5 win-loss record with a 4.48 earned run average in 84.1 innings pitched.
In Double-A Frisco, he pitched 8 innings across two games and had a 6.75 earned run average.
He is listed on the 40-man so he could be an option in Arlington at some point.
Josh Stephan
Josh, 21, is a right-handed pitcher and is a local kid from Desoto. He had a solid season at Down East going 4-4 with a 3.34 earned run average over 91.2 innings pitched. He issued only 24 walks and struckout 102.
He was promoted to High-A Hickory, where he will start this season, and went 2-1 with a 1.54 earned run average in 11.2 innings. We’ll keep an eye on the walk rate since it went up in Hickory but, it he had very limited innings there, so it isn’t a concern.
We’ll see him in Frisco by season’s end.
Danyer Cueva
Danyer Cueva, 19 in May, had a fantastic first taste of baseball stateside with the Arizona Complex League (ACL) Rangers. He mostly played shortstop. At the plate, he slashed a line of .330/.376/.483/.859 with 5 home runs and 31 RBI.
Cueva was promoted to Low-A Down East and hit .111 across 18 at bats.
Gleider Figuereo
Figuereo, 18, is a 3rd baseman who bats from the left side of the plate and throws right-handed.
He spent most of last season playing in the Arizona Complex League, slashing .280/.363/.616/.979 with 9 home runs and 34 RBI.
The Rangers promoted Figuereo to Low-A Down East where he hit .208/.269/.208/.478 with 1 RBI.
There are plenty of other prospects that could be named in this article alone so trust us when we say we will be keeping an eye on everyone.
So stay tuned here at The Prospect Times. We’ll keep you up to date on the Texas Rangers farm system over the 2023 season!
