Thought the Texas Rangers already had an overabundance of middle infielders? Well, you're right. But that doesn't mean they'll all be around come February, and it doesn't mean the Rangers won't add to the list in the meantime.
That's where Cuban defector Yoan Moncada comes into the picture. The Rangers sent scouts to Guatemala on Wednesday to work out the young middle infielder and could be a player for Moncada, who is believed to come with a lower price tag than slugging outfielder Yasmany Tomas, who also defected from Cuba. The Rangers worked out Tomas, but earlier this week made it known they are out of the running for him.
Moncada is a switch-hitting infielder with good size (6-0, 210 pounds) and some folks believe he's better than Tomas.
As ESPN Dallas pointed out, Baseball America's Ben Badler wrote the following on Moncada: "Moncada stepped up to the country’s 18U national league in 2012, where he again led the league in batting average, OBP and slugging by hitting .434/.543/.648 in 152 plate appearances with a league-best 20 steals in 24 tries."
Those are some pretty serious numbers for a young switch-hitter. Of course, if the Rangers are going to be serious players they're going to want to free up some space in the middle-infield logjam, currently created by Elvis Andrus, Luis Sardinas, Rougned Odor and Jurickson Profar, and that doesn't even include prospects like Hanser Alberto.
