The Texas Rangers have some of baseball's brightest young prospects, and now they're all starting to converge in DFW as a part of the their Double-A Frisco affilliate.
Slugging phenom Joey Gallo and starting pitcher Alex "Chi-Chi" Gonzalez were promoted back in June, and starting pitcher Jake Thompson was added after he was traded for Joakim Soria, and now two more youngsters are heading to Frisco as the Rangers promoted both outfielder Nomar Mazara and catching phenom Jorge Alfaro from Low-A Hickory and High-A Myrtle Beach, respectively.
Alfaro's promotion has seemingly been a matter of a time for a while now. He started in the MLB Futures Game for the World team at catcher and is considered one of the game's top prospects. He's been the reason for a lot of watery mouths in the Rangers' organization for quite some time, including future Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who's now working in the Rangers' front office as a catching instructor.
Mazara's is a bit more surprising, as he's skipping High-A altogether to head to Frisco, where he will become the youngest player in the entire Texas League at age 19, having turned 19 in April.
Mazara is hitting .264 with a .358 on-base percentage and has 19 home runs to go with 73 RBIs in his 106 games with Hickory.
At Myrtle Beach, Alfaro hit .261 with 13 homers, 73 RBIs, but he's still learning the nuances of the catcher position. He threw out just 19 of 72 baserunners and had 13 errors in only 75 games at catcher in Carolina League play.
He's still the Rangers' second-highest rated prospect behind Gallo, and is considered the top catching prospect in baseball at age 21.
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So go get your tickets for Dr Pepper Ballpark because it might be more exciting than what you'll see at Globe Life over the next month.
